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A Little Discussion About Chat
e've all heard about chat rooms on the news. Perverts talk to young kids and are then nailed by police when the perverts try to meet the kids and do God knows what to them in-person. Chat has gotten a bad rap. But, those of you who have used chat areas know that those centered around an interesting topic can be a very useful and a helpful form of communication. I myself have learned many things about a number of subjects by taking part in chat room conversations.

But, enough chatter (pun intended). What is chat? Chat is a fast-paced form of Internet discussion. When you chat on the Internet, you're "talking" to others by using your keyboard to type text messages. Although there are several different kinds of Internet chat, they all follow the same basic principles.

To join a chat, you need to enter a "chat room." A chat room is some sort of a virtual environment where similarly interested parties gather to talk via their keyboard. Typically, part of your screen shows the nicknames of the other chatters in the room. Another portion shows (in real-time) the text of the "conversation" the chatters are engaged in. You can join in the conversation any time by typing your own comments which the other chatters will see very quickly.

At most any hour, you can find people chatting on a range of topics. Some chat rooms are purely social, designed for anyone who simply wants to interact with others. I've found many of these to be populated by young kids who are up late and ditching their homework but there's some where completely mature and interesting conversations about movies, world events and community issues prevail. These chat rooms are usually unmoderated (no one is overseeing the conversations to ensure that they don't get out of hand). Unmoderated chat rooms are open and uncensored. Some could be offensive and children should always have adult supervision while chatting on the Internet.

You can also join special chat events featuring celebrities, authors or political leaders. A chat participant can ask a question and get a "live" response. Competition to join these chats can be fierce and there's usually a limit to the number of participants. These types of chats are moderated by the chat's sponsor. A moderated chat room has rules of etiquette that need to be followed (no profanity, keep relevant to the topic, etc.). If you break any of the rules, the chat room's moderator can eject you from the chat room.

There's several different kinds of chat available on the Internet. Here's a brief breakdown of a few of them and what they offer.

• Web-based chat. This is the easiest form of chat because all you basically need is Java support which can be found in the current versions of browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer. If you have one of these browsers, you just need to find a chat-room that's Java-based and jump into one that suits your fancy.

• Internet Relay Chat. IRC has been around the longest and is a little more tricky than other forms of chat. Internet Relay Chat is a form of chat that requires a special program called an IRC client. IRC takes place on several networks of special chat servers all over the world. IRC offers the widest variety of chat rooms.

• Instant Messaging. This works by your maintaining a list of people who use the Internet via an instant message program. The program tells you which of the people are online at any given time, allowing you to exchange messages with them instantly.

• Graphical Chat. Some chat networks use their own special software to create unique graphical chat environments, some are very often in a 3d atmosphere. You can meet in particular rooms with friends or strangers and talk and play games online. With bandwidth connections increasing all the time, it comes as no surprise that these types of chat have become far more popular.

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