Why don't more dopers join the #straightdope irc chat room?

[Elysian]

@don't ask

I tried the instructions above and have ended up cast into limbo - apparently I am now talking in #allnightcafe, fortunately to myself.

Are you sure you are on NewNET? Check the main screen. Does it say NewNET at the top?

On the main screen, type in exactly:

/join #straightdope

What is your nick? Maybe I could find you.

[neutron_star]

@don't ask

I tried the instructions above and have ended up cast into limbo - apparently I am now talking in #allnightcafe, fortunately to myself.

When you use mIRC for the first time and connect to a server, it pops up a little window with the title “mIRC Favorites,” containing some common channel names. #allnightcafe is the first one listed, so you probably clicked on that.

Close that window and you’ll see your cursor flashing on the window that was under it. It is there that you type the join command.

[Telperien]

I got in sometime this morning but wasn’t sure I was doing things right.

[Crafter_Man]

1. I don’t socialize on the SDMB… I don’t post in MPSIMS, for example.

2. I don’t have any friends here. (Which is probably a fallout from #1.)

3. My views tend to be outside the mainstream.

4. I have a home, wife, three kids, a full-time job, a long commute, and I’m attending night school. I don’t have time to chat.

[manx]

It works! ooooo! Thanks Elysian

[Silver_Fire]

Hey Lobsang, you sure have generated a lot of new #straightdope traffic. So where the hell are you?

[BraheSilver]

There’s always this very long pause after I say something I think was funny. I can’t tell if it because people are laughing or if they lean back from their keyboards in horror. It’s awfully embarassing.

[MsRobyn]

I should point out that most of us live in the United States and Canada, and thus chat is most active during the evening hours of those time zones.

Robin

[AHunter3]

Got on in the wee hours of the morning. Had to add NewNet to xchat’s list of networks, but no difficulty connecting.

I bet I’m not the only person who has been trying to connect (periodically) to #straightdope on Undernet and wondering where the heck everyone went!

[Lobsang]

@Silver Fire

Hey Lobsang, you sure have generated a lot of new #straightdope traffic. So where the hell are you?

I’ll pop in tonight if I remember.

[Martin_Hyde]

@AHunter3

It’s not on undernet any more? Hmm, this would explain the empty room yesterday.

I don’t go in very often. I tend to write 20-word sentences and expect to have conversations that stay on subject and explore them.

Although that happens a hell of a lot more in #straightdope than any other IRC chat I’ve ever attempted to participate in, it’s still a world of fast 3-word responses and rapid flocking from one momentary topic to another. It’s like being at a party instead of debating a subject in a classroom. I hate most parties. I like to bring my six-pack of beer and talk for 4 hours about comparative strategies for managing diverse personnel, labor politics, top-down versus small-group initiative, and perhaps veer off eventually into telling tales of the worst managers we’ve ever had to work for or with, and also the best. Or whether an angry male condemnation of traditional female flirtational behavior is anti-woman, potentially pro-feminist, affirmatively revolutionary male, or conventionally role-normative male, and how various gender politics theories impinge.

Which at most parties makes me as much fun as a keg of flat, no-alcohol beer with a busted tap.

If you asked the same question in chat, I’d type out these paragraphs, and if by the type I had hit Enter for the third it looked like everyone else was going for the quick two-word quip and the subject was already changing, I’d be sorely tempted to type “QED” and “bye” and close the window.

I hope I’m never the poor slob that accidentally says hi to you at a party.

[Lobsang]

@Lobsang

I’ll pop in tonight if I remember.

Guess I waited too long. There’s me and one other person in there.