It seems, digging several dozens of feet deep in the earth supporting this board, that the history of this insanity has gone on for decades.
No-where else has this team of researchers found a board so utterly stuck, nay, embedded, in the barest beginnings of an actual conversation.
Take, for example, a cave full of bats. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bats fly in and out, under cover of pure darkness, shreiking "Hello!! Hello!!", and all that happens is they stink up a nice cave with bat-sweat and heaping piles of guano. Their fruitless one-word vocabulary keeps them from doing anything but eating and deficating. These bats could scarcely be accused of 'chatting', much less 'conversation'.
And, as written above, so it seems to go on this board. You see, we (and, I'm supposing, you) are humans; we have many, MANY words at our disposal. Numbers, also; as a species, we have developed the ability to count past the number three, despite the conviction of the members here that the only use of integers is to shout out 'one two three', supposedly to NOT start a chat, which, now that I think about it, must severely restrict your ability to play 'hide and see', as after the guy whos 'it' reaches three, he could probably spin around and tag every one of you out before you even got under cover, much less hidden.
In respect to the above, I AM impressed by the recent 'change-up' of having to shout out "777" before NOT chatting. This refreshing breeze at least takes the stress and strain off the first three numbers.
I have to ask, in the end, the following. Have any of you found the "chat" button, on the main page of the kids section? You can click it, and you will be in an actual chat room. Kewl trick, eh?
Failing that, you could make a simple post on the board saying hello, and talking about something (cars, horses, ballet, the number "three", etc) and then waiting to see someone post a reply.
Oh, here's an idea. Instead of random numbers, how about making ap post suggesting a time and day to talk in the chat room mentioned above? You could make a post saying "Hi, I'm (your name). Lets chat on Friday at 7pm GMT!".
You see how those things may work better than yelling the same thing over and over again, like pea-brained bats in a dark cave? (I mean that in the nicest way, of course).
I know my words will be wasted and nobody will read through this endless rant... but if just one conversation is saved... one chat rescued from abandonment and abject loneliness... then I have done something good.
Chat 'em if you got 'em.[/i]