IRC Jargon

You may also see hosts and chatters use terms that have grown out of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The term 'nick' for nickname is just one example. Here are a few with some quick definitions:

Ban

the placement of a filter in a room that prevents an offending chatter from re-entering after a Kick. The two are usually used together, to remove folks who can't seem to abide by a few simple Rules

 

Flooding

entering too many lines of text one after another rapidly, causing the scroll to speed up and interrupting the conversations going on.

 

Freeze

a momentary total stop of the scroll, for the same reasons. It's NOT your computer! This happens now and then in all chat media

 

Kick

the sudden removal of an offending chatter by the host, as if the host were 'kicking' the person out of the room. While this may cause some hurt feelings, all reports indicate there is no physical damage to the chatter :-)

 

Lag

a slow down in the rate the text appears in the scroll. This is due to the nature of 'relaying' messages through the complex connections of the Internet

 

Lurker

a chatter that just 'sits' in a room but never seems to type anything. There's nothing wrong with lurking.

 

Ops

in more generic terms, our City Conference Crew members are room Operators -- they control the room's topic, size limit, and can perform the Kicks and Bans mentioned above. Anyone that starts a new user room are automatically be that room's Operator.

 

Pop-ups

some chat software permits the construction of 'macros' which generate automatic entries to the room scroll. They use text, punctuation, and color to create designs or small cartoons, usually to greet or 'hug' chatters. While some pops are cute, many of the ones circulating around the Internet are too big, and will invoke the Flood Protection. Popups are also not really conversation, which is why we're all here, so if you do use them, please keep them short and use them sparingly.

 

Scroll !!!! 

with the exclamation points, it means that all the text held up by the lag or the freeze has suddenly released and the normal scroll is rocketing by the person typing at high speed. Fortunately, you can 'scroll back' and reread anything that zooms by, and then catch up to the live text, in most chat software.