"Chat sites are nothing but meat markets." It is true that many chats seem to descend into this mentality. As a volunteer administrator at a couple of different sites in my time online, I've seen my share of torrid relationships carried out both on the open screen and in private.

The general netiquette is that, as long as the general public isn't subjected to the cyber version of deep kissing against the high school locker, and both parties are willing and consenting adults, what goes on in private messages is no concern to anyone. It may be disconcerting to occasionally discover just what is flying about in the ether as you are playing word games with your friends, but for the most part, a "dropped" private message is more embarrassing to the party who was sending it (and the party meant to receive it) than anyone else.

The best places online to be are those which demonstrate an understanding that the open screen is not for heavy breathing, and whose administrators (who usually have the power to clear the screen and block folks who are either flouting the set rules of the room or hounding other members) maintain a watchful yet open-minded stance. Administrators who can keep their personal prejudices from clouding their judgement, and who only react to substantiated complaints or the absolute transgression of set rules (usually verboten: profanity, rude behavior and threats) are worth their weight in gold, and make a system op's goal of selling ad space (or whatever reason they might have for running a chat site) relatively worry-free.

Most admins are chosen for two reasons; a) they have demonstrated that they are dedicated to the well-being of the site, and b) they are regular enough to be around to police situations when the sys op may not be online. Most admins are volunteers, and should be accorded the respect any demonstration of community service entails.

Still, a chat room, any chat room, regardless of the vision of its systems operator, is only as good as its regulars. Some chat rooms tend to be like huge nightclubs, where people pop in for a chance to find someone, anyone, with whom to share some time. Cushioned behind a nickname, or handle, folks lose their inhibitions, and often a sense of their own integrity. Their anonymity extends to make them imagine those they speak to mere blips on the screen, and the need to be polite, considerate, or even human is oftentimes disregarded. Some chats have a reputation as "pick up joints," some tend to cater to the younger crowd, who speak in song lyrics and large blinking Anglo-Saxon terms, and some are artificially created to appeal to folks with similar interests.

However, for my money, proscribed chat areas are not what real community is about, any more than real-time guilds or service organizations can be guaranteed to bring you together with soul mates. Concept chats may give you a starting reference point with other chatters, but they can't assure that you will have much more in common with the people you meet there than a shared interest in one area of your life, be it basket weaving, sado-masochism, or Wankel rotary engines.