Hudson chat

For those who have never been to the chatroom, here's a brief explanation. Our Hudson chatroom's been in operation since the late 1990's. The room is always "open" but if no one's there, nothing happens.



First, you have to register to use the room. You don't have to put an e-mail address if you don't want to. With luck, next time you come to the room you'll be registered and won't have to keep signing in.



To "talk", you simply type a message in the small box, then push the POST button. Your message appears to the right, with the rest of the messages, some of which may have been put there hour or even days ago. It depends on whether anyone else is "in the room".



If someone else is watching, they may respond to you by typing their own message and posting it to the box at the right. Then you can respond (in the same way you made your original posting). And so it goes. A third, fourth or fifth person may chime in with their own postings. As people leave, they simply excuse themselves (good manners!) and off they go. There is no set time. Anyone can come to the room at any time of day, but he may not encounter anyone there. Unless, by pre-arrangement, they've agreed to meet at a particular time.



There are little refinements but I won't go into them. One is worth mentioning. If you use the vertical "scroll bar" just to the right of the message screen, you will see a little window at the top of the page entitled "WHO IS IN THIS ROOM?" By clicking the blue "down arrow" next to the window, you can see the names of anyone who happens to be "lurking" in the room, waiting for someone to talk to. (Of course, that person might have "tuned in" the room and then gone off on an errand, leaving people with the impression that he's just sitting there waiting to talk....)



Here's the chatroom link again, if anyone's interested: http://classiccar.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=66