LIVE CHAT! YES, YOU TOO CAN CHAT WITH REAL! LIVE! (SEXY?) MEFITES!

July 3, 2011 10:49 AM

Didn't see this in the FAQ: is there an online venue where one can chat live with fellow Mefites? I know there's nothing official sponsored by the site, but what's the most popular of any home-brewed solutions?
posted by WCityMike to MetaFilter-Related at 10:49 AM (37 comments total)

To the best of my knowldge there are

- the IRC channel, don't know much about it
- tinychat which was up and running for a while and I have no idea of its status
- spin-off sites that sometimes have associated IRC channels or more realtime discussion happening [metachat is the one I know offhand, but I think MeFightClub is similar, maybe?]

I'd be curious to know about others.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:52 AM on July 3, 2011

(Eek, just to clarify, BTW, the "sexy?" in the post title was me being cute with the parody. I'm not looking for sexting, just wondering if there are venues for normal discussion where one is apt to find a lot of Mefites.)
posted by WCityMike at 10:52 AM on July 3, 2011

After realizing I hadn't checked out the MeFi Wiki, just tried tinychat and was the only one on, so I don't think that's much of an active venue.
posted by WCityMike at 10:53 AM on July 3, 2011

Google+ has a video chat thingie that supports I think up to 8 people in a chat. I haven't used it yet, but putting out a "who wants to chat" message to your MeFi circle on Google+ would be trivially easy.
posted by COD at 10:53 AM on July 3, 2011

I should add I also suspect it'll get you blocked by at least half the people, so you know, YMMV.
posted by COD at 10:54 AM on July 3, 2011

What? We're live right now!
What did you want to chat about?
posted by ryanrs at 10:59 AM on July 3, 2011

a/s/l?
posted by stavrogin at 11:04 AM on July 3, 2011

12/f/maryland

u?
posted by ryanrs at 11:11 AM on July 3, 2011

I'm a 20 year old psychology student at Middlebury named Monica. I do some part time modeling on the side.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:12 AM on July 3, 2011

Which side? I prefer the left.
posted by flabdablet at 11:18 AM on July 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

j/k! ^_^

<img src="dick17.jpg">
posted by ryanrs at 11:18 AM on July 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

- the IRC channel, don't know much about it

If I am not mistaken, it is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
posted by griphus at 11:20 AM on July 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yeah, as far as IRC there's #bunnies, #mofirc, and #mefi all on slashnet, which are populated mostly by Monkeyfilterers, Metachatters, and, uh, charmingly abrasive lapsed Mefites respectively; and on lunarnet there's #mefightclub for games-and-whatever discussion. All of those are regularly populated, none are really exactly Metafilter Chat but there's varying cohorts of recognizable mefites in the mix.

There's the aforementioned tinychat thing that only seems to flare up now and then.

There's as of more recently GoodListnr and Collaborative Jukebox, both mefite-grown shared mp3 listening rooms with chat functionality, lots of fun but also prone to inactivity most of the time.

There was a Jabber server back in the mists of time forgotten.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:28 AM on July 3, 2011

Both pedantic and obvious: the Metachatterers are in #bunnies, while the Monkeyfilterers are in #mofirc.
posted by box at 12:06 PM on July 3, 2011

Oops, yes, I was using one of the more opaque mappings of "respectively" there, apparently.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:29 PM on July 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

So far I'm enjoying Google+'s hangout. I'm hoping as more people use the service normally it will be more spontaneous as so far it's required a bit of "Hey let's try this, ok did you get the invite, now I can't hear you" type shenanigans. Definite potential though.
posted by Skorgu at 12:43 PM on July 3, 2011

I have hopes for Google+, but so far none of the invites I've been promised have materialized.
posted by pjern at 12:47 PM on July 3, 2011

Really? I added you to the MeFi Mag circle on Google+, pjern, which should have sent you an invite if you weren't already on.
posted by klangklangston at 1:33 PM on July 3, 2011

No invites here, either, despite my sister having explicitly sent me one – I don't think invites are going out, period, for the moment.
posted by WCityMike at 1:43 PM on July 3, 2011

Nope, no invites have come in yet....
posted by pjern at 2:02 PM on July 3, 2011

WCityMike writes "After realizing I hadn't checked out the MeFi Wiki, just tried tinychat and was the only one on, so I don't think that's much of an active venue."

I'm not saying tinychat is used alot, I haven't been on since shortly after it was announced, but smack dab in the middle of the first American long weekend of the summer might not be the best time to check usage.
posted by Mitheral at 2:27 PM on July 3, 2011

They don't actually *look* like invites, mine said:

Good Bye Facebook!...lol (whatever the person 'shared')
View or comment on $person's post »
The Google+ project is currently working out all the kinks with a small group of testers. If you're not able to access Google+, please check back again soon.

With a big red

Learn more about Google+

button. That one either took you to a make-or-migrate profile page or a "we're full for now" page.

So far I've had the best luck sharing a "This is an invite" status update with a few people's email addresses explicitly and removing all my circles. 100% hit rate so far.
posted by Skorgu at 2:32 PM on July 3, 2011

Yes, there is a great MeFi chat venue. It's www.chatroulette.com. You're welcome.
posted by 1000monkeys at 3:00 PM on July 3, 2011

I, too, would like a Google+ invite.
posted by killdevil at 3:09 PM on July 3, 2011

I've had G+ invites sent to me. All of them fail. I suspect the spigot is off for now.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:19 PM on July 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like invites. And G+ must be better than G-, right?
posted by trip and a half at 4:00 PM on July 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Download Team Fortress 2 for free and chat with fellow MeFites in-game while they shoot you in the face!

Seriously though join the MeFightclub, my Steam username is "turgid dahlia" and nobody seems to be playing Left 4 Dead 2 which sucks.
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:34 PM on July 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know, if you want to see a camshot of my penis that badly, you're welcome to ask.
posted by item at 4:39 PM on July 3, 2011

Oh I recall IRC, the best was planning an invasion of Ohio.
posted by clavdivs at 6:31 PM on July 3, 2011

There was/is an XMPP/Jabber server I setup that even does authentication for MetaFilter users. Sadly very few people ever tried it. Sorta "build it and they won't come" thing.

It might even still work for signups. It's on an AWS small server and the scripts/cron jobs that run things haven't been touched in ages. people who signed up.

The actual XMPP server part is still up and running (I'm the only one there... :( ).

I think the general consensus was that MetaFilter proper didn't really want to have a sanctioned chat server.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:33 PM on July 3, 2011

Original post: MeFi XMPP/Jabber chat. I think it also suffered from "low front page MetaTalk post count" and disappeared before many people even noticed.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:05 PM on July 3, 2011

To whomever Patrick Hahn is on Mefi, thank you for the Google+ invite, but evidently even if you have an invite, Google isn't letting anyone in anymore for the moment. This seems appropriate.
posted by WCityMike at 4:29 AM on July 4, 2011

The friend who first sucked me into Facebook, six years ago, says the trick with Google+ is to try every 20 minutes or so once you get word that someone just got in. It was definitely working around 10pm EST last night - several of his buddies managed to squeeze in. Sadly, I wasn't one of them; I don't care quite enough to make my Sunday evening all about it.
posted by SMPA at 4:46 AM on July 4, 2011

says the trick with Google+ is to try every 20 minutes or so once you get word that someone just got in.

That's like saying the trick to playing the lottery is to keep buying tickets. Someone, after all, is winning. That's not a trick, that's desperation.

I'm sure a few people are getting through for one reason or another (random luck, mistake, etc.). But for the most part, it's closed. It won't be a secret when it's back open.
posted by justgary at 5:05 AM on July 4, 2011

You wanna chat with me, you can come hang out on my back porch. Admission is on six-pack of beer.
posted by jonmc at 6:26 AM on July 4, 2011

GoodListnr is defintely lots of fun if you get a good crowd of people. We should whole-heartedly embrace that space!
posted by h00py at 8:52 AM on July 4, 2011

Hyphen unnecessary? Oh, edit window. Just a little one (shaped like an arch).
posted by h00py at 8:53 AM on July 4, 2011