Chat Room

[Slow_Leopard]

There is now a new chat room which can be accessed from the "Chat Room" button which is beside Home, Profile, Logout etc up above the boards.

Currently there is only 1 chat room named "General Discussion".  There may in future be different rooms added as well but all the buttons and links are not quite ready yet.  The "private room" function has also been disabled for the same reason although it is planned to be turned on at some point.  So, enough about what is not there or does not work, here is what does work:

Login
You do not have to login separately, you will automatically log into the chat with your forum name when you click the "Chat Room" button or follow this link: http://forum.chronicfatiguesyndrome.me.uk/chat/ if you are already logged on to the forums.  There is also a link and a look at what is currently being said in General Discussion near the top right of the page, just click the chat bubbles, the ones above the piggy.

If there are people in the chat room the "Chat Room" button will show how many there are.  You can open the chat room in another browser tab or window and continue to browse the forum in your original tabs/windows.  The chat room is really just another web page like the forum, just that it updates itself as people chat.

You can bookmark that link, separately to the forums if you wish although if you are not logged into the forums a little login screen will come up which takes your forum username and password.  Basically if you login to either you login to both although do not appear "chatting" unless you go to the chat page.

Typing a message
Just enter your message in the empty box near the bottom of the screen (above the smilies) then press return or the submit button to the right of the screen.  There is also a little number beside the submit button which is in two parts, it starts off as 0/1040 and the first number before the / will increase with each letter you type.  This is how many of the characters allowed per message you have used (like you get when texting on a mobile phone).  If you run out just send what you have which will reset the it back to zero and you can type the rest in another message.

Smilies
There is a limited set of smilies available, more should become available over time.  We just need to find somewhere neat to put them all so the page is not filled with them when you are trying to read the chat window.

BB Code
Some of the tags like Bold, Link and Image ones are available as in the forum (down by the smilies).  They work in the same way as the forum ones do.  One of the BB Code options is Colour, this opens up a little colour palette where you can chose a colour.  Please try and choose something other people will be able to read if you change it.  There is a user setting (see below) where you can tick a box called "persist font colour", if this is checked then your font colour stays at whatever you did last instead of you having to use a new colour tag each time.

Online Users
To the right of the screen you will see a smaller window than the main one where all the chat is printed.  This window by default shows who is online and gives you some options to do specific things like list who is in the channel.  Remember private channels are currently disabled so if you click the link for that you will get a message back saying you can not do it.  Also note there is only one channel at the moment.

User Options
Below the submit button there are some little icons, the one which looks like two people opens the online user list as described above.  The little spanners instead open your user options where you can change things to suite your own preferences.  There are quite a few options in there so to start with it is probably best if you stick with the defaults if you are unsure although please ask if you want to know what anything is.

[Slow_Leopard]

Feedback
Please reply to the Feedback Post if you have any questions or issues in using the chat room and how to use it.  If you have any problems regarding how the chat room is being used by others please contact one of the admin/moderators.

[Slow_Leopard]

DISCLAIMER

1... Although the Admin and Staff at Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Support will attempt to keep all objectionable content from this Chatroom it is impossible for us to review all messages... as we do not actively monitor the posted messages. Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator of this forum immediately.

2... Any post found to be false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually-oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of ANY law will be immediatly removed and the offending member will receive an immediate ban.

3... The sole purpose of this chat room is to discuss various topics of interest... and the Admin and Staff at Chronic Fatigue Support advise any member not to declare any personal details such as your telephone number nor address to protect your personal safety.

4...With each post you make, your IP address is recorded and in the event that you need to be banned from our C.F.S./M.E. Support Chatroom or your ISP contacted.

Please note that I angeleyes40 Sheppard, nor the staff at Chronic Fatigue Support are responsible, nor liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of, or reliance on, the information given within this Chatroom.... and by using the chat room you are accepting above terms and that you indemnify the administrators against any damages arising in any way to do with your (or anybody else's) use or misuse of this chat room.

These rules are subject to change at any given point, without any prior warning.

[Slow_Leopard]

People sometimes ask when the chatroom is used most.

I did a little number crunching and have the following results, the first graph shows the busiest day (1 is Monday so 4, Thursday is busiest).  The second graph shows how many messages there are each hour, so it is used most of the day but busier from 10pm to midnight.

[Slow_Leopard]

I have added two new boards:

Chatroom Pinboard - A board where you can create posts about what you are talking about in the chatroom.  For example if you want to post something related to your discussion, but it does not really fit ont he main boards as it would be out of context then you can post it here.  See the Read Me First post for this board.

Chatroom Introductions - By member request, please do not confuse this with Introduce Yourself which still exists.  This new board is intended as a more social introduction, photos if you want to include them, times you tend to be in the chatroom etc.  Please see the Read Me First for this board as well.  It explains what the privacy settings of this board mean, and what they do not.

Both of these boards are excluded from the recent post feeds, to avoid cluttering information which is useful to the masses.  They can be accessed via the links above, or by going to the board itself in the members only group of boards.

Please Note: This is not new, these boards have been up for weeks, I just merged in the news with the general chatroom announcement as part of tidying up the announcements.

[Slow_Leopard]

The Chat Room has been a bit quieter recently so I wanted to remind newer members that it exists.

There have also been a few people asking questions in the Chat Room whilst there was nobody else in it.  I used to send such members a forum personal message explaining this but I have not been able recently for my own health reasons.  If you have tried asking a question and are confused as to why there is no answer please bear in mind the chat in the chat room drops off over time, it is intended for live or near live chat.

If you want to ask a question and have members read it over the next few days then reply, please try the forum boards.  If in doubt use the general discussion board here and if there is a better board for your question a moderator will move it for you.