What is IRC?

For me, I don't need my e-mail box crowded with stuff. Also other family members would start looking at our talks and whatever. My brother is particularly nosy and will try to get his hands on so its just better for me to stay out the chat rooms. Also, family doesn't like being on the computer all day.

give you only ONE reason? I'll give you a few instead

Reason #1: chat rooms are blocked at my work
Reason #2: for work I'm on a computer all the time, when I get home, I don't really want to spend too much time on my home computer
Reason #3: the few times I have been in the chat room, it seems like a lot of people are from the east coast and i'm from the west coast so if i get on there around 9:30-10pm a lot of people were gone already

So I hope that answers your question. I agree that it's good resource but it's not for everyone.

FYI - IRC doesn't involve email. You can try out the chat room by visiting the link in my signature, and clicking on the green button that says "enter chat room". You need to have Java installed on your computer for it to work. (Java is a common browser extension)

Many IRC clients do keep logs of conversations, but you can disable that feature. The webchat client on the ppxchat home page doesn't keep logs.

If you remember the old "BBS" or Bulletin board systems that were popular perhaps 20 years ago, IRC will seem familiar.

At this point, I think participants are reasonably scattered across continental US time zones. The level of conversation will change throughout the day - typically the regular participants will "lurk" almost all day, but get into occasional conversations. 11pm to 12:45 est is probably the busiest time as folks chat while waiting in hopes of a leaderboard update, and the flips that often start right after the update.

I like to think of it as a friendly neighborhood bar without the beer and pretzels.

Visit www.ppxchat.com A great place to meet PPXers and learn strategy.