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Feelingpink
19th-December-2006, 10:09 PM
I'm organising an on-line weekly get-together of about 10 people - but this number could change to 20 or so. Would IM/Adium be the best way of organising this - and if so - how? I 'think' I remember chatting to two people simultaneously once - but how do I get back there again - and is there a limit to the number of people who can use this at once? Or would other options be better?

As far as I know, none of us is technologically challenged ... but none of us is that IT-zoned either. :sad:

ducasi
20th-December-2006, 12:27 AM
Probably the "best" way of doing this would be using an IRC server and clients, but I'm not sure how easy it is to lay your hands on an IRC server you can use in the manner you'd like. (Perhaps there is an IRC geek around to give some pointers?)

Otherwise, a group chat using MSN or Yahoo (everyone must be on the same system of course!) via a client like Adium, or similar is not a bad way to go... Assuming you've got everyone in your Contact List, all you need to do is right-click (control-click) on each contact and select the appropriate "Multiuser Chat" option.

Think that's all there is to it...

Hope that helps. :)

Dreadful Scathe
20th-December-2006, 10:19 AM
rather than install an IRC client (like GAIM or Trillian or MIRC) use one of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_chat_sites)

killingtime
20th-December-2006, 12:41 PM
Probably the "best" way of doing this would be using an IRC server and clients, but I'm not sure how easy it is to lay your hands on an IRC server you can use in the manner you'd like. (Perhaps there is an IRC geek around to give some pointers?)

Haven't done it with IRC but have with Jabber. Lots of Jabber servers support hosting a conference (http://www.jabber.org/user/userguide/#groupchat) (and a private one at that). Jabber.org being one of them. I'm pretty sure you don't need to be a user of their service to host a conference with them. Then everyone can using the client of their choice (http://www.jabber.org/software/clients.shtml) (as long as it isn't the Google Talk client which still doesn't support multiuser chat :( ). Someone sets up the room and everyone else can get into it if they know the password. If that person has everyones details then that will help sort out where it is and such. Some clients, I think, allow you to invite in a similar way to MSN Messenger, others don't. Adium supports conferencing from Jabber (AFAIK).

I'm a big Jabber geek as a whole since it really believe in it's interoperability and open standards.

ducasi
20th-December-2006, 02:12 PM
Some clients, I think, allow you to invite in a similar way to MSN Messenger, others don't. Adium supports conferencing from Jabber (AFAIK).
I don't see a facility to start a multi-user chat on either of my Jabber accounts using Adium – otherwise, I would have included it along with MSN and Yahoo. :)

Andreas
20th-December-2006, 02:46 PM
I haven't tried group chats with Adium using Jabber as such but it does work with MSN as the protocol. However, my experience (haven't tried it in ages) was that initiating a group chat was a bit of a tricky one. Most of the time only one member at best did receive the invitation. Being part of a Messenger-initiated group chat works fine. Perhaps they have remedied this in one of the later versions, not sure.

As IRC client, I liked using Colloquy in the past.
http://colloquy.info/

killingtime
20th-December-2006, 03:49 PM
I don't see a facility to start a multi-user chat on either of my Jabber accounts using Adium – otherwise, I would have included it along with MSN and Yahoo. :)

Looks like you are right. Reading the FAQ (on IRC (http://trac.adiumx.com/wiki/InternetRelayChat)):

..."should be done until 1.5. That's the release we're planning on improving group chat for. At that time, we'd like to fully implement Jabber group chat".

Since we are on 0.89 at the moment then it looks like it will be a bit before we get support for good ol' XEP 45 (http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html)