Chat?

[Ironcat]

Are there any plans (or vague aspirations even) to develop some sort of chat to go along with the forums?
I was wondering if actually seeing people come in and goof around with each other might not bring some of the lurkers out of hiding and have them contribute?
I used to use something called MIRC, it has it's share of buttheads like anything else, but it is a pretty decent chat program and if you don't want to start anything on this site, it's really easy to create a "channel" in MIRC.

[Drew]

Sounds like a plan.

Crimson doesn't like free time anyway.

And whats mIRC?

[DaJe]

I was once thinking of suggesting a chat. Then I thought more about it. Then I never said anything. And now I just thought, yeah, it'd be good to be able to have conversations with people when nothing is going on, but it would be even better to increase forum activity and just post here instead.

[Zephik]

Some chat rooms might be kind of cool. It would be interesting to at least give it a test run or something.

[Canadian Eh?]

Yeah, the only problem is TIME ZONES!

[DaJe]

How are time zones a problem?

[DaJe]

I guess some people live in far off lands and might not be on at the same time. But hey can talk witch each other, and us with ourselves. And all conflicting ime zones are usually on at same times anyway.

[nil8]

That's normally how chat rooms work. They have uptimes and downtimes and different regulars are on around the same time everyday.

IRC is the granddaddy of internet chat. Started back in the late 70's, IRC utilizes connecting servers together to create networks or nodes.
Inside the nodes are channels, or rooms where people chat.

This does cause problems. If a server disconnects from the node it's attached to, all the users connected to the server that disconnected are involved in something called a netsplit. This is a fancy way to say disconnected.

If you want to know more about IRC, wikipedia probably has a good entry.
Or just type Howto IRC into google.

Making TBCS chat would definitely help alleviate the OT chatter, and could be done for next to nothing. But, if we included IRC, we would have to have a tutorial/FAQ for all the IRC noobs out there.

[Drew]

Indeed you would.

Is that how the likes of Yahoo! work?

[Airbozo]

.... But, if we included IRC, we would have to have a tutorial/FAQ for all the IRC noobs out there.

As much as I am embarrassed to admit it, that would include me. I have been on the interwebs since ~'90, but have never used irc. I have suffered through uucp, 300 baud _acoustic_ modems, and bbs's, but not once have I tested the irc waters.

[Drew]

Airbozo's a n00b! :banana:

Airbozo's a n00b! :banana:

Airbozo's a n00b! :banana:

Airbozo's a n00b! :banana:

Only playing, we're all n00bs at something.....

[nil8]

As much as I am embarrassed to admit it, that would include me. I have been on the interwebs since ~'90, but have never used irc. I have suffered through uucp, 300 baud _acoustic_ modems, and bbs's, but not once have I tested the irc waters.

Nothing wrong with that.
If you've been around that long, you have to remember before the WWW & html browsers worked.
I used gopher oh so long ago on my 9600 baud modem.
I also played the bbs game a little when I was young.

As for being a noob to IRC, a lot of people are.
Modern IRC is used for a few specific purposes. If you don't get involved with these things, then IRC doesn't have much of a useful community for you.

Honestly, IM programs and the WWW has made IRC much more of a niche than it used to be.

Ever had a crack at NNTP?

[Airbozo]

Nothing wrong with that.
If you've been around that long, you have to remember before the WWW & html browsers worked.
I used gopher oh so long ago on my 9600 baud modem.
I also played the bbs game a little when I was young.

As for being a noob to IRC, a lot of people are.
Modern IRC is used for a few specific purposes. If you don't get involved with these things, then IRC doesn't have much of a useful community for you.

Honestly, IM programs and the WWW has made IRC much more of a niche than it used to be.

Ever had a crack at NNTP?

Hehe, Yes Al and I invented the w3 thingy. Hehe almost forgot about gopher! And for you youngens, uucp (Unix to Unix CoPy), is what computers used to use to move email around the world, usually over dialup lines. Kids now days think that the text messaging jargon they use is a recent invention. It is in fact a throwback to the uucp days when it was standard practice to shorten _everything_ since you were charged per bit transfered. Lots of laughs cost a dime, lol cost a penny. People got pretty creative...



Yes I have had my fair share of nntp. I had more than a few nightmares due to the news readers one of my companies used.