Chatrooms - Where did the good conversation go?

[Zannen]

I remember a few years ago when I used to frequent chat rooms daily. Now, when I go on to two, you get about a billion PM's asking you to show your tits on cam, using retarded grammar and cyber spelling.

What the hell.

If you're going to ask to see my tits, at least ask with proper grammar and spelling.

Where did the good conversations go? You know, the ones where people actually typed correctly and shit. When you didn't have to spend a minute decoding what someone was saying because they used so many fucking acronyms.

It's annoying as fucking hell.

- P.S.

Anyone know any good chatrooms that seem to have frequent visitors with proper spelling and shit? O:

[Rhythmdvl]

Dearest Zannen,

If you would be inclined to share photographs of your local avian population, I would be very grateful.

Respectfully,

Rhythm



I haven't been to a chatroom regularly in ages--probably since the late nineties. Even then it was the (relatively) rare room that had conversations. Finding a niche room with good moderation and a persistent community really helped. Now, I mostly use tech-support rooms and specialty places where forums don't serve the immediate need.

Come to think of it, the chat world is very much like the forum world -- most is crap, and most make me appreciate the Dope.

[Ann Onimous]

Callahans on Undernet would be the only one I'd recommend. Lots of cool, intelligent people there. The basic premise is that it's a virtual bar, like in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson. Anyone asks A/S/L in there, and they got kicked. I haven't been in there in a long time, but made lots of friends, and even met the man I married.

[Smeghead]

Prithee, fair maiden! Wouldst thou not be inclined to grace our good company with the briefest of glimpses of thine bodacious ta-tas? Forsooth, we wouldst all be most grateful.

[Tom Tildrum]

This was the way Usenet died.

[Reply]

I remember a decade ago when I used to frequent chat rooms daily. Now, when I go on to two, you get a billion grammar nazis asking you to capitalize your Ns and telling you how to say what you said while they sit haughtily on their rolling office-chair thrones diagramming sentences with the blood of their victims.

What the hell.

Where did the good conversations go? You know, the ones where people actually conversed instead of judging each other's typing habits. When everyone was just another interesting person to talk to, not potential grammaticrats waiting to pounce. When you could just speak and have the other party actually listen instead of calling you out for having used one extra punctuation mark.

It's annoying as fucking hell.

- P.S. I'm sorry my SAT verbal score wasn't high enough to bring honor to your chest, but what the hell makes A/S/L inferior to all the fucking modern slang you used and shit? O:

[Zannen]

Originally Posted by Reply

I remember a decade ago when I used to frequent chat rooms daily. Now, when I go on to two, you get a billion grammar nazis asking you to capitalize your Ns and telling you how to say what you said while they sit haughtily on their rolling office-chair thrones diagramming sentences with the blood of their victims.

What the hell.

Where did the good conversations go? You know, the ones where people actually conversed instead of judging each other's typing habits. When everyone was just another interesting person to talk to, not potential grammaticrats waiting to pounce. When you could just speak and have the other party actually listen instead of calling you out for having used one extra punctuation mark.

It's annoying as fucking hell.

- P.S. I'm sorry my SAT verbal score wasn't high enough to bring honor to your chest, but what the hell makes A/S/L inferior to all the fucking modern slang you used and shit? O:

Lmfao. Angry.

It's a little hard to converse with someone when you can't understand what they're saying because they type in slang TOO MUCH.

There's a difference between not adding a period and a capital, or making a few spelling mistakes, and "thn typn lyk tis".

[RealityChuck]

There never was any good conversation in chatrooms.

[Zeriel]

I was just wondering this myself, actually. I frequented the same place online (it was kinda like the Dope of chat rooms, in that the culture expressly encouraged proper English and good if off-the-wall behavior) for several years in the mid to late 90s, but it died a death of neglect around 1999-2000--people just stopped showing up.

[Trepa Mayfield]

Trolls. LCD.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

Prithee, fair maiden! Wouldst thou not be inclined to grace our good company with the briefest of glimpses of thine bodacious ta-tas? Forsooth, we wouldst all be most grateful.

"Thine bodacious tat-tas"? Is that any way to refer to a gloriously mammiferous thorax?

And it should be "thy" before a word starting with a consonant. How come no one can write decent Early Modern English these days?

[ivan astikov]

Tits, or GTFO!

[billfish678]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

There never was any good conversation in chatrooms.

I came here to say the opposite.

IMO in the very early days of AOL (gasp) I had some pretty decent chats online. Not SDMB good usually, but often as good as what you'd find in a "forced" social situation like a birthday party or neighborhood party, and sometimes better.

Yeah, there were the horny trolls, the assholes, and the people whose grammar/reasoning skills/education/knowledge was SO bad it was amazing and often unintelligble. But those people were a tolerable minority.

Not sure how chat is these days, but I get the impression its pretty bad.

[Maggie the Ocelot]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

Prithee, fair maiden! Wouldst thou not be inclined to grace our good company with the briefest of glimpses of thine bodacious ta-tas? Forsooth, we wouldst all be most grateful.

"Oh beautiful babes from England, for whom we have travelled through time - will you come to the prom in San Dimas with us? We will have a most excellent time!"




Sorry, couldn't resist. As you were.

[Maggie the Ocelot]

Originally Posted by Giles

And it should be "thy" before a word starting with a consonant. How come no one can write decent Early Modern English these days?

Nope. It's about whether you're referring to the subject or the object of the sentence. The current equivilant is your/yours.

Thy skirt is red.

The red skirt is thine.

[gaffa]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

There never was any good conversation in chatrooms.

I've had many conversations in chat that were at least as worthwhile as the majority of the ones I've had here. But it's been a long time. I've been on the Net since 1988 (via The World at Software Tool and Die and later ChiNet) and yes, the average intelligence of the net population has been declining, with a precipitous drop with the "September That Never Ended". But it was the take-over gangs that really killed IRC, causing splits so they could become ops of as many channels as possible. It became too much trouble.

[EvilTOJ]

Originally Posted by ivan astikov

Tits, or GTFO!

no u

[Leaper]

Originally Posted by Reply

what the hell makes A/S/L inferior to all the fucking modern slang you used and shit? O:

Personally, why would I want to continue a conversation where I'm asked three really annoying questions in a really annoying way right off the bat? Especially since I know that the only answers most chatters who ask really want are 18/f/near you?

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Zannen

I remember a few years ago when I used to frequent chat rooms daily. Now, when I go on to two, you get about a billion PM's asking you to show your tits on cam, using retarded grammar and cyber spelling.

What the hell.

If you're going to ask to see my tits, at least ask with proper grammar and spelling.

Where did the good conversations go? You know, the ones where people actually typed correctly and shit. When you didn't have to spend a minute decoding what someone was saying because they used so many fucking acronyms.

It's annoying as fucking hell.

- P.S.

Anyone know any good chatrooms that seem to have frequent visitors with proper spelling and shit? O:

My roomie of the time participated in a mIRC chat room for Babylon 5 that went on at the same time it was showed on TV, and it was actually fairly well run from what I remember. It tapered off fairly quickly after the series ended.

I now get my online conversations with my guild/corp mates in online games, or on the SD, or Baen's Bar, or CustomersSuck, or CruiseCritics. My main email conversations are on the lois Bujold list, and with individuals.

[Cicero]

I used to host chatrooms for MSN way back when. I didn't even know chatrooms existed anymore.

Even in 1998 the conversation was pretty retarded.

[FairyChatMom]

I didn't get on line till the late 90s and my few forays into chatrooms were horrible. I found them to be clique-ish - if you weren't one of "them" you were largely ignored. Conversations were full of in-jokes, again seemingly to exclude outsiders. All in all, a waste of my time. So I stuck with IMing with friends and random strangers until I discovered the magical world of message boards.

I will grant that I didn't spend a whole lot of time exploring chat rooms - my first few experiences just soured me. Plus I was in my 40s and I wasn't interested in the high-school-popular-kids attitudes I encountered.

[Colophon]

I used to use the Yahoo chat rooms quite a bit in the late 90s, and had some good conversations. Gradually the spambots took over, and then they shut them down altogether.

[nicole1912]

Originally Posted by Colophon

I used to use the Yahoo chat rooms quite a bit in the late 90s, and had some good conversations. Gradually the spambots took over, and then they shut them down altogether.

Yahoo chatrooms still exist - they're mostly filled with spam now, mind, and so I too am looking for an alternative. But they do exist - you just have to have Yahoo's messenger to access them, I think. (Or a similar, non-Windows alternative; there are some third party programmes like Pidgin that also work.)

[BigT]

I haven't had a good chat since I first got on the net. And that was only because I was young enough to talk to kids who (back then) weren't obsessed with the whole bf/gf thing. Nowadays, the only good chats tend to be with people I already know. Occasionally I'll meet a good person online, but there's no way it was in a chat room, as the bad people will drown them out.

[Lust4Life]

When they started, this side of the Atlantic, Chatrooms, whatever their titles were usually full of silly little children pretending to be adults.
That is not a criticism, I actually mean schoolkids pretending to be adults.

Backpacking Chatroom ?
Full of children.

University Chatroom ?
Full of children.

I think thats why everyone gave up on the Chatroom idea, though thats only my opinion.

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by billfish678

I came here to say the opposite.

IMO in the very early days of AOL (gasp) I had some pretty decent chats online. Not SDMB good usually, but often as good as what you'd find in a "forced" social situation like a birthday party or neighborhood party, and sometimes better.

Yeah, there were the horny trolls, the assholes, and the people whose grammar/reasoning skills/education/knowledge was SO bad it was amazing and often unintelligble. But those people were a tolerable minority.

Not sure how chat is these days, but I get the impression its pretty bad.

My first experience with chat rooms around 1990 or so was on a Science Fiction Writers of American round table on GEnie. Here you had a grouping of professional SF writers, all very articulated and more than willing to share interesting opinions.

What did you get?

X has entered
Y: Hi, X
Z: Hi, X
Q: Greetings, X!
X: Hi everyone. What's up?
Y: We were discussing the meaning of life.
X: Well, in my opinion, life is like a beanstalk.
Q: Have to go now. Cat needs to be fed.
Y: Bye Q
Z: Goodbye Q
Y: A beanstalk?
X: Goodbye, Q
Q has left
A had entered.
Y: Hi, A
Z: Hi, A
X: Hey, Q. Did you get my email?

etc.

[life_and_lemons]

I know this thread is really old... but who knows maybe someone will read this.

The state of chat sites these days is really sad. For the past couple of days I tried to find a decent site where you can just have normal conversations with strangers. Mission completely failed.

Offline (and on some forums/community sites) people talk about all sorts of things, but in chat rooms it seems like all that people care about is Sex and being rude.

It is really sad, because the Internet has so much potential for interesting conversations. You can find people from anywhere in the world that have the same interests or went through something similar you went through. You can talk to someone anytime of the day...

So, I decided to create a chat website that will be different (hopefully). It has a unique concept that will facilitate better conversations. Plus, I will work my a** off to ban and ward off bots, trolls and mean people. I am creating it with my husband and hopefully we can get beta testers to try it in about 5 months.

Going to chat rooms makes me scared that our efforts will be wasted, but seeing people like on this forum gives me hope, that it is possible to have a good conversations through chats.

We are looking for early people that will want to try out the site when it is ready. You can just email me and I will send you login data when it is set-up.

Wish me luck! I need it!

[AClockworkMelon]

What happened to all the good chatrooms? My generation came along. Enjoy.

Edit: But no, seriously. Used to be only the dorkiest of the dorks really knew enough about the internet and computers to join chatrooms. Now every dork and his mom knows about them.

Edit 2: TITS or GTFO

Edit 3: Oh God damn it life and lemons.

[Sarabellum1976]

Well, I don't imagine EVERYONE would enjoy it, but over at the video-game board that I frequent, there's a chatroom that is frequented by mature, grown-ups that like to talk shop about video games / the gaming industry in general / etc.

I have never witnessed any children (or utter morons) in the chatroom there, though quite frequently it is empty altogether. YMMV.