TalkingTo Other People Online

There are several options available to people that want to talk to others on the net or exchange ideas on a subject.

Why would you want to do this?

For people who are isolated socially because of illness, distance, looking for other people that have the same interests as you, support groups or just plain bored. It is a great way to have contact with people and you are in control.

The media reports the horror stories resulting from contact on the net but they fail to report the good side of it. In The Basics section there are a list of do's and don'ts as a guide for maintaining your personal security.

The types of interaction can be delayed as with Mailing Lists or Newsgroups and Forums or real time as with Internet Relay Chat. We will have a brief look at each type, what is it and how to join such a group.

Mailing Lists

These are discussion groups via e-mail. You sent the e-mail to the discussion server and the e-mail is forwarded on to the other members. Your e-mail address is not disclosed to any member. As with newsgroups mailing lists cover a huge range of topics. You may take a few days to write a letter and it could be anything up to a few weeks before you read the responses it is up to you when you do this. The responses are delivered to you e-mail account so when you answer is up to you. This is more like letter writing than chat. Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists has a web site that will supply more information and a list of the groups available at last count there were 7392 lists available at this site.

Newsgroups

First you must know if your ISP supports newsgroups (most do) but check and find out what ones they do support. Just ring the ISP support or helpdesk and ask. After you know this then you can find one or several newsgroups to join.

What are they? You join and can access the postings from the site. Each group has a general topic that it deals with. The members of the group either start a discussions by taking a point of view or asking a question. Other members reply to this and their replies are mailed to the member list.

Usually the replies generate agreement or rebuttle and so it goes. It is like having a general discussion in a large room that everyone is involved. The link here is to a site that has an Australian context but if you wish to range further then search the web for newsgroups and whatever subject you are interested in. VICNET

Newsgroups are usually categorised into sub-groups and named accordingly. The first few letters indicate the group and the rest gives more specific information

com. computers - for the hobbyist and professionals
sci. science - research and practical knowledge
soc. social - social issues
misc. miscellaneous - groups that usually incorporate multiple themes
talk. talk - generally for debate of sharing opinions
news. news - Usenet network and software
rec. recreational - the arts, hobbies and recreational activities
alt. alternative - a wide variety of groups, check out the next set of letters to determine the subject matter

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Bulletin Boards or Forums

These are a little more or less the same as newsgroups but with one difference they are found as part of a website and are topical to the site normally. When you get a reply depends if and when a person accesses the board and wished to reply to your message.

What are they? They cover just as many areas as the newsgroups and you post a message to the board and receive reply's but to do this you must visit the web site. There are support groups, special interest groups (craft, music, travel, seniors) to name a very few. To look for these groups try searching the net but specify the area that you are interested in.

One seniors site that I know of in America has a forum. Wired Seniors this is a general forum with no topic but lots of activity. They have a few rules so read them and then join in.

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Internet Relay Chat

IRC for short and people that use this form of communication are called IRCers. This is the part of online communication that gets all the bad publicity. If you take it slowly and follow a few rules for your personal security (see The Basics page) then you will be OK.

This type of chat is live. When you join a chat room and you type a message and press enter and it can be seen by all the other people that are in the same room as you. There are private chat rooms where people can go off and have a one on one chat and this is where the negative stories come in. Until you become comfortable with this medium I would sugest staying in the main room or channel.

There are many chat programs available for free. You can either join chat rooms on web sites or use an instant messeging program such as ICQ or download others off the web as they work off a server and you need the program to access the server. Some have screens with graphics but most are a screen with typed messages on them. It is recommended that you use a pseudonym for your online persona. Each chat program has its own set of rules and each channel on a server extends those rules if they wish.

Server Based Chat

When you first start to chat it is advisable to talk in rooms that have ops these people are like moderators and warn people if what they are saying is against channel rules or being offensive. They have the power to kick people out of these channels or even ban them for a period of time. If you have problems with anyone then ask the ops for help. In a program like mIRC the ops have a @ before their name, Don't try talking to @ z this is a "bot" or a server. Yahoo chat does not have ops.

When you first join a channel say hi, and tell the people in channel that you are new to chat. It is not uncommon if the channel is busy (lots of chat happening) that you could be overlooked. Jump in and contribute to the conversation. The more you talk in channel the faster people will be to accept you. Don't get disheartened if you are not being talked to at first, ask questions or reply to what is said in channel.

Look for a list of channels on the server to find a room that sounds like you might like to join in Mirc type /list and it will be displayed.

Instant Messaging Chat

With this type of program you have a contact list of friends and when they are connected to the internet it notifies you. You can chat to them as long as they are online. They could be surfing the net or checking e-mail or chatting in a chat program, as long as they are connected you can talk to them no matter where they are on the net.

It is advisable to only receive messages from people on your list. This is a widely used program so other people that you know on the net will probably use it. Get their ICQ number and add them to your list.

MSN and Yahoo messengers work along the same lines but they use e-mail addresses from their sites rather than a number. This means that if you have a hotmail or Yahoo email address respectively then you can use these messenger programs.

This link will take you to the mIRC site. Have a look at this site as there are sections on intro and FAQ about both IRC and mIRC.

The link to ICQ. Have a look around at the web site and FAQ site and decide if you want to add this program.

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