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    Communication on the Internet takes on various forms.  I have been observing a few chat rooms  for several factors:  Greetings, Good-byes, clarity of speech, personal appearance, and how personal is the speech used in chat rooms. Are chat rooms used as informal meeting places and social meeting places. Do the members of these synchronous and asynchronous gatherings show signs of a community? How do they differ and what similarities do they share? 

    Greetings of the chat rooms differ in that they range from the most familiar (calling members by real life names) to the most general (greeting to the entire room). I have witnessed some rooms in which the members meet on a daily basis and have certain rituals they perform upon entering and leaving each evening, such as updating the group on their favorite Rock Star's happenings.  These members are aware of the other people's presence in the room and question a member about their personal real life activities when they have not been present in the chat room for an unstated amount of time.  One could perceive these daily meetings much in the same way as a family gathering. The members of these rooms have a close knit relationship with one another and are brought together not by kinship ties but by a shared interest, and possibly location. When members leave these rooms for the evening, the good-byes tend to be a longer drawn out session of individual good-byes and farewell messages for each person they interact with most. One particular person I observed said their first good-bye and some ten minutes later finally exited the room. 

    Unlike the daily meetings of the aforementioned chat rooms are the Saloons and general "meet the public" type of chat rooms (Observed on America On-line). One finds a more formal greeting, usually "Hi" to the entire room.   There is less personalized information, for example the most frequently expressed topics are: weather, age, and gender of each member.  In my experience, the younger members of the Internet are most interested in these public rooms. Upon leaving these rooms I have found it is not necessary to say a formal good bye unless engaged in a conversation with another member.  Frequently I have found that many members enter and exit these rooms without typing any text at all.  The mood of these chat rooms remind me more of a group of people who are waiting for a bus. They share a common goal, yet the interaction seems to be a superficial exchange of impersonal information. 

    There are also private chat rooms in which only those who are invited may enter. I often use these rooms to speak with other members of my family. Several family members of mine also subscribe to AOL.  Communication between these members and myself has never been so frequent, or as intimate.  The distance between each user and the ease with which one can express one's feelings without immediate consequences have played a major role in my own relational communications. I have also observed the same for other members I know well in the virtual world and in real life. Some topics and general thought that would never be spoken aloud between us face-to-face seem quite a natural topic for discussion in the virtual setting. Within these familial discussions syntax, grammar, and political correctness seem to give way for the expression of feelings, emotions, and information exchange. Since several members of my family have gained access to the Internet and American On-line at different times, we each have a different level of experience and are better aquainted with different aspects. One member would never hesitate to contact another or all of us to find out if we have dealt with the situation at hand before. 

    Several interactive games include a text box for members to chat amongst themselves. At the beginning of such games members usually include a short greeting to the room and include the state (or country) which they are from.  If one or more happen to be from the same general location, or have family within the general area, there is usually an exchange of information about the area. I have witnessed all ranges from those who have lived a couple of houses away from one another to those who live over 100 miles away in the same state. Most members are helpful with aquainting new members with the etiquette and information about the game. Each game begins initially with ten members. At this stage, personal information exchange tends to be surface information. Many times, members will exchange opinions over which games they favor. I have noticed that as the second game begins (usually 5 or less members) the conversation, if there is one, tends to be slightly more personal. An example might be opinions over political news, or the latest game available. As the members in the room drop to 3 or less, the other members try to include everyone in the room in the conversation. If one member is not active in the conversation at this point they are believed to be: 1) a slow typist 2) antisocial or 3) otherwise ccupied. 

    Do such meeting places show signs of a community? What is your definition of a community? In each of the chat rooms I have studied, there was some type of connection made between the users. Is that a community? I cannot say. There is something to say about the relationships made and maintained between users in the chat rooms; a connection and/or relationship between Internet users is unique and deserves a more in-depth study.

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