Questions About Personal Chat

Chat is the online version of real-time conversation. It is how you can interact with other folks live without *being there*. You can sit at your computer and type what you want to say into the chat program, and as your words hit the screen, other people who are in the chat *room* are sitting at their computers reading your words and (hopefully) responding by typing in words of their own.

A chat may have a moderator who keeps the conversation lively, develops a chat topic, and helps manage the overall atmosphere of chatting through skillful chat techniques and chat managing tools.

One thing to remember about online chat - people can create their own persona separate from their real personality. So understand that everyone may not be who or what they say they are. Of course that is always an option open to you as well, so have fun with it! Just be careful!

If you want to get involved in chat, you might want to find out what the accepted etiquette guidelines are for the chat you want to join. There are some basic acceptable behavior guidelines for chat adopted everywhere. Different chat communities may also have specific guidelines for behavior in their chat rooms. Usually, if you remember there is a person behind each name in the room, and you treat each person the way you expect to be treated, you will get along fine until you learn the individual quirks of a community.

To learn more about chat, check out the Toolbox Communication Tools.

Q: How is chat different from a conference?

A conference is more like a message board - you post a message for others to read and respond at their leisure. A conference is an ongoing conversation or debate. People read and respond to others' posts over a period of time. On the other hand, chat is real-time live interaction. The people you are chatting with are there now and response is usually immediate. Chat is like talking to your friends over coffee, while conferencing is like reading the bulletin board at school.

Q: How do I choose and enter a chat room?

First, you need to go to the Tripod Chat area and enter either the Personal or Public chat lobbies. A list of rooms will show you what rooms are available and the topics of those rooms. To enter a particular room, simply click on the room of your choice. You must be a Tripod member in order to participate in Tripod Chat. Once you have successfully logged in, you'll see a complete list of all Chat room users, including yourself and the current conversation. You are now free to read, send and receive messages.

Q: How do I start my own chat room?

It's quick and easy! To start your own chat room, click here>. Enjoy!

Q: How do I exit a chat room?

You can leave a chat room by clicking the "exit" button or by typing /exit or /quit.

Q: How do I 'talk' in a chat room?

Simply type your message in the text box and click on the "send" button. Everybody will see what you have typed.

Q: How do I change the text box from a two line box to a single line?

Type /box in the text box and the box will switch between a two line box and a single line box. If you use a single line box, pressing return (or enter) will send the message (in addition to the "send" button).

Q: Can I send a private message in a chat room?

Yes, just select a user in the pull-down menu above the text box. "Write to..." whomever you wish. Only that person will see your message. Private messages are indicated in bold and are also accompanied by the words "private message."

Q: How do I get to the help page while I'm in a chat room?

To get to the help page, click on the "help" button at the top of the chat page. Or, you can type /help, which takes you there as well.

Q: What are 'emotes'?

Emotes are a fairly standard way of indicating something you are doing, rather than something you say. If the first character of your message is a colon (":"), then everything after that is presented as something you are doing. For example, if your name is TriMember, typing :falls asleep, implies that you went to sleep.

Q: How do I refresh the screen?

"Refreshing" the screen means loading the most recent version of what's on a screen. Simply click on the "refresh" button. You can also click on the "Tripod Chat:" graphic, which does the same thing. You may want to refresh the screen when the conversation has filled the entire screen.

Your text box will be cleared of anything you've been typing, and all but the most recent messages will be cleared. (You can still see old messages by clicking on the "review" button.)

Refreshing the screen is necessary to see new messages if you're not using Netscape (more precisely, if your push time is set to 0; only Netscape supports non-0 push times).

Q: How do I find someone in a chat room?

A list of current people chatting in each room is found in the chat lobbies. If the name of the person you are looking for is not listed, they are not currently using Tripod Chat.

Q: What is an in-line profile?

If you want to find out a little bit about the person you're talking to, click on the person's name. You will see a short description of the person, gleaned from their Tripod Member Profile. If you don't have a member profile, you should really make one.

Q: How do I catch up on the conversation?

To catch up, click on the "review" button at the top of the chat room page. You will be presented with all of the back messages. The /review command does the same thing.

Q: How do I resize the screen?

Resizing the screen is generally a two-step process in Chat. First, change the window size, as you would normally. Then, be sure to hit the "refresh" button so that the page properly redisplays.

Q: How do I move from room to room?

You can move by clicking the "exit" button at the top of each chat room page.You will return to the list of rooms, from which you can go anywhere. Or, you can use the /exit command, which does the same thing.

Q: How do I block messages from a user? (The Bozo Filter)

This is the famous Chat Bozo Filter. You can /bozo or /ignore a user and you'll never hear from that person again (at least during that chat session). If you have a change of heart, you can /unbozo the bozo to hear from him again.

Please note that even if you ignore what the bozo is saying, the bozo can still hear what you are saying, unless you send a private message to someone.

The option to /ignore or /bozo someone will also be presented if you click on that person's name and view their member profile.

Q: What is a private message?

If you wish to chat with a member without having your message visible to the rest of the chat room, you may either select that member's name from the "Write to" pull-down menu, or click on their name. Anything you write after selecting that member's name will be seen only by that particular person.

Q: Does my browser work differently when I'm chatting?

Depending on the type of browser you use, Chat displays information in different ways.

For Netscape users, Chat works by fooling your browser. Netscape "thinks" that the Chat room page just takes a very long time to load, and that new messages are just the next parts of the page. In other words, the Chat server keeps "pushing" information to your browser. So if you're using Netscape, the long download time is a good thing, because people's statements appear at the bottom of the chat room page as they are being said.

Unfortunately, not all browsers support such a long "push" time. ("Push" time meaning the time it takes for a page to load from the Web to you.) Lynx, in particular, refuses to display a page until it has received all of it. For these browsers, Chat presets the push time to 0, which means that Chat will send the current messages and then immediately stop, so the browser understands that it can display the page. You can set how long Chat will push messages to your browser by typing /push "x", where "x" is the time in seconds.

Generally, if you are an active participant, you will have no trouble and the screen will refresh every time you send a message. When in doubt, simply "refresh" the screen manually by hitting the "refresh" button.

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