Miscellaneous Forum

Somehow I "stumbled" into VT and at the time was Not into internet chatting.
However, the few people who were in the VT chat room were so funny and welcoming that I came back, and back, and back. Like most of you know, it does
become an addiction and soon I was in there daily, usually in the quiet of the evening. Ghosthunter asked me how many members were in the original VT and I cannot answer, however, there were only a handfull. I would say perhaps there were 30 or so "regulars". Some of the names I remember are:Gorfey, Athena, Sayville, Courtney_Ks, GHB, Russ 45, Davy, TwoOldMen, Pathfinder,Kiwi,Siberian, Sunny, Gus (in Athens), and Snow. I am forgetting some I know. And we did have members who seemed to pride themselves on stirring up trouble and "flooding" the chat. When a couple of us complained that the moderators (mainly Big SKY) were not in the chat room all the time to boot out these offenders, he decided to make three of us moderators so we could boot out the "bad guys". Gorfey, Athena and I were given that priviledge and we used it with responsibility and respect. Perhaps those who are still around can help me out with more information.....I do remember being so thrilled that there were people from around the world and we chatted about our countries, cultures, foods, travels, etc. And we chatted about "nothing". One of the nice things of chat that we all liked was the ability to send a "private" message to someone in the chat. Once in a while someone would say something that they thought no one else would see and then they accidentally forget to send it "private"....talk about pulling your foot out of your mouth....OMG. Such fond memories.....hey, I'm still here aren't I? Any other "Originals" in here who can help out with information???

oops....I forgot some other members from 98, 99, 2000:
topoftheworl, maggie, ombre, spartan, le_beba.............

Hi Song,

well I joined in March 2001, and at that time their was an active chatroom, but anyone from the outside could come in.

It got nasty at times.

Then, VT kind of blocked "outsiders".

I do miss the chat room though, it was fun.

Outsiders were allowed in from the beginning....and some were rude. Even when they tried to sneak back in after being booted out, we could tell it was the same person because at that time, their ISP? IPS?? number showed up when they entered the chat room. We gave 3-4 warnings/boots and then after that they were banned.

It was very nasty at that time.

There was Travelinman, Krystynn, Kristara (that was my old username), that I can remember off the top of my head.

Those were the days...:)

hahaha...chats and forums have always had and will always have a certain amount of soap-opera drama. :)

We might bring the chats back if we have a chance to plug something in that's easy, and performs well...

The forums though are essentially chats but without 500 people talking at once ;)

I forgot to mention that I remember Gus (from athens) he had some really great html's before the whole vtml started, he also had the first Antartica page..

I loved vt then, sure do miss it

the chat room was great, at first when the outsiders were in, they terrorized the room and attacked Vt'ers. you just had to sort through the stuff.

Then when it got cleaned up, and only Vt'ers were allowed, it was great.

get that one going again G!

Gus from Athens was an interesting person. He was in a wheelchair and had to type his words with a pencil in his mouth. Snow from Sweden took a liking to him and ended up moving to Greece to be with him. Actually Podge from Ireland met Courtney_Ks in the chat room and they are now married and living in her homestate of Kansas.......I believe Le Bebe and Le Beba met in there and and and.....not sure of that outcome....marriage maybe.....I met Pathfinder from Canada and checked him out for Sayville.......he was a true French gentleman from Canada.....I believe she and he eventually met in person....oh my.....

STOP THE PRESS!!!!!!!!!!! Did I hear G say they MIGHT bring the chat back???
Wow,,,,,,,,,,,sign me up.

I can't believe it'll be 9 years in November that I have been a consistent ACTIVE memeber...time does fly...

A chat room would be quite interesting to have now with so many members (and "characters" too)!

I peeked in now and then with an earlier id back then. But I never did get the hang of chat LOL. I did try chat for a period in 2000, and I remember a "peter" from Holland and ...... who was that female from Ireland?
Sad what happened to Russ45. I remember some other VT'ers that knew him personally. I wonder if any of them are about any more?

Twinkle/Carnation was the chat room moderator when I joined in early 2001. She and Gus were good friends. I remember when he died.
Twinkle met TedRico in the chatroom. They got married and she moved to the US. I don't see her much on VT anymore.
There was also a Luis from Peru, LeDragon from Canada, Zentrinko who lived in Russia and Topoftheworld from San Francisco. Also Redlats from Canada and of course, eventually we got Hansi to be the monitor.

The chatroom was fun but you had to be a fast typist to keep up with the conversation. Also lots of superficial small talk...anything serious had to be summarized in a few words ;-)
Jeannette

oops..big mistake. It was Russ45 who died, not Gus. Sorry.
Jeannette

I have a very long list of '99ers on VT and I'm amazed at how many of them are still around :-)) SONG and BROOKS are two 98ers I have known a long time :-)

Our Hansi (Waalewiener) was also a moderator I believe. I enjoyed the chat a lot. In my time there were also more Dutchies. Nighthawk stands out in my memory :-)

I remember looking at the chat thing once and it looked like chaos. There were some oddballs and one (self confessed) drunk woman who used to harass me. I didn't know how to report morons back then. That was Jan 2002. The next month I emailed MAYKAL who helped me with a trip to Syria and I posted him some souvenirs I picked up. He was the first out of more than a dozen folks I emailed who never responded. About 2004 one of the members encourage me to build tips. Since about 2004 I find if I email someone they help me with info. Have used hotels, restaurants, etc. from members talking to me. Its really evolved and much more helpful to get info.

Real Travellers = Real Info!

"There were some oddballs and one (self confessed) drunk woman who used to harass me."

DAO, I swear it was not me :-)
Jeannette

She was from either Ukraine or Russia. Long since gone.

You can harass me, I don't mind.

And then there was that person who encouraged you to go to a VT meet ;-)

If an IRC chat were set up would people use it?

Member Carnation had a chatroom for VTers in Scintilla4u once the VT room closed. She ran it for many years, but really it didn't take off.

There was always an alternative IRC chat, maintained by Carnation: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/2e4b0/

I didn't enjoy it as much as the VT chat, because anyone could enter under any name so you didn't know who you were talking to.

Yes it was fun but moderating for me was a challenge ,Hasan and Topper were often in deep and sometimes way deep discussion ,and that Sir 25 I believe he wanted to always talk about blowing up things .
Carnation asked me to help moderate and Jyan was my teacher in these days I knew very very little about anything that had to do with a computer Jyan taught me soo much .
Igraine Ingrid from the Netherlands was also a moderator .
Wiley Coyote was there and Phill from Orange county Calif ,what was the Banana ladies name she had a large Ape on her PPP always .
Of course CatherineCG was there and we miss her dearly .
Many many others were there ,several Dutchies as well .
It was fun but it took a lot of my time but I enjoyed it and made many friends .

Hansi

It was sometime in late 2001 that VT switched over to mIRC chat and many of us either did not know how to install the program, could not install it for some reason, or simply refused to install it. Carnation came on the scene and
a majority of the chatters dropped out. For some reaon chat was not the same after the mIRC conversion. I personally would not care to have an IRC chat room.....cannot even say why , other than I do not have/know the program.
I believe Jeannette said that you had to type r-e-a-l-l-y fast in the chat or get left behind.....man, did my typing skills improve while I was in there.
Someone mentioned "weirdos"....any one remember ...was it DAna, the girl from Israel who got in a BIG knock down drag out one night??? And Siberian kept us informed of his love project getting his Russian bride into his homeland of Australia (hence his nickname)......

Chat was way to timeconsuming for me. I use one-to-one chat at times to teach someone how to do something. I find that useful, but a full on chatroom just consumed time like a child with an icecream!!

On reflection tho, way back in 98, VT was not really much happening. it was exciting if someone just came online at the same time as you. That's how some of us go real friendly with the staff as it was really just staff, their friends and family and a few oddbodds around the globe. Features of the site were few and it's so much better now. Apart from when the forums arrived and html was still allowed, it's far more "colourful" now than back then. The site sure has progressed a lot since then :-)

Now hold on just a second..........."oddballs".....lol

The typing of course was a BIG problem for me
I never typed a word in my whole life before VT ,so I just did the best I could
And boy did I do some booboos.

My name waalewiener was too long for the chatroom so I made it Waal .
So it did not take very long for someone to call my typing errors ''Waalisms ''
or something like that .

I did not care I was learning how to type and I got better and better at it.
But I agree with Pam Kiwi ,this chatroom took way too much of my time .
Luckely I was allready retired so I did have a lot of time .

Hansi

SONG,

There is some old fun stored starting at 2000 at:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.virtualtourist.com

I cannot help you with much more on those earlier two years, but some bits and pieces are saved. Good that you ask for those.

PJ