Hello again!
We continue our coverage of Online Chat via the Commericial Online Services. To recap a bit, once contacted for Chat we can usually go directly to a chat area to converse with someone. Due to the sometimes complex navigational commands, you may want to access the Chat area using the best possible software available for your Commericial Service for Chat. Usually this will provide a graphical interface.
As mentioned earlier when someone joins chat on most services they are usually announced. I am picturing a door man at a grandball and saying Mr and Mrs. ...... are not entering the Ballroom. NOT. Just a one liner announcing your name suffices on the service.
It is good as mentioned to at least greet those that are already in the room. As you are deciding to try out the Chat features of the various Online Services, one of the things you want to do is determine if the Chat Session is one that is Open to General Discussion or one the is Moderated.
One most Services you will usually find in the Announcements or similar wether a Moderated Chat or Conference is scheduled. Even though a Moderated Chat Session is scheduled, you may find that the Session is scheduled only in one Room or on one Channel. You can choose whether you want to particpate in the Open Discussion area or the Moderated one.
Open Discussions are just that Open. You can discuss anything that you want. Five people can be carrying on Five different conversations at the same time such as...
(B-BOY) I did not know about Phyllis Hyman.
(Nubian) If Jesse did run would you support him?
(Latifah) Yeah, I thought everyone knew about Phyllis
(P*H*A*T) Of course I would support Jesse.
Moderated Discussion usually have a central theme. It may be a discussion on the Entertainment Industry or Media. In this setting the Moderator sets the tone. Others can pos questions within the theme of the session. They are usually called upon one at a time by the moderator or often it can ve similar to the open disussion, but surrounding the Centralized Theme. You will find the the level of Moderation various from one Commericial Online Service to another.
Some Moderated Discussions have invited guests for celebraties. You may find these varying from the author of "Success Runs in our Race" and "Makes me wanner Holler" to the Film Directors of "Panther" and "Boyz in the Hood". These guest allow an online question and answer setting similar to what you might find in an offline press conference.
Whatever the Level of Moderation it is important to find out the rules in an Open or Moderated Session. A person that adheres to the rules in these discussion will be respected by the other attendees. Those who do not will often find themselves talking to only themselves as they will often be ignored.
Should you stumble upon a conference and notice that the users are not typing back and forth directly to each other, but one user have at least five lines of a message going forth. This may be indicative that the conference is moderated. By using the Help facilities if available you may be able to type a private message to a person in the Session and inquire if the session is moderated. Additionally you can tell by looking at the tone of the conversation, much as you would in an offline session.
Should you meet someone of interest, just as you would offline consider asking if they would like to keep in touch via Email and exchange I.D.'s. You've heard of "work the room" in the concept of Offline Networking, well, "work the conference or chat room/channel".
Here we rap up another lesson! Next week well cover the last leg of the Chat components as we look at Internet Relay Chat, better known as IRC.
Remember these lessons can be found in their entirety via:
http://haven.ios.com/~holmanm/lessons.html
ftp - haven.ios.com's pub/users/holmanm/info_highway_lessons
Our Tips of the Week
--------------------
Question
You need a compression program for your Macintosh. where do you go?
Answer
Program: Compact Pro
Bill Goodman
Cyclos
P.O. Box 31417
San Francisco, CA 94131-0417
Genie:B.GOODMAN5
CIS: 71101,204
Question:
Where can you find a Macintosh Mailing List?
Answer:
Email:
How:
mail listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet.
Body:
subscribe info-mac
more?
Email:
How:
mail listserv@yalev1.bitnet
Body:
subscribe MAC-L
Question:
So where's the IBM-PC mailing list?
Answer:
Email:
How:
mail listserv@uga.bitnet
Body:
subscribe IBMPC-L
more?
Email:
How:
mail listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet
Body:
subscribe I-IBMPC
Enjoy!