What and Where?
For the past few months several Gabriel fans who are "regulars" to the web scene have met regularly on John Underwood's Web based chat room. We like to see it continue and invite newcomers to the regular chats. People can talk about whatever, although it's suggested that the topic is related to something that has to do with Peter Gabriel.
When?
The "designated" meeting time is Sundays, 9:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time. If you don't know what time that is in your part of world, look it up here at www.worldtimezone.com. Typically, people wander in and out of the room for hours after the designated time, so there may be only one or two people at first, and then get around 10 chatters hours later. If this time is not good for you, then (1) show up whenever you like and see if anyone else shows up or (2) pick a time and announce to your friends, the mailing list, the newsgroup, that is when you're going to be there, and that anyone is welcome to join you.
Chat Room Quirks & Tips
Pick a good handle on the starting page and
log on. Once you log on, the first thing you should do is either
type ".f" in the text field and hit enter or hit the
"Who is on?" button if you have such a button on the
page. Then you can see how many people are there and who is on.
Unfortunately, you can't read what conversation
has taken place before you log on, so you may want to ask what
the topic is, if any, or wait a few moments and follow the conversation
before jumping in. Those already in the chat room should say hi
to any new visitors, and may want to offer what the topic is about
(if any). New visitors can go ahead and start yakking right away,
but keep in mind that it may be interupting another discussion.
You can't cut and paste material that's posted
in the room. So if you want to give someone a long and complicated
URL, you may want to see about sending them an e-mail instead
because they can't cut and paste the URL from the chat room. However,
you *can* cut text from another source and paste it into the chat
room. There's only one small bug...you can't see the text you
pasted into the text field. But if you hit "enter" the
pasted text will magically appear in the chat area. Odd, but true.
Sometimes people will get booted offline.
Unfortunately, there's no indication of the person's disappearance
until either the connection "times out" or the person
reappears and says, "Oops, I got punted." This can lead
to confusion as people will be trying to converse with someone
who is technically no longer there. Just keep that in mind if
someone is being really quiet in the chat room, and you're frustrated
that they're not responding to you.
Sometimes you or someone else will get booted
off, requiring one to log back on. When that happens, the puntee's
name will show up on the list of participants twice. One name
is from when the person signed on the first time, but they got
punted, and the second name is when they had signed back on again.
This phenomenon is known as "evil twins", and can cause
some confusion as someone may lose track of who is the "real"
so-and-so and will start private messaging someone who isn't there.
To prevent this, check and see which number the person currently
"chatting" under (all new text from someone will have
the number of the person next to their text) before privating
someone. If a moderator is in the room, they can "punt"
the false "twin" offline, thus reducing any confusion.
Otherwise, just wait awhile, and the evil twin will be ejected
from the chat room all by itself.
More tips to come soon, and also a roster of regular chat participants.
command
description
.f
short list of who's online
.w
a long list of who's online with [line]Name, Flags, Channel, Idle,
and Location
.w <number>
show info for who's on this line
.w <text>
same as .w but only show lines that contain this text
.n <name>
change your name to whatever you want
.p <number> <message>
sends a private message to the person on that line number.
.e
turn on private echos. normally when you send private messages,
you can't see what you typed. this will repeat your message
back to you went it's sent
.t
what time is it on the server computer?
.u
how long has this server been up without being restarted?
.v
the server version number and if it's in International mode
.g <number>
this will make it so you can't see what the person on this line
does or types. ONLY YOU will not be able to see. everyone else
will see this person as normal
:
this is an emote. you can use it like this. if you type : dances
around, everyone else will see [0]Your_name dances around. note:
to make a smiley face :-) type ::-)
when you type .w you get a list of user flags, they are:
g - you have this user gagged
G - this user has you gagged
S - this user is squelched (silenced) in this channel