> I REALLY don't like private rooms in RinkChat. Why? Well, in many ways, they epitomize to me the worst aspects of the elitisism (is that a word?) that tends to be one of our common failings in this community.

Someone really needs to explain this one to me. What exactly is wrong about this? I hear people complaining all the time about elitism (you were close ;-}) because some of us would prefer to hang out in private rooms with friends. Hell, the reason Ellmyruh and I haven't spoken to each other in at least a year is largely because she found it an irredeemable sin that I would rather use private rooms.

This whole idea seems to revolve around some concept of "I'm responsible to entertain everyone else and make everyone else feel warm and fuzzy and welcome," and that's simply untrue. If I go to chat, it's to entertain *me.* To talk to people *I* want to talk to. And if the public rooms are filled with people I don't want to talk to, I go to a private room. Why is this a bad thing?

Frankly, and I hope I'm not giving away any dirty secrets here, we've had private rooms for longer than most people realise. For a while, a second instance of chat lived at an alternate URL as a place for those who knew to get together. Now, private rooms are more public - everyone knows they're an option, anyone can create one. This fairly eliminates any "inner circleness" that the original system may have involved. So what's the problem?