What Do You Think of Chat?
Topic Initiated by
Barbara Steinberg (mariarosa, 4/5/99 10:54:17 PM)
I have been thinking about chat recently as a
tug-of-war between users and the network administrators
who want to control them.
The way a network is set up controls the behavior of
the people using it. The network administrator can
watch, for instance, how much bandwith anyone is using
at any one time. If someone is using too much, they get
a call. The administrator can also give out passwords
that have different permissions attached to them, so
some people can do more than others.
How much power should the user have? How much power
should remain in the hands of the network
administrator? An organization can rise or fall based
on the way they answer this question because online,
you can spout all the cybersociology you want, but if
network security gets compromised, you get lawsuits.
On the other side, users want power -- to decide how
they will use technology when they are online, to
affect the groups they become emotionally involved
with. I, perhaps in my renegade ways, feel communities
should give away power.
And so we come to chat. It is becoming such an
essential part of the way we use use words online, the
writing equivalent of speed chess.
The different chat networks offer a different power
balance between user and administrator and different
answers to this tug-or-war.
Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, gives users the choice of
which internet application to use, telnet, mIRC,
ircle,a java applet on a web page. It can be accessed
from any operating system and almost any computer. The
chats are not stored on a database, although you can
put an IRCBot on to save the texts. The user is free.
They can have multiple windows open to be in as many
places as they want at the same time, being however
many people they want to be at the same time. The
imaginative freedom is almost complete.
These public chat servers are hugely unreliable, but
the users have the power to control their social
experience, and are therefore willing to put up with
the instability.
Other chatrooms exist on private chat networks that
give the administrator the power to define the social
experience by allowing them to save chat texts in their
database and only allow users to access the room via a
java applet on a web page, among other things. iChat
has its own chat application, but users have to
download that in order to get to their private network
without a java applet.
In my experience, users want IRC. I read about a
university in Australia that banned IRC because they
couldn't control the students behavior, and I could
imagine that IRC would be a threat in any environment
where an authoritative body needed to control a
population in order for the organization to function.
So I was wondering, what are everyone's experiences
with chat. How do you use it? What do you feel about
doing it? Do you enjoy it? Are you intimidated? Have
you noticed you type faster after using chat a lot?
What do you think of chat?
1 of 19
Jeff Parker (jsparker, 4/6/99 7:49:06 AM)
My experiences in chat:
I've used my connections and the easy access to many
hypertext authors to arrange many virtual class
discussions in my hypertext classes in
Syracuse--Christy of course has been the most recent.
It's raised some interesting issues.
In my first chat session I let the class go free fro
all and it was a horrible failure. One of the best
things about chat is that some students who wouldn't
otherwise perk up. And the downside is, those students
who are vocal and/or tricksters perk up to the second
power. During this first session with Mark Amerika
students were asking the msot ridiculous, juvenile
questions that I was thoroughly embarassed, when, thank
god, the Webboard chat server crashed because so many
people were on it at once.
The next time, I arranged for an IRC meeting with
another author I made the students bring in ready made
questions to ask. This kept the level of discourse to a
higher standard but still, people tend to not know when
a speaker is done answering a question or to
"interrupt" with another question. And since chat is
such an arduous environment--that is it takes a lot of
typing to say the littlest things--formalities and
courtesies have to be skipped.
My recent fix for the chaos was to go through the
questions students bring in before the chat and select
the most important ones to ask. Then I forbid everyone
for participating in the chat while I ask the questions
and we let the speaker respond. The downside of this is
it tends to put a lot of emphasis on how fast the
speaker can type...but it's the only way I've found to
have a coherent chat discussion minus chaos. (Though
I'm prone to think that chaos is rpecisely what we need
to tune into, we need to start thinking like a chat
board to really come to terms with all this, and all my
efforts toward clarity are reductive.)
Recently I was invited to an speak to a hypermedia
class at RPI and found being on the other end an
eye-opening experience. I indeed had a very hard time
answering questions as eloquently or thoughtfully as I
thought they should be answered. often I wanted to
return to a previous answer and elaborate but had no
mechanism for doing so. It didn't help that the JAVA
chat utility they were using took my cursor away
everytime there was another post because it obviously
wasn't optimized for the Mac environment...
Personally, I'm less concerned with the interior power
struggles and dangers chat poses--I'm actually quite
happy with them.
2 of 19
Morten Wang (NettRom, 4/6/99 7:55:26 AM)
cut me off if I write too much here, please... :)
I chat every day. when I get to work the first thing I
run is emacs (mail, news and editing), the second is a
telnet to my ISP from where I use ircII. we are a
small bunch of people who gather on our own channel
every day and send a few notes off every now and then.
very loose, very casual, nothing really, really serious
(we've got Usenet for that).
I rarely chat as a social activity though. I did a bit
in the past, but no longer. if I want a social
gathering I either play UO or talk to some friends. on
IRC you have to spend some time to find the "good"
channels (the ones without a million teenagers trying
to find the single female teenager on the IRC network),
and it's time I haven't got at the moment. dunno if
I'll ever have the time.
for me it's a way of meeting up with friends and hang
out. I do it all day long, haven't got time for it
during evening hours (and the channel's pretty quiet
after working hours). I don't think it makes me type
any faster, I type quite quickly already. it's good if
you want to teach yourself how to put thoughts down on
screen quickly though. when you write e-mail or Usenet
posts you have time, you can do research, you can wipe
out paragraphs, write things again. you don't have
that on chats, it's happening at the moment. therefore
it's a matter of how quickly you can write your
thoughts down and hit 'Enter'. if you want typing
speed there's courses teaching you where to put your
fingers, but they don't teach you how to think and
write quickly. that's what I think matters when you
chat, that you can send off those quick & witty remarks
after a split-second thought just as easily as when you
speak.
don't think I've got anything else to add right now.
time to write something more elsewhere.
3 of 19
Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 4/7/99 9:38:10 PM)
Chat is a misnomer in many instances. For my writers'
workshop we use the "Chat" Applet but really, I hope
it's not just chatting. The members try to help each
other, often with technical problems. A participant
will frequently open a second browser window to see
someone's project.
I don't have time to simply chat. I am pretty project
oriented. Even on Sundays for the open chat sessions,
I try to think up a topic. Generally, the level of
discussion at trAce is high, I believe. We did have a
self-proclaimed drunken visitor who didn't care for the
Queen, but other than that, the tenor of the
conversations has been thoughtful and intelligent.
I liked participating in Jeff Parker's class as a
visitor. I don't know how much the students get out of
that kind of experience, but it's fun for me. Yes, I
can't imagine a slow typist surviving one of those
class situations.
I like surprises. I like spontaneity. That can happen
in chat. I'd like a format that allowed me to copy the
session. So often, I can't get all workshop members
together at the same time. The gems we've discussed
are pretty much gone. I also can't activate my tilde
or apostrophe or other features in the chat Applet and
I have a brand new IBM ThinkPad.
4 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/7/99 11:57:10 PM)
I hadn't really used chat until I came to
Communityware, and I must say it's not my favourite
synchronous medium. I much prefer the MOO, which has a
texture and a depth I haven't found anywhere else - but
the drawback is that it is so complex to learn that
many people fall at the first fence.
As regards chat, there are 2 types of chat at
Communityware. The basic kind, such as we currently
have in the trAce community, has no log facility and is
fairly simple. However, the main section of community2u
has a more sophisticated chat which will, I think, be
transferred to all the communities some time this
month. It does have a logging facility and I think this
is vital.
Online synchronous interaction can produce some
wonderful and rare conversations between people logged
on across the world, and chat provides a simple way to
do this. It's just a shame about the name!
5 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/8/99 12:03:14 AM)
I just checked out the location of the better chat.
Click 'my home' on the top left toolbar and then go to
'interact'.
If you play around with the recorder you'll see that
you can record a session and have it mailed to any
email address afterwards - a real bonus!
I just wish they would hurry up and install it here.
6 of 19
Margaret Penfold (Saada, 4/8/99 4:23:52 AM)
Chat - such an archaic mode of communication. like a
group writing telegrams in the 30's aand then sending
and receiving all ay once. Voice-mail aand video
conferencing should have advanced enough by this stage
to be universal
7 of 19
Morten Wang (NettRom, 4/8/99 9:16:38 AM)
hmm... I think voice-mail and video conferencing would
be more or less like another phone line. and I don't
want another phone that is ringing all day long waiting
for me to pick it up. also, those other forms of
communicating are all speech-based (with possible
visual presentation of the speaker) and for me chat is
a healthy variation of text-based (/written)
communication.
I'm not trying to say we shouldn't have voice-mail,
video conferencing and the lot, but in my opinion it
won't be an addition I feel is very good. the other
problem is of course the technology. there's lots of
technology there already, there just isn't enough
bandwidth.
I enjoy the opportunity to have a real-time text-based
communication form, just like I enjoy meeting people
face to face and writing e-mail. it all adds up to
different forms of communicating, and we'll probably
like one better than the other just like some people
like a rose better than a lily.
8 of 19
Barbara Steinberg (mariarosa, 4/8/99 5:13:35 PM)
I have this web radio station where chatters talk back
to the DJ, so I chat every night with someone I can see
and hear on a Real Audio player. Last night, I lost it
bigtime. It was Suns of Liberty night. The head DJ,
James, had Mike the militia guy on, and they debate
politics as chatters contribute to the discussion.
Mike brought this video. He said it was about central
banking. OK. So we all started watching it. The word,
"moneychangers" was repeated 1000 times with pictures
of Jews everywhere, talk of the evil Rothschilds... I
blew my stack to such a degree, I scared the living
shit out of this militia guy. And I did it in the chat
room.
Poison images, words with an anti-Semitic history, bla
bla bla. There are a lot of people who, when they find
a social group that accepts them, watch videos like
this and have no clue as to what they mean. I really do
believe Mike thought the video was an analysis of the
central banking system. I knew better.
Anyway, after James turned the video off, he also laced
into him, and Mike actually learned something. I made
it clear that if a video like that is ever shown again,
a disclaimer has to be written on the Real Audio
Player, because a lot of chatters call up the station
via telnet or mIRC, and Real Audio, never bothering to
open the web page.
But I found chat a release. Speed chess. I was not
thinking as I was typing last night. I was fuming. But,
on other nights :-), as the community around this web
radio station gets to know eachother better, the chats
get more interesting. More to talk about, I guess. I
think I have one James did about drug abuse with a
listener. If I find it, I'll share.
I don't think chat will ever reach the depth that email
does, but it sure was a good tool to let me tear this
guy to shreds. You gotta type fast though.
:-)
9 of 19
Flavia Dzodan (yanna, 4/8/99 6:29:44 PM)
voice mail and video conferences may be nice to use.
but truth is that you need a very good modem and isp
(cable is a must in some cases) and the hardware is not
exactly affordable by everyone (a webcam, good sound
and video cards, etc). chat, on the contrary works on
almost any computer (even an old c 64 with a 1200 baud
modem would do it). imho, chat is universal and
accessible to anyone with a computer a modem and a
phone line (you dont even need an isp for that, a local
free bbs would do the trick).
10 of 19
Moo versus chat (Helen Whitehead, 4/17/99 3:49:44 AM)
I still think that MOO, however difficult initially to
learn, has many more possibilities than simple chat,
especially for writers. I was advise Jeff to try it if
he hasn't already done so.
In a MOO writers can talk but can also collaboratively
create the environment around them, creating a blue
silk flower and blowing it to someone else who makes it
disappear in a puff of pink smoke then drifts slowly up
to perch on a silver chain above the heads of the other
users -- all of this is created in words.
What more wonderful environment for writers such as
those already in a hypertext class?
And anyone who can appreciate hypertext won't find it
difficult to use a MOO.
Perhaps it's time to have another trAce venture into
LinguaMOO for those of you who'd like to learn?
11 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/17/99 4:56:53 AM)
I would be happy to organise a LinguaMOO session. For
those who would like to do it, you might find it
helpful to look at the Beginner's Guide at
Shall we do it?
Sue
12 of 19
Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 4/19/99 10:39:15 AM)
Yes, sounds good, Sue, a special session of Moo for
CommunityWare regulars and also my Workshop. I think
several people from that group would like it, too.
13 of 19
Count me in (Helen Whitehead, 4/19/99 1:55:51 PM)
I'll come along for a MOO, anyway. It's got to be
better than Communityware Chat when the dataflow is
down to 1 byte per sec!
14 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/20/99 4:44:17 PM)
should we arrange the MOO session at the usual Sunday
time? an hour is never very much but people could stay
on longer if they wanted to.
15 of 19
Saying yes to Moo at usual time (Saada, 4/20/99 5:57:30 PM)
Has this message arrived at the proper place to say yes
to Moos on a
Sunday? I sent it to
PostMsg_173187_7066_4544_12294_23@communityware.com
which was what the message said I should do
Regards
Margaret
16 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/20/99 11:30:31 PM)
ah - it's here now! But the formatting is much better
where it appears also in The Web and Collaboration.
Isn't that odd?
17 of 19
Margaret Penfold (Saada, 4/22/99 11:53:28 AM)
I can see there's nothing for it but to write through
the CW message box. Pity E-mail is so much more
convenient. Let us know beforehand if the Sunday
session will be MOO or chat so I can hunt for my
password. I know I've got it somewhere.
18 of 19
Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 4/22/99 2:47:12 PM)
If you want your password for LinguaMOO, email Jan at
jan.holmevik@hedb.uib.no and he will send it.
Failing that, just log on as a guest.
For info on mooing, see
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/online/moo.htm
The Lingua url is at http://lingua.utdallas.edu
19 of 19
Wallace (Ragged Claws, 4/26/99 3:00:41 PM)
Tips for email posting:
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2. Set text to wrap at 55 characters (or less) when
sending.
3. Select Uuencode message format rather than MIME.
I post by email quite often, and I never have a problem
with visible HTML, etc. My email client is Outlook
Express.