Well while I can multitask… I don’t know enough computer savvy people to have more than 2 or 3 chat windows going at a time. Guess I need to add some buddies!
At one time my list was huge… and about 30 of them were screen names for one friend. She liked to play on aol and I needed to keep track of her as her hubby would always call me and ask if his wife was online
Yes I do prune… If someone hasn’t been on in a year and I haven’t talked to them at all on line or IRL… well we obviously aren’t that close…
Of course, sometimes it’s fun to IM someone with something totally off the wall and then claim you meant it for someone else. I like annoying my friends.
I have 53. I probably only talk to 10% of those people on a semi-regular basis. [ul]
[li]2 of them live in the same house as me, and since we have dialup, I never see them unless I log in from elsewhere.[/li][li]Only three are people who I have never met in real life.[/li][li]Only one of the remaining 49 is somebody who I talked to online before meeting them IRL (and even then, he was a friend of an RL friend).[/li][li]My friend Rachel wins the most screennames contest with 5.[/li][li]Chris and Brad tie for second with three each.[/li][li]There are 2 people on my list with whom I have not had at least on IM conversation.[/li][li]I would estimate that upwards of 30% of my buddy list are “dead names.” Another 30% are online very infrequently.[/li][/ul]
Ah, then you wouldn’t want to carry on a conversation with me. I carry on a few conversations at a time, interspersed with doing other stuff as well. (making eats, updating journal, surfing the web, reading a book / the newspaper…)
But yes… I delete the deadwood on a regular basis. Might have to do it again soon. I categorize people like this: “General,” “Friends,” (real-life, of course) “Family,” (my brother and my sister) and “SDMB Dopers.” Since that’s across all four IM programs that I use (ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, and AIM), I really can’t tell you stats for each group.
About a month ago, I purged my list from 119 people down to a measley 18. Roughly one-quarter of those names were people that I’d prefer never to speak with again.
My categories are all Alice Cooper songs:
Inmates– hey, we’re all crazy! These are my everyday pals.
Lost in America– the people I haven’t seen online in a long time, but would still like to talk with.
Hey Stoopid– morons, possible sock puppets, and the uncouth.
Billion Dollar Babies– my neices and nephews, mostly.
Roses on White Lace– women I’d like very much to have a tumble in the hay with. Not so many names on this list these days…
Unless a program tells me I have too many buddies, I try not to delete people off them – I like talking to people when I haven’t heard from them in years, and others don’t use their screen names for a while only to pick them up again years later. I always wonder “what if” when I try to purge a name, so it never gets removed.
My next IM hope is to make SoulFrost’s “Hey Stoopid” list.
38 (with several duplicates)
I talk to one of them daily, and maybe 3 or 4 others…much less often, 2 are blocked, maybe 4 to 7 of them are online at any given time.
I have 10, all relatives except 1. The past 3 days though I have been getting a bunch of porn spam through the IM. Had to block all users except those in my do not block list.
I carry on a few conversations at a time, interspersed with doing other stuff as well. (making eats, updating journal, surfing the web, reading a book / the newspaper…)