We're going to close down chat

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

One reason I haven't opened the chatroom lately (besides the lack of time in the evenings) is that the irc channel seems to be working pretty well, and it doesn't cost Diane anything to have open. Besides, irc clients are more flexible than Cedric: if you want your client to do something it doesn't already do, chances are that someone's written a script to do it already. :-) For example, someone wrote scripts for mIrc and Chatzilla that lets you click on a Wikipedia-style link to open an article. Hypothetically, I could write one that opens links to the Errantry Concordance, instead... *starts ruminating about the possibilities*

[Kathy Li]

I meant to reply to this a while back, and forgot.

Originally posted by Tuttle:
... what fans like you and Garrett do is much more than most of us can think about doing even. You're making me wish I was able to make myself have the time to do something for the fandom, though I know I at this point don't have the ability to.

I just want to say that you don't have to spend a huge chunk of time on something. Just consistently spend little chunks. The Board FAQ started out as a one hour reorg of some other posts on "rules newbies needed to know." And then I just kept adding to it. It's taken a few years to get it where it is.

That's how these kinds of projects go. I seriously doubt that PM just spun the entire timeline off the top of his head all at once.

And you don't have to do it alone. If you can organize a group of people, and everybody does one little piece, you can create things like Wikipedia or the Internet Movie Database. Start slow with baby steps. Maybe just spot a typo in Wikipedia and fix it. Or answer a question for a newbie on the board.

[EricG1793]

Please, no double posting, liliea. No one-liners, either. We also very much appreciate proper grammar, punctuation, etc. in the forums and in Chat.

The FAQs are in my signature, if you'd like to read them. Everyone encourages this, but nobody can make you.

EDIT:
The posts I just talked about have disappeared... been deleted by someone.... Just so it doesn't look like I'm shooting the sky.

[Kathy Li]

Liliea wrote: Posted 27 Sep, 2007 16:40

some ppl in the chime has been doin some bad i cant believe their closin it i wanna know ur opinion and whos been causin it i know lots are doin it and i hate it....

[moved from other duplicate thread. Sorry to lose your attribution. --kli]

[Rhi]

Hey Liliea, let's try to keep "chat speak" out of the threads, okay? Around here we like to see letters capitalized, words spelled as best as you can spell them, and punctuation. It's a lot easier to read and understand.

The admins and mods had been warning us about chat for a long time before they finally closed it, so it's not exactly a surprise to me that chat has been closed, or retired as somebody pointed out earlier. Yeah, it stinks that people abused chat, but as for who caused it I think that this was a bit of a group effort; we all, at some point or another, used chat in a way it wasn't supposed to be used. Now it's time to sit back and take our suspension like the good little wizards we are. And it's not exactly like chat's dead; you can PM a mod and schedule a time to have chat open with the mod supervising, and also there's an IRC Young Wizards chat area that's also open.

[Dragon Writer]

Of course, with my infamous typos (What? i'm typing real fasdt here, and i'm on a library computer!) i don't exactly do that great at the whole punctuation and spelling thing, but as long as the entire word's in place chances are most people won't complain. (Note: i take no legal responsibility for those who complain despite my words. :P)

And rhis right...even i've done that...quite frequently as people in chat will tell you. (i say even, not because i'm an upstanding member of the forum or anything like that, but because i haven't been able to actually get into chat for a LONG time now...) It seems everyone was a lot more comfortable with the working of chat when Pm was here though...there's something to be said about constantly having a mod around. Comforts admins and members alike. *really misses PM at the moment, though i hadn't talked to him very much since i wasn't able to use chat anymore*

[EricG1793]

Liliea, I remember saying the same basic thing as Rhi in the "We're going to close down chat" thread yesterday.

I'd like to add that duplicating threads that exist isn't allowed, either. There was already the thread that Lee (the administrator) created announcing closing the chat, and that's where we were discussing it. It's confusing to people who have posted in both threads, and the duplicate thread takes up space in which DD pays for. Actually I thought that we were paying for the space that the forums are taking up by the ChipIn widget and the Premium Memberships.... That what I thought, but they say DD still pays for it, so I'm not clear as to where that money is going....

It's not much of a surprise for me that the chat got closed, either. It's a bit complicated to PM a mod and have them open the chat temporarily.... Sometimes they aren't on for a couple/few/or more days at a time and they may not get be around by the time your scheduled date comes up....

Young Reader, your occasional hiccups in your typing aren't bad; I can always comprehend it smoothly without stumbling over words and that's all that matters.

[Kathy Li]

Good point, Eric. I've moved all the messages from the duplicate thread back over here. Sorry to lose your attribute on the starting article, Liliea, but I can't move the originating article in a thread. I can only copy and then delete it.

Eric, ease off a little on the netiquette lectures for the newbies, eh? Give them a chance to read the FAQ, first. Also remember that you can always private topic someone.

[EricG1793]

Eric, ease off a little on the netiquette lectures for the newbies, eh? Give them a chance to read the FAQ, first. Smile Also remember that you can always private topic someone.

Oh, no, that member was here before I was, so it's kind of a nuisance they didn't know this....

Starting a few days ago, I keep an eye on the new members list, and whenever a new one joins I send them a PM... I have it pre-typed and on my computer... just welcoming them, telling about the DD chats, who the mods are, explaining the premium memberships, pointing out the FAQs links in my signature, etc. It's not a long lecture... maybe twice as long as the last post that you made before.... Not too bad. I've sent that to the two newest person, and each new person I'll be sending it to....