In Rasty's thread below about what's lacking, in this forum, TyphonBlue stated that what we all need is a Jungle Gym to play on. I don't know is she was just goofing (it seems you never really know that with Typhon), but whether by accident or design, I think she hit upon a good point. Communicating strictly thru the forum has some limitations, and maybe getting outside those restrictions will work loose some of the ennui and frustration that some participants have been expressing lately.

I can't think of anything that better approximates a "jungle Gym" in cyberspace, than a chat room.

A few weeks ago, I was looking at what advantages my Deja.com registration brings and discovered that there is 5mb of space provided for a web page. I've been wanting to put up a site to showcase some midi's that I've written. In the process of looking over the little easy teplate web editor they have, I discovered they provide a little Java applet that makes it easy to create your own chat room. So there you go!

The password is newt.

A few caveats that need to be made:

1. This is a totally unregulated chatroom. I have no intention of setting up a bunch of rules for the room, nor does Deja.com provide me with any means to enforce any rules that I would make.

2. I would, however make the suggestion that everyone participate with a name that everyone else will recognize. If a buncha people come in and proceed to annonymously flame everyone, then it will turn into a very bad thing, and I will terminate the room (which is the one control I do have).

3. I am only posting the password for this chat room in the mentioned forum's (although I may eventually post it to other Y2K related forums). Since these are all public forums, I can't guarentee that some casual passerby might not get the password and stop by.

4. I am welcoming ANYONE who participates - Christians, Atheists, Libertarians, Socialists, ANYONE. So, please, I do not want mail in my box that states, "Your chat room sucks, because it's nothing but a buncha (fill in the blank) in there!" I am not assuming responsibility for who might dominate the room.

5. I have no idea if Deja has any capability to monitor the room or not. The safe assumption would be that you don't say anything that you would rather not some certain "unknown persons" hearing. You do however know if there are any lurking web surfers about though, since as soon as you hit the page, you are logged in as "Anonymous####".

6. The first page will be where all my midis will eventually be, If you log in, in a few weeks, and find the chat room gone, just look for a link on the page that says TB2000 CR. That will be the chat room.

7. I have one of my midis currently on the page. It is set for autoplay. I set it to not loop, but for some damn reason, it does anyway (I suppose that's what I get for using an easy template, instead of writing my own code). I hope to soon have this fixed, but in the mean time if you've heard it enough times, or if you simply don't like what you're hearing, you'll have to manually turn it off. If you don't know how to do this with your particular sound software, just turn the volume down on your speakers.

8. This chat room is a very simple affair and is pretty self explanatory, in it's usage. It doesn't have any fancy features, such as "instant/private messaging" or participant profiles.

That's it. Enjoy!

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 25, 1999

Answers

Bokonon:

Thank you!! An excellent idea. One question, and maybe I'm dense. How do I get to this chat room to use the password?

-- mushroom (mushroom_bs_too_long@yahoo.com), October 25, 1999.

Okay, read it twice and I still can't figure out...exactly where is your site? Can ya give me a clicker? ;)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), October 25, 1999.

Dahhhhhhhhhhhh! I guess the URL would be helpful, wouldn't it?

http://homest ead.deja.com/user.bok0non/index.html

Sorry...

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 25, 1999.

There's no space in the word "homestead" in the URL. If you've done a copy and paste to bookmark the URL. you'll need to edit that out.

Here it is again: http://homestead.deja.com/user.bok0non/index.html

Hopefully the mystery space is gone, this time.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 25, 1999.

Bok, your chat site is excellent! Thank you very very much!!

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), October 25, 1999.

Thank you, Bokonon! I've been hoping someone could do this.

-- dakota (none@thistime.com), October 25, 1999.

Thanks Boko! Now we've got something to do while waiting for the New Answers page to update. :)

-- a (a@a.a), October 25, 1999.

Bokonon,how do get your name to show instead of your number?

-- Maggie (aaa@aaa.com), October 26, 1999.

Maggie,

Erase the Anonymous#### default name, and type in the name you want to use. Then hit the button marked "Change". It will automatically update your name in the room.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-deja.com), October 26, 1999.

Thanks Bokonen. Nice music, too!

Now I know where I can go when "Server too busy"...

-- mommacarestx (nospam@thanks.net), October 26, 1999.

I've been appreciating the opportunity to chat in "real" time with folks who before I've only read in posts. Thanks, Bok!

Humans, as with other primate kin learn through "play"....Rasty's comment seems fitting.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), October 27, 1999.

thanks Bokonon! Great idea!

Is it possible to colorize the entries? Mike mentioned that, and it sounded like a winner idea!

J

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), October 27, 1999.