Awesome site! I've been visited this site for a while and I must say it's one of my favourite to viist. I didn't notice there was a forum. Seems like the forum is nice to .

My mini-question is that of an IRC channel. Does UT have an IRC channel? If there isn't an IRC channel is there any you could recommend? I'm a fan of real-time chat and space channels never occured to me until I realized UT had a forum.

Keep up the good work guys.

Welcome to the UT forums Crespo Vieri. Glad you're enjoying the place.

Universe Today doesn't have a real time chat at this time. It has been discussed in the past but the main problem is one of constant moderation. People have spawned blogs etc from UT but no IRC chats so far that I know of. You can give it a go if you like .. (with a non-UT disclaimer of course )

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Crespo', I have never seen before such a site, very amazing site "UT".

sunil.

Thanks for the information Josh. I don't think I'd try to give a go at it. I'm not that good at administering anything. Would be nice if someone started something though. Maybe some time in the near future something will spark up .

sunil: Very correct indeed.

At the moment, as Josh says there is a problem of moderating IRC. In addition there are some other difficulties:

- What would the channel be used for? Back and forth about how cool something is? Easy Q&A about astronomy? As someone who gives answers a lot here, I can tell you that I do not have the free time to monitor a chat window where people can ask me science questions.

- For more detailed issues, I really need time to do some research before giving an answer. I can't do this in real time. Chat is just awful for that.

So most likely a UT IRC chat room will end up being like a Singles 'party' room in that lots of young people with questions will be there, and for the most part anyone there with answers will be a fake, but you won't be able to tell.

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Forming opinions as we speak

we seem to have a default sort of chat room where you can add someone of interest to your msn etc and if they are on line you can have a personal chat.
i think this would be a targeted chat room situation and eliminates the confusion of the chat room and any one that abuses say the msn link will quickly be deleted from that personal contact.

my own experience of chat rooms are that as soon as they get too popular they attract rat bag sorts and eventually they are shut down

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inventing and writing forum
You dont know how little you know.
till you know enought
to know that you still know nothing

and sometimes a posting can draw replies within minutes ... and you don't get a chance to catch a breath!

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