Introduction
Polyglot has a chat room that works on the program you use to view websites. You don't have to download or install any special software to use it.
After logging in, you just have to click on the link Chat room to enter it. This link is on the left panel of Polyglot.
Overview
This is how our chat room looks like:
- Last messages sent
- Users online
- Text box for typing your own messages
The room is open to all Polyglot users and may be accessed at any time. However, if you want to practise a specific language, check the time zone of the countries where that language is spoken to have an idea of what is the best time to join the chat.
Nicks
The nicks (short for nicknames) of online users are shown on the right side of the window. Notice that not everybody is chatting in fact. Some people enter the chat while doing something else, so be patient if it takes a while for them to reply to your messages.
- Nicks in red: users who are currently typing messages
- Nicks in gray: users who are away
Tell people you are not there
To tell people that you are away from your keyboard, you may use the away command. For example, if you type:
- /away I'll be back later
Everytime people send you a private message, they will see that message (i.e. I'll be back later). When you are back, just type /back to remove the away status from your nick. Don't forget to always type a slash (/) before commands.
Operators
People with a star next to their nick are operators (moderators, administrators) of the room. They help users and ban misbehaving people from the room. Feel free to ask them for help.
Smilies
You may insert smilies with the Smilies option or by typing their codes. For example, :) generates 
.
Using the translator
To use the translation feature, click on "Translation".
- The first part of the above example means: I want you to translate my messages to Romanian
- The second part means: I want you to translate the messages of other people to English
Calling people's attention
You should not use capital letters or repeat yourself many times to call people's attention. A better way to do that is to type users' nicks. You may do that by typing the first letters of a nick and then Tab.
Private messages (PMs)
You can talk to other users privately. Please ask them permission in the room before sending any private message. If they agree with you, click on their nick twice to start the conversation.
You may chat in the room and in multiple PMs at the same time. Use the tabs at the top of the screen to swap accross the different windows.
Ignoring members
If you don't like someone, but they are not necessarily violating the rules, you may simply block their messages. Type the following lines to do so (change nick by the nickname of the annoying person):
- /ignore nick - Ignore the user in this room
- /unignore nick - Unignore the user in this room
- /silence +nick - Ignore the user in PM
- /silence -nick - Unignore the user in PM