I think I'll start by saying that I've noted the sort of decline in Rinkchat that you mentioned and, unfortunately, I also must admit to being part of the cause. I still try to frequent it a fair amount because, for the most part I do enjoy, the communal atmosphere. However, for a variety of reasons I'm not there even remotely as much as I was about two years or so. I certainly enjoy Rinkchat (and the rest of Rinkworks too) -- don't get me wrong -- but at the same time there are certainly many more things that are pressing for my time now that I'm at University then there were when I was going to high school!

Not that all the extra work and the time restraints is the main reason why I'm not around all that much. Truth be told, it's more of an excuse than a reason, though time considerations is an important thing to take note of. Personally, when I'm in Rinkchat, I always like to be there at *all times*. True, sometimes I might go idle because I don't have anything to say, but it's very rare that I'm logged onto Rinkchat and actually away from the screen for more than about a minute or two (or however long it takes to go to the bathroom :-P ) at a time. As a result, when I'm around Rinkchat it's rare that I'd be doing much of anything else that takes a fair amount of time that I really need to get done -- such as doing my homework, for example. True, it's quite arguable that Rinkchat is more important than my work but... hey, I *do* want to pass all my courses here! Therefore, especially around now when there are final term projects and exams and all of that, often time in Rinkchat is one of the first things to go. It's a wonderful place to go to and enjoy and all and I'd love to be able to spend more time there then I am right now... but it's still not as much a priority as many other things are for me right now. (Of course, hopefully after exams are over I can be around more!)

Since both AIM and Livejournal have been brought up, I think it best that I give my own opinions on both of those, considering that I use both. I don't use either as a replacement for the Rinkchat -- I personally think that all three forms have their own place -- but it is true that they may contribute to me participating a bit less in Rinkworks as a whole these days.

First, AIM. I have to admit that it's my primary form of long-distance communication with many friends right now. I keep it on for as long as my computer is on, which is practically 24/7. It's what I use for general communication and sort of like an answering machine, too. The reason that I tend to use it a fair bit more than I use Rinkchat, though, is pretty much *because* it's not communal in nature and, rather, one-on-one talking. It's true that occasionally I have just general fun conversations over AIM that would fit well in Rinkchat, but by and far the conversations I have tend to be much more personal, private, and often much more serious. In other words, not the sort of conversation that would suit a communal audience at all, even if all of them were good friends. Also, there's no random noise in that sort of a medium -- which is a very good thing on heavy, serious topics when they often require a long and well-thought-out reply. It's not uncommon for me to be writing for five minutes before I actually send a message (Yes, I'm often long-winded. Yes, just from reading this post I'm sure that's obvious. Shush. :-P ) -- if I wrote such messages in Rinkchat during an active time, the message that I'd actually have been responding to would probably have been long since gone and my own message could be quite out of place.

In addition, I actually find AIM to be a lot *less* disruptive to thinking about other things than Rinkchat is. Generally I'm only actively talking with one or maybe two people over AIM at a time and I tend to get a fair amount of lull-time, which I can use to study or do simple homework tasks. Also, it lets me know whenever there's a new message, which is helpful if I'm working on the floor or something. Which I often am. Contrarily, in Rinkchat there are often many people talking at once. To have the ability to respond at the moment, I'm often paying it almost full attention when I'm in a room and thus really can't work on anything else. Therefore, when I decide to go into Rinkchat I have to have already have decided to spend a fair amount of time in there without much else going on so that I can enjoy the communal nature of it.

And as another little thing about AIM that I like... it's much easier to log my own conversations with people through that medium. I find this rather important when I combine that with the bit about having much more serious conversations over AIM, where the ability to look back and see what has been said before on a different day can be rather important.

Obviously though, AIM is no substitute for Rinkchat at all. Rather, it's a different mode of communication for a different purpose. When I want (and have the time!) to socialize and talk with others, I'll take Rinkchat. But when I don't have all that much spare time and/or wish to talk about very personal, private, and serious things, I'll use AIM.

Livejournal, too, is another form of communication I use, for a different purpose than I would the message forum or Rinkchat or anything else. I certainly don't use it as a way to keep in contact with friends. More often than not, I keep it just as a personal diary of events concerning me that I let other people see if they have the inclination to. By and far, though, it's the monotonous, unimportant stuff that goes on there, though. Things that I certainly wouldn't want to post to the message forum at all because, well, to put it simply, it would be crap. :-P I'm sure that no one here really cares that today has been a rather boring day for me and that I had a sandwich for lunch and took an uneventful bus ride home and other generally uninteresting personal stuff like that. I'm sure that a lot of my friends don't even care about that stuff, and if they don't read my Livejournal then, honestly, I don't think they're missing anything at all. True, occasionally I put important stuff there too, but usually I'd have already talked about such things to anyone around in Rinkchat and a few friends that were on AIM before it goes in my journal.

In short, it's a whole bunch of stuff that I just don't think is of the quality necessary to put a post up here. After all, from all of my experiences I have come to expect a very high quality out of the Rinkforum, and I'd hate disrespect it by posting random stuff about my life that no one cares about! One unfortunate side effect of this, though, is sometimes I get something mostly typed out to post on the Rinkforum that is of questionable quality and, usually, I end up hitting the little "X" button in the corner of the screen rather than the post button. I probably *shouldn't* do that, but... it's what I do, it would seem. Especially when I'm not quite willing to spend the vast amount of time (and thought) that I personally like to take on something that I post here.

So... those are my thoughts on the issue; take from that what you will. And again, though I use those other forms of communication I certainly don't want to abandon Rinkworks at all. I like the community and the people that make up the community. Though it's true I don't participate as much as I may have before (or as much as I want to, for that matter -- though that's something I hope to change a fair bit after University is out), the community of Rinkworks is something that I enjoy very much. And some of the friendships formed through Rinkchat I know I'll always have with me.

-Robert