If that doesn’t cure you, download AOL Instant Messenger, and find one of the threads that contains everyone’s screen name. You’ll be sure to find at least one person.
Chat bad. IMs good.
Nothing wrong with chat if you don’t sling a knife at someone’s back on their way out the door.
Amen.
You make friends through chat that you might not otherwise speak to off-board.
Not to mention more enemies.
:rolleyes:
I’ve found the chat group to be quite friendly. We are a close group, but always welcome others with open arms. In fact, I was a chat regular before I even signed up on the boards. But that’s a story for a different thread.
Being the close group we are, when one of us is called names for no apparent reason, yes, of course enemies are created. It only makes sense, doesn’t it?
It does make sense, which is why I mentioned. I try hard not to mention things that don’t make sense.
The problem with chat rooms in general is that it is infinitely easier for people to gang up on other people for no real reason other than it makes them feel good. A bully mentality can overcome the goodness a room has produced up to that point.
Note that I said “in general”; if people wish to believe this about their own chat room, that’s their inference, not my implication.
I always liked #straightdope chat, thought I haven’t gone there regularly in ages. Someone (Jophiel, I think) once described it as MPSIMS on speed, and I think that’s fairly accurate when there are a lot of people there.
Unfortunately, Jophiel is gone. I haven’t seen him in ages. I really liked him, but I guess life gets in the way.
More like the old SDMB chatroom on AOL except there’s none of us hosts to keep an eye on things.
Come to think of it, an unhosted chat probably would be MPSIMS on speed.
I had much the same experience as Harli, I found the chatroom first, then was informed about the boards. I’m very un-prolific here, and a very frequent IRC chatter, so for that reason, most of the dopers I’ve gotten to know are the ones who chat on #straightdope.
And like Jophiel suggested, it is much like MPSIMS on speed, because you get instant feedback on things. PITing sometimes occurs too, and we occasionally have Great Debates (although more often they are silly debates).
And, see, usually once or twice and evening, I pop into chat, in all my fabulousness, and regale the denizens of #straightdope with tales of my wacky and sordid gay life.
And describe what gourmet delight I’ve prepared for dinner, which gets everyone salivating…
Then I talk about sex. Evil, shameful gay sex. 
Degenerate sex, even. 
Does that mean the number of participants is divisible by two? What does degenerate sex, odd, mean in this context?
Thanks for the link. I think I might sign up for it this evening. As for the conversation of otherwise intelligent people turning to sex, come on! I’ve been known to hang out at the Hell’s Mensans group, and it is a simple, observed rule of the group that any discussion, no matter how obscure and abstract the original topic, will eventually turn to sex. Call it “Dave’s Law”, if you will. Discussions of high-order, abstruse mathematical principles have turned to sex. Anyone for iterations of pi?
CJ
When come back, bring pi.
Robin
!!!
A man after my own heart.
If this is what you’re looking for, I don’t think you’re going to find it in IRC. If you do, please tell me where it is, and I will stay way, way far away from it.