Residents Chat
Welcome to The Residents chat room! You'll notice right away that there are two chat spaces - one is for Residents discussion and the other is for non-Residents discussion (don't worry, it's not a hard and fast rule, just a nice way to focus). Not much in the way of rules other than the obvious "be respectful." Your chat moderator is goatie.
The Menu
There's a yellow button labeled "Menu" at the bottom. This is your best friend. From here you can do all sorts of things, which vary depending on whether you are a lurker or a registered user. Stuff like update your user pic, turn the chat noise on or off, sign out, etc. Unfortunately, with some mobile devices the menu is fairly useless. A user settings page that is independent of the actual chat is scheduled to come along. Hang in there.Otherwise, Pretty Much The Same
This chat looks a little different, but functions like a chat. There's a big box with words, there's a smaller box for your words. You type something in the smaller box, hit enter, and that something shows up in the big box.Need Help?
The site administrator uses the name "goatie" when in chat, but many regulars will be able to offer assistance. If there's nobody around to help, you can send a message to:web@residents.com and we'll try to sort out your problem. Please be sure to describe your issue in detail - the more information you provide, the more likely you can be helped.Logging In
Guest Account (lurker)
Logging in is pretty easy. To be a guest, you just need to enter a username that's not already in use (you can skip the password). If there's not already an account with that name, you're in. If there is an account with that name, then you need a password. So choose a unique name (you probably already know one if you've been here before). You will be identified in the chat with that name, plus "(lurker)" because why not?Registered Account
If you want to register a permanent account, use the "Register new user" link from the menu. It will ask for a username, password, and your email address. The email address will be kept in case you ever forget your password and need a reset. We currently have no plans to abuse that information, but if we do we'll be sure to let you know so you can opt in receive the abuse (the possible abuses we have in mind are along the lines of sending you special chat-related messages, not anything sinister like giving your address to the Bunny Boy so he can pester you incessantly).
You should be automatically logged in when you register, but if not you can refresh the page and enter your username and password. We haven't set up the "forgot my password, please reset it" thing yet, so to get a reset send an email toweb@residents.com . The goat will get back to you to verify your identity.Issues Logging In
Make sure you have fairly recent software. This chat largely uses jQuery and HTML5, so if you're limping along on a machine that is old enough to vote, the Internet as a whole is moving away from you. So update your browser, clear your cache... burn some blue rosebuds in a bronze jar? At this point I'm kind of at a loss. If you have trouble, write toweb@residents.com with details about your system (OS, browser, version number, etc). MORE IMPORTANTLY - if you previously had trouble but you fixed it, please share what you did so we can help others.Here's some fun: some people have trouble logging in to the chat that's embedded in the main Residents website. It's a cookie thing. You'll want to make sure you set your browser to accept third party cookies. Alternatively, you can access the chat directly (from the individual text links under each room or click here for the standalone double chat).
Chat Things
Timestamps
The timestamp on chat messages is set to California time. We decided that since everything else revolves around The Residents, why not the time as well? Also, it's going to make planning for events much easier. If you ever ask yourself "if the event happens at 11:00 in California, when is that for me?" you can answer that with "oh, it's whenever it's 11:00 in the chat. Gee, that's helpful."New Message Frequency
If you are a registered user the chat checks for updates every two seconds. If you are a lurker (a user who isn't registered but is signed in to chat) then updates come every six seconds. If you are not logged in at all (an intruder), then the chat will only update once every 20 seconds. Membership has its benefits.Bog Advertising
The chat box dedicated to the Residents listens to what people say and offers up a picture and Historical link if it thinks it might help the conversation. You can turn this on and off with the "Be boring" and "Be less boring" options in the menu.