I originally posted this on GQ, sorry I was lazy.
I see where there is a preferred search engine,
Google. and in keeping with this I would like to
know if there is any pref. chat srevice/room/place
where I could argue with you wonderful folks in person.
I have been lurking around SDMB for months, but this
last 2 days I have been very active here, yet there
are still some things I would like to know.
There is, on IRC. Look for #straightdope. It is quite popular.
It’s on the Undernet servers.
And we love fresh meat, er, new people. 
Just watch out for the happy fuzzy bunnies.
Ahem… Boilerplate to follow
#Straightdope is not affliated nor endorsed with or by the Straight Dope, the Chicago Reader, the SDMB, its staff or anyone else for that matter
That said, try #Straightdope on the IRC Undernet servers like the above mentioned.
For that matter, it’s not like Google is officially preferred, either. It’s more a matter of search engines in general being appreciated around here, and Google happens to be one of the better ones.
OK… to get to the #straightdope chatroom…
Download mIRC for Windows or Ircle for Mac. If you can’t download, go to the the Undernet website and click on Webchat. Follow the directions and look for an Undernet server. The European servers are better than the US servers.
Then, type /join #straightdope and let us know who you are so we don’t chase you out
Robin
I got to the undernet website, but #straightdope was not one of the choices. I saw #newbies, #beginner, … about a dozen things
It seems I got into a random chat room and they told me to type "/join #straightdope " into the message box.
What a strange, old fashioned way to work things! It’s like menus and clik boxes had never been invented, and we’re still in Dos command line mode!
When you use the Undernet webchat java client, you have to type /join #straightdope because it does not appear in the list of channels.
And if you get Mirc, you can click on Channels folder, click add, then enter “straightdope” to enter it on your list. You will have to specify Undernet if I remember correctly, and the European connections (and Diemen in particular) seem to be the most stable.
There is also one or two newsgroups, which have no moderators & thus, get pretty crazy.
That’s because it is. mIRC and IRCLE are nothing more than UNIX interfaces. They’re still better than they used to be, before all the pretty colors and stuff.
And we noticed you made it this afternoon. Please feel free to come back; we’re really friendly people
Robin
This is the info I was looking for and you will see me
this weekend - !(or sooner)
As for the Google thing, I used to only use HOTBOT
then I discovered this Copernic app that searches
all the engines - but so many here use Google that
I had to check it out, now that all I use-
Thanx!
Janx!
Before I could even say hi, someone “licked” me. Ugh. At which point I backed out.
Oh, that’s just Tiggeril. Don’t take it personally; she licks everyone.
She’s mostly harmless 
[sub]Dammit, tigg, what’d I tell you about licking people before doing a /whois??[/sub]
I posted that “/join#straightdope” thing in the newbies room and not only did it not work I was booted out and banned from that channel!
Did I do the wrong thing? I don’t understand
You need a space in there:
/join #straightdope
or the command won’t work right. I’ve no idea, though, why a mistyped command would get you banned from a newbies channel… Conceivably, there might be some sort of filter that automatically bans on certain keywords, and “dope” is such a word, but that’d only kick in if the channel saw what you typed. Are you sure you had the / in there?
::looks all bashful and stuff::
B…bu…but I thought people LIKED IT!
:: pouts::
And I didn’t even stuff happy fuzzy bunnies down his/her pants!
I did put the / in there, I am pretty sure I did anyway, yeah it was the lack of a space that did for it. The way it got me banned from the newbies channel puzzles me like nobody’s business. First I saw that someone in the room was initiating some kind of command (and not being very technical I can’t remember what that was exactly), I suppose that person must have been a moderator for that room and then when I tried to get back in I was banned! Very odd.
All I can think is the person who was running that room was offended that I was trying to go somewhere else and didn’t want to stay in his room, or maybe I transgressed some obscure point of ettiquette. It seems very petty and strange to me!
I’ll try it with the space (if I don’t get banned again). Thanks Chronos!