There are a few bad apples on chat, but in my experience its a very good natured environment and it's especially welcoming and nonthreatening towards noobs. It's impossible for the mods to be on there 24/7 though, but certainly I think a better job can be done policing serial offenders.
The point is that the chat room is
not especially welcoming and non-threatening towards noobs, or at least not if they happen to be female. We've had complaints about it before. It's precisely because of this sort of complaint that the link to the chat room is not visible if you're not logged in as a member here. The bloody place was getting to be an embarrassment.
The forum staff don't run the chat. If it needs more active mods then talk to Thinky. He's the channel's head honcho. I'm sure he'll be happy to appoint some good mods if he's made aware that they're necessary. He's very busy IRL and probably misses a lot of the crap.
FWIW I reckon Solara and Aphrodite would be good choices.
Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.