Quick Question

Naturyl · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:08 pm Post subject: Quick Question

What happened to the Normal Bob Smith chat? I wasn't able to attend, but I had been looking forward to the transcript, as NBS seems liked an interesting type of guy. There is no transcript, and all mention of the chat seems to have been removed. Was he a no-show, or did something go horribly wrong in the chat session, or what? Inquiring minds want to know.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 10:36 am Post subject: Re: Quick Question

The chat was a flop. Here is what happened...

We began the chat in the BookTalk chat room where I have control and moderation abilities. If someone enters the room and causes problems I can boot them with ease, allowing the discussion to continue smoothly.

Bob Smith was unable to use our chat room for some technical reason. So we migrated over to his own chat room, which unfortunately, did not allow me any control at all over the session. One individual entered the chat room and spammed and spammed and spammed. He is one of Normal Bob Smiths "hate email" people, and he did his best to destroy the flow of the chat session by copying and pasting large paragraphs of nonsense into the chat room. The result was chaos that could not really be addressed.

In the future I will spend more time preparing for these chat sessions so that I am confident that the guest is able to use our chat room with ease. That would have solved this problem.

Yes, I agree that Bob Smith is an interesting person. Perhaps we'll have him back when we can address the chat technical problem.

Chris

Tiarella · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: Quick Question

How came you to select Bob Smith? If you recall, I attended that chat. What discussion there was, was utterly banal.

Using the 'ignore' command took care of the spammer, so I don't see as we can blame him for the lack of interesting conversation.

But perhaps I am the only one who found it boring.

I do have some flamboyant friends and relatives; Bob seemed tame to me.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:10 pm Post subject: Re: Quick Question

Yes, it was a rather boring chat session too. Silly questions and no real topic. Personally, I'd rather stick with academic chat sessions in the future. We have a focus with those chats and they don't attract spammers.

Chris

jerkinabottle · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:44 am Post subject: Re: Quick Question

I'm upset that I missed the chat with Ann Druyan. Do you think we'll ever get her to come back sometime?

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 6:27 pm Post subject: Re: Quick Question

I think we'd have no problem getting Ann back for a chat session. We need to either read one of her books or have an in depth discussion about a topic near and dear to her before I would feel comfortable requesting her as a guest. Ann was the nicest guest we've had to date. By nice, I mean friendly and cordial and going above and beyond what I expected out of a guest.

Chris


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