UltraDoug Presents: How to use chat!

[ultradoug]

Chating online is far diferent then holding a normal conversion with someone.
In real life, you must pause and wait for input from someone else after you've said what you wanted to say, but quite offen in chat, one person is talking to some other person as someone else is talking to 3 or more people, the trick is fast reading, and fast typing. Not all users of chat are able to keep up with the fast pace. Smaller users rooms for those who wish to talk to serten people only are sometimes made. The problem with that is, by lowering the amount of people you talk to, you miss out on the true nature of chat, and that is to have fun.

Think of chat as a huge party, a party where everyone is talking, but no one is really saying much of anything. Even when a topic is up, chat rooms do not offen stick to the given topic for long.

When in chat, its best to injoy and not take yourself, or others too serously, if you do, then your missing out on what it is to just have fun, and perhaps you should not do chat. In other words, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the oven. That sort of thing.

Now, here, on this page, we have a chatroom, thats used now and then, the issues with the chat are plenty - the cheif among them is no way to control the content it has, and when someone new or old comes in, they are unaware of the topic at hand, because there is no "topic" feature like some chats have, these issues aside, there is also the feeling that the admins desperatly want to control the chatroom in some way, when the ablity to do so is not there. You cant have it both ways, you can not have an uncontroled envorment be controled, and even if controls were in place, you have to have someone at the helm of the chat that knows how to chat, someone who injoys it for what it is, nothing more or less.

I don't know why people online sometimes take themselfs so serously, chat is not the place for this, that much I do know.

[Gambit]

this is exactly the reason i treat the forums like a chat room, im too slow in normal chat and....stuff

[ultradoug]

I'll have to side with you a bit, I treat the fourms basicly like a less interactive chat, but have a few more lines that I would not cross on a fourm where as on chat its more about free flow.

[Gambit]

well anther reason i like the forums more is that theres more smilies, inclung my favorite 2, :twisted: & :jotun:

[countblah]

How to chat with Ultradoug: Really Quickly.

[TAELORD FOCKER]

i like to be invited before i jump in. i've popped in on very serious conversations about "how many orcs are needed for this or that" and since i'm new and i would have little to add to conversations like that, i quietly slip away to read things like photoshop tennis!

[Gambit]

that why if i do use the chat room, i only do 1 on 1 chats

[trixar]

so where is the heroscape chat located?

[Gambit]

on the chat link/button/whatever on the top of the screen, although no ones there usually no one there unless theres a link below all of those that says "JOIN UP IN CHAT NOW"

[Su-Bak-Na]

so where is the heroscape chat located?

Loo at the links near the kyrie guy.

[ultradoug]

chat link: http://www.heroscapers.com/community/chat.php

[Grungebob]

Also for any of you that are put off by the members who spam the chat room, there is a handy ignore feature. Just use the scroll on the right side of the chat room to find the member who is posting so much that you cannot follow the real conversations. Rightclick on their name and click on the ignore button. This really helps when there are people on who spam the page with one or two word nonsense then hit enter and do it again. You'll find the meaningful responses stay in the chat window a little longer.

I will say that I have been on enough chat boards to know that it can be an excellent place for good conversations. This attitude that it is a crazy place for spamming and if you can't handle it, then you just don't know how to chat, is not correct.

So read UD's above statement, but take it with a large grain of salt. I think as adults, we can easily make the chat room a friendly place that is pleasurable, and free of harrasment, and spamming. The sentiment expressed in his post is his, but it is not ours. We believe that the chat room is not a place where "If you can't take the heat" applies, and we will attempt to ensure that it is not abused.

On a final note, it is extremely bad form to change your chat name to anything other than your user name, especially using the name of another member. I see some do this and it is rude and threatens the chat rooms existance.

[ultradoug]

of course, you all know how I feel about using the ignore button:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=75

I would put my conversational ablitys agenst anyone that has never used any other chat room other then the one that this board provides any day, if you want to have a very dry lifeless chat, then indeed, ingnore those whom you can not keep up with.

However, if you do, it is plain rude to sugest to others that they should follow this action, and indeed, if the rulls/sugested conduct of this fourm is to be taken serously, then admins can not use the ingore feature, if they do they might miss out on something "Bad" that someone might say, of course, with out chat controls, there is no way to really know if anyone is whom they say , or to really "control" what happens.

Perhaps Chat=Pointless:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=110

of course if you want to be a grown up about it, you would treat others the way you wish to be treated and reconise that other people have personalitys and part of life and being an adult is being able to handle those personaltys, part of being a good leader is being able to put up with that as well.

[funrun]

I can assure you that no admin has another user on ignore in the forums. This is a rule of ours and we have ways of checking to make sure no one is breaking that rule. It is no secret that imax has reaper on ignore, but he is only a mod and his ignores are not impeding his mod duties to control the Barracks thread. In chat, admins can't control things like we do in the forums, so an admin is just like any other user there and we will ignore people as we each deem it necessary for our personal enjoyment of using chat.

[Grungebob]

if you want to have a very dry lifeless chat, then indeed, ingnore those whom you can not keep up with. Most everybody can keep up UD, it is just that it is a waste of time to do so if the content you are keeping up with is juvenile and disruptive. Using your party analogy, if you were at one of my parties and were dominating conversations, being loud and disruptive, interrupting and even harassing, I would either ask you to leave or just tell everyone to ignore you, the lovable, attention seeking, maniac in the corner. It is completely off base to say that chat with you on ignore is dull and lifeless. I use ignore on chat all the time to filter out chatter, and the experience is richer because of it.

[ultradoug]

funrun , Grungebob. I can tell you've never been much for chating like me, there are others who surpas me, when I enter other chatrooms..
I guess trying to explain it is useless you would have to see for yourself and just try to filter it all out, then all you would be left with is a one on one with whomever you wound up not filtering, might as well just pm that person and talk to them directly, you know there IS a way to pm in the chat we have and you can talk to whomever you want directly, thus you would not be ingoring anything. It would be NICE if there was a color code so that you could change your text - this way each person could have dif colors so that you could see whom is saying what, its hard even for an experanced person as myself to sort it all out, I could complan about what functuons our chat lacks more, but I've said my part. I'll let you keep it.

[Grungebob]

You usually never have to ignore anybody, but if you're in the chat with 8 other people and one person is spamming harassing and being disruptive, it sure makes life alot easier to ignore that one person and enjoy the conversation all the more without their senseless chatter.

[truth]

UD, it seems to me you've picked up this mentality someplace that the fastest chatter is the winner. Maybe your right, I did visit a chat board the other day to see how well chat boards on other forums are being used... and everyone on there was just like you. Constant nonsense flooding the channel. But then again, I asked and found out, everyone on there was between the ages of 10 & 13. We are a fairly unique board in that we are nearly all adults. So I think by default that our chat room will operate differently. I believe we're I in your situation, I would conform to the group I'm with, and follow thier style so that I could fit in with the flow of the conversation, and I would go get my hyperactive chat kicks somewhere else, where that is the flow and style of the chat. I'm not saying quit being doug, I'm saying if the traffic is going 35 mph because they are in a residential zone, and you turn onto the street and punch it to 90... We'll your likely gonna crash into some people and make them not to happy with your driving.