Chat Room Etiquette

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Chat Room Etiquette

• http//www.ehow.com/how_10204_practice-chat-room.h
  tml
• http//www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTip/id-2006
  ,subcat-USING.html

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Step One

• Find out whether a particular chat room has its
  own FAQ (frequently asked questions) section
  before you enter. If it does, review the FAQ
  section for specific etiquette guidelines.

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Step Two

• Introduce yourself when you enter a room by
  typing your age and gender. In some rooms, a
  general location, such as your city, is also
  appropriate to mention (a/s/lstanding for
  age/sex/location, or age/male-female/STATE, or
  country, if outside the U.S.).

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Step Three

• If you want to address an individual in the room
  without sending an instant message, introduce
  your statement or question with the person's
  screen name and a colon or hyphen (for example,
  'SportsFan What's your favorite football
  team?').

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Step Four

• Avoid referring to users by their real names.

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Step Five

• Allow all users to make comments and ask
  questions. Don't try to take control of the room
  by flooding it with your own entries.

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Step Six

• Avoid direct confrontations with rude users.
  Report disruptive users to the chat host if a
  host is available. Otherwise, leave the chat
  room.

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Step Seven

• Don't harass other users with threats, unwanted
  sexual comments or anything else that might make
  them uncomfortable.

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Tips and Warnings

• Some chat rooms offer you the option of blocking
  out messages and chat room entries from specific
  users. This feature is a good alternative to
  abandoning the room or getting the chat host
  involved.
• To get a feel for how a chat room operates, try
  "lurking" - observing the room without making any
  entries - for a while before offering your own
  comments.
• Don't type the same sentence, word or phrase into
  the chat room over and over again. This is called
  "scrolling" and is heavily frowned upon by chat
  room users and hosts.

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Additional behavioral tips

• The first rule of chat is that a real person with
  real feelings is at the other end of the computer
  chat connection. Hurting him or her is not okay.
• The second rule is that because you really have
  no idea who that other person is, being cautious
  is okay.
• Read messages for a while to figure out what is
  happening before sending a message to a chat
  group.

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• Keep your comments short and to the point.
• Many systems let you create a profile about
  yourself, which other members can access. Having
  a profile is polite. You don't have to tell
  everything about yourself in your profile,
  although what you do say should be truthful.

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• If you want to talk to someone in private, send a
  message saying Hi, who you are, and what you
  want.
• More people are out there whom you don't want to
  meet than people whom you do, although quite a
  few potential friends are chatting too. If the
  rudeness and banality of the chat turn you off at
  first, try other groups.

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ExampleAOL Chat Room Etiquette Rule

• http//site.aol.com/community/rules.html