March removal of chat
On February 15, FP announced that the front page chat would be removed on March 10. On April 10, the administrators will reevaluate whether to bring the chat back or continue to keep things the way it is.
If it's determined that the removal of chat has made things worse, the decision will be rolled back and canceled.
Pending changes
The front page chat will be disabled on March 10 at 11 PM Eastern Time. After one month (on April 10), it will be decided whether to re-enable the front page chat or to continue leaving it disabled.
Security measures for the canvas will be bolstered to make it easier to hold conversations on the canvas with as minimal scripting disruptions as possible.
Justification
This decision followed years of problems that have piled on top of each other.
It's acknowledged that the front page chat is regularly used by a group of people. However this has always been the case even dating back to March 2018 when the chat first came into fruition.
The problem with the chat is that it's mostly unmoderated, which can lead to liability issues whenever illegal things are said which includes threats and grooming.
One of the main concerns with the chat is that the entire community gets concentrated into one single chat box, which makes it easier for trolls to efficiently troll the entire community and break it apart.
While there's no guarantee the removal of the chat will lead people to use the canvas more or group up into their own sub-worlds, the expected outcome is that the chat no longer inhibits OWOT's social functioning.
It's been known that the state of the chat will not improve with the way it's currently managed and will lead to worse problems if kept enabled for longer.
Post-chat plans
It's clear that people seek a real community hub on OWOT. Such a hub may require an immense amount of effort. There are no concrete plans to make one, but it's a possibility in the future.
Should a good community hub exist, it will be permanently linked on the center console on the front page.