Straight Dope Chat

[dougie_monty]

If I understand this aright, in order to participate in Straight Dope Chat one must join America Online, which obliges one to put AOL on his credit card. Is this so? I'll be damned if I'll divulge my credit card numbers online...

[Diceman]

I'm not on AOL.

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

[krish]

Diceman, this is a message board, not a chat room. ;)

dougie_monty, there is an IRC Chat available on the Teeming Millions Homepage (http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/).

[Satan]

dougie_monty:

Yes and no.

No, you don't need a credit card, because AOL has a plan where you can give them your checking account information and they will automatically deduct your bill monthly from your checking account. This is, of course, providing you have a checking account!

But yes, as in, don't go to AOL. It sucks. Really. I shan't elaborate because it's been discussed elsewhere, but trust me on this.

Besides, according to TUBADIVA, the powers that be are looking at making the chat available on the internet where any ISP can access it. So be patient, grasshopper...

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Yer pal,
Satan

[TubaDiva]

Yes, and coming soon, too. All you need is the software program and a connection to the Internet, so if you can read this, you're halfway to chat already.

your humble TubaDiva

[DrFidelius]

You're not missing anything, Dougie. The chat room on AOL hasn't been used in months. There's these cobwebs in the corners now and it smells like a cat died in the wall...

[AzRaek]

What's the scare about CCs online? I've ordered plane tickets and rental cars (Trip.com); clothes (JCPenney.com) and my SO bought most of our business equipment on Ubid.com. No problems at all, and I can shop anytime and have my jeans mailed to me. It's like Christmas!

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I'll be there
Where I'll teach what I've been taught
And I've been taught...

[Markxxx]

Why not just go to an IRC like Efnet, TalkCity, DalNet etc and start your own chat. Whoever starts it is in charge and when you get the channel reserved invite us. Everyone should be able to get on one of those channels and there are a least 50 other servers (IRCnet, Ausnet, Undernet etc)

[C K Dexter Haven]

Just to clarify for those who are confused (no cracks, now): we USED to have a Straight Dope chat on AOL, when the website was on AOL. The website is now here, not on AOL; the chats were halted around September 1, 1999.

Tubadiva has been exploring software that would enable us to have chats on the internet without the need for an AOL connection (for our British friends: connexion). Stay tuned for further hot-breaking developments.

[AuraSeer]

Are we talking about scheduled chats with Cecil, Ed, and/or the SDSTAFF folks? Or would it just be a place for us Teeming Millions to shoot the breeze?

[Cessandra]

Why don't we just use OpalCat's chat room?

[TubaDiva]

We're talking about regular organized official Straight Dope chats, moderated by official Straight Dope certified chat hosts. Probably held daily. And happening soon, we've just been preoccupied with other technical problems.

Anytime y'all want to get together and just chat informally, we won't keep you from it, I promise. In fact, we encourage it. I'd invite you to my house but that would mean I'd have to clean. :)

And that's why we're not using Opal's chat room (or anybody else's, for that matter); she has her own World Domination empire and is not officially or legally a part of either The Straight Dope or The Straight Dope Message Board, anything you might see or think to the contrary. She's a member here like everybody else, of course, and we're happy to see her.

Before anybody gets their panties in a wad, this is not to put off on Opal, not at all; what she's accomplished is incredible and full kudos to her. We have had reason over the years to be grateful to her, more than once. But Opal does not work here and her site is not under our purview.

Consider her site to be a side dish to the Straight Dope meat of the matter.

your humble TubaDiva/SDStaffDiv
for the Straight Dope

[dougie_monty]

Your point is well taken, TubaDiva; I'd just like to know how to get access to any Chat room available through the Straight Dope site.
I don't give out credit card numbers online for the same reason I don't give them out over the phone: I don't know who (or how many people) might receive them, nor for what purpose. If it works for other Dopers, fine. I just don't care to take the risk. (I come from a telephone-company family and have been particularly cautious about what info I give out. Ditto on the Internet.)

[sunbear]

doesn't sound like it's for me

do they have a slow typers chat somewhere? Oh, here it is, duh!

[dougie_monty]

Could you (or anyone else) provide a hyperlink for the chat site, Sunbear, please?
:)

[BoBettie]

Dougie,
Here's the link- hope to see you there soon!
Zette http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/chat.adp

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A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of assholes.
Zettecity (http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/zettecity/index.html)

[Jophiel]

Or for those of you who are more used to the world of IRC, take your client and point it at #StraightDope on an Undernet server. The page mentioned above uses McLean.VA.us.undernet.org so that's going to assure you the most lag free connection to the rest of the SD world.

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"I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn't."

[dougie_monty]

Thanx :)

[glee]

CKDextHavn,

Thanks for your translation (connection - connexion to Britain).
It says this in my Oxford English dictionary too.

I DON'T BELIEVE IT! (please excuse me shouting).

I've always spelt it 'connection' and I honestly thought 'connexion' was a foreign (i.e. non-English) spelling. But how do I prove it, with the dictionary against me?

[dougie_monty]

I went to the chat site; nobody else there at this posting. And how do you send a message? I didn't see a "Send" button on the screen; no other users online so I just disconnected and exited...maybe I'm here at the wrong time of day. :(

[Drain Bead]

By 7:30 PM or so EST, there are usually a few people in the room. I was there last night off and on until past midnight. I'll probably be back there again tonight.

[dougie_monty]

I need some help here. I have accessed the Straight Dope Chat through the hyperlink provided, but on the chat screen I only see the commands "Disconnect" and "Configure," but no command "Send." OK, maybe I'm doing this at the wrong time of day or week--but shouldn't there be more commands on that screen? If I hit Enter my message disappears.

[dougie_monty]

November 20th, 2 pm, PST; I tried logging on again, nothing happened again. :(

[Monty]

Regarding the IRC:

This past week, I had occasion to converse via e-mail with a chat operator regarding "banned from this channel." As it turns out, I wasn't banned; however, another AOL member in my area did something offensive and got banned.

Since AOL doesn't issue fixed IP addresses for the screen-names, the banning on IRC has to be area-specific.

So basically that means any worthless asshole in your area using an AOL account and doing something incredibly stupid in an IRC channel will get a lot of folks banned.

There is a fix in place though. If you're not the worthless asshole concerend, you have to /msg a sysop for the channel concerned and then request you be allowed in.

A better fix would be for AOL to issue fixed IP addresses.

[Ringo]

Does it help if you dial in to AOL using a different access phone line?

[Satan]

The best thing, Monty, would be to get a real ISP that handles things differently...

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Yer pal,
Satan