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Chat Room
Please allow a minute or so for the chat window to download.
It will start automatically.
General Chat Room Rules
Chat Room Etiquette
Using the ParaChat Chat Room
Technical Notes on Web Browsers and
ParaChat
General Chat Room Rules
We welcome you to stay and chat as long as you like,
but please remember that making rude, obscene, racist, suggestive or otherwise obnoxious
remarks is not acceptable. We are sorry to even have to mention this, but we remind
you not to be obscene or abusive, or you and your computer may be banned from this
server.
Please use an appropriate user name. User names which
are not pronouncable or obscene are not appropriate.
Please do not flood. Flooding is when you type in
the same message repeatedly. This prevents people from having a real conversation
in the room and causes unneccesary load on the server.
Using ALL CAPS letters in a chat room is equivalent
to screaming. There is a time and place for screaming. Please respect this convention
in the rooms.
The rooms have channel names for a reason, usually
because the creators of the room would like to restrict the discussion in the room
to certain topics. As far as possible, please try and keep the conversation in a
room relevant to the title of the room. This will enable people to find an appropriate
room to chat in.
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Chat Room Etiquette
Chat room etiquette, netiquette, are the conventions that are widely used to make
internet chatting a good experience for everyone. The basis of netiquette is simple:
"If you respect the rights of others, they will respect yours." Almost
all chat networks and chat rooms are strong supporters of theright to free speech,
therefore, very little censorship is exercised on the internet. However, some chatroom
system ops (person in charge) may ask you to leave, or even force you to leave, if
your behavior or presence is disruptive to the theme of the room.
In addition, a network may terminate a chatroom if consistent diruptive behavior
occurs. Other than that the netiquette rules are pretty simple:
| Use an appropriate handle. |
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Handles that are not pronouncable or are obscene are not appropriate. |
| Do not flood. |
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Flooding is when you repeat the same message over and over. |
| Do not beep repeatedly. |
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Beep should only be used to attract a person's attention. |
| Do not SHOUT CONTINUOUSLY. |
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Shouting is typing everything in CAPS. |
| Keep conversation to room theme. |
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The rooms have themes so people of common interests can find consistent
meeting places. |
| No cursing, or offensive language. |
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Unfortunately this rule is frequently ignored. |
| Welcome new arrivals. |
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It makes people feel welcome and generates more conversation. |
| Be patient with newbies. |
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We were all newbies in the beginning. |
| Don't criticize other room occupants. |
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We're all here for fun, so let's not take things too seriously. |
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Using the ParaChat Chat Room
To begin, press on the Connect button, you will get
a form to fill in your user name (any nickname), real name, e-mail, password. Please
note that only the user name is mandatory. Then, click on "OK" and you
are ready to chat.
Type in your message in the text box below. By default
your message is sent to all users. To send a message to a selected user, select on
the "Single User" radio button and then highlight the user from the users'
list on the right.
There is a maximum limit of 25 users to the chat room.
If you are unable to log on because there number of users in the chat room has reached
the limit, try logging on again later.
To screen out obnoxious users, click on the User name
and then click on the "Ignore User" radio button.
For a list of advanced features that you may want
to try out, type "*chat" (without the quotes) to get a list of advanced
options. Dont forget the ASTERISK (i.e.*) before the "chat".
Again, we request you to remember to keep the discussions
civil, in particular, avoiding obscenities and/or other offensive language.
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Technical Notes on Web Browsers
and ParaChat
- To use ParaChat, you need to use a web browser that
is Java enabled like Netscape Navigator 2.0 or higher or Microsoft Internet Explorer
3.0. If your browser is not Java aware you will not see the chat room but get a message,
"Sorry your browser is not Java enabled".
- If you are using Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Microsoft
Internet Explorer 3.0 and you still get the "Sorry your browser is not Java
enabled" message, make sure that your browser's Java feature is enabled. For
Netscape Navigator, enable Java by clicking "Options", "Network Preferences",
"Language". Make sure the "Enable Java" checkbox is checked.
For Microsoft Internet Explorer, enable Java by clicking "View", "Options",
"Security". Check the "Enable Java programs" checkbox.
- If you are using Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0, ParaChat
may report the error, "could not connect to server BAD_PARAMETERS:BAD_PARAMETERS".
This is due to a parameter passing bug in Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0. In that case,
please use another browser version like Netscape Navigator 3.x (non-Gold), Navigator
Gold 3.03, Netscape Communicator 4.x, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x.
- If you are using America Online, you can also access
a ParaChat chat room. Just connect to AOL, go to the World Wide Web, minimize the
AOL window, and launch a Java enabled browser. You can download Netscape Navigator
2.0 or higher or Netscape Communicator 4.x from the
Netscape Communications Corp. web site. You can also download Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02 from the
Microsoft Internet Explorer web site.
- Netscape Communicator 4.02 and 4.03 may freeze when
loading the Java chat applet. This is a known bug and Netscape is working on a fix.
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