| term | definition | |
|---|---|---|
| A | admin | Administrators are the people in charge of the talker, who's word is final. |
| advertising | The act of logging on to a talker specifically to promote another (potentially rival) talker. This is acceptable in some circumstances, provided you ask a member of staff first. | |
| auto | Automessages, or autos, are periodic messages which pop up to fill in a bit of background atmosphere for a room. Automessages are configurable in rooms you own. | |
| B | banish | If a player is banished, it means that player's name can no longer be used to log onto that talker. |
| C | client | Whatever program you use to connect to the talker, for example TinyFugue, zMud or telnet. |
| E | emote | In talker parlance, to perform an action, or to express an emotion. |
| ewtoo | A talker code base. Most talkers are descended from the same common ancestor: EW-TOO by Simon Marsh. see also: nuts. |
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| H | home | Each resident has a home room, which he or she can customise to his or her personal tastes. This room is private, and the owner can restrict access to listed individuals or groups, ensuring private conversations can remain private. |
| M | Residents can send a primitive form 'mail' to one another, which is a useful way of leaving a message for someone who is currently offline. | |
| MOTD | Message Of The Day. The MOTD is the first message you see after having logged on, typically informing you of any system news. | |
| MUD | Multi-User-Dungeon. A MUD (or MUG, or any of a number of other TLAs) is a text-based role-palying on-line game, which at first may appear similar to a talker. However, the object of a talker is to talk, and not, for example, to compete with other players to win the Flaming Sword of Justice. see also: TLA. |
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| N | newbie | Talker virgin. When you first log on to a talker, you will be classed as a newbie. You will need to ask a superuser to grant you residency. see also: resident, superuser. |
| news | Most talkers have a news posting or bulletin board type system. | |
| nuts | A talker code base. see also: ewtoo. |
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| nuke | To be nuked is to have all your player files, login time, custom settings and general character deleted. see also: warning. |
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| P | player | While talkers aren't games as such, all people using them, staff - residents and newbies alike - are sometimes refered to as players. Don't let this make you confuse talkers with MUDs. |
| priv | Privileges. Each player has certain privs to allow him or her more or less control over the talker. For example, the ability to send mail is a priv, and can be granted or removed by an administrator. | |
| R | redundant | Pointless. see also: redundant. |
| resident | Someone who is resident on a talker has a saved character so they can log on with a username and password and use their own customised settings. This is the most common type of person found on talkers. When you join as a newbie, ask a superuser to grant you residency. | |
| robot | A robot, or bot, is a computer-generated player. They don't usually offer much in the way of interaction, and are included in some talkers to add to the atmosphere. | |
| room | Talkers are divided into many different rooms. While each room may have a different theme, they are only really there to allow people to have seperate discussions. | |
| S | social | An alias for a potentially long-winded emote. A command designed to strip all the individuality from a player. In general players who use socials might as well be robots. see also: robots, autos. |
| spam | The act of filling the conversation with repetetive messages, typically advertising in the main room. Not tolerated. | |
| spod | Talker veteran, someone who spends a lot of time on talkers. | |
| staff | Staff on a talker consist of superusers and administrators - and sometimes other levels as well, generally anyone with more responsibility than that given to a normal resident. | |
| superuser | A superuser (SU) is a staff member who has the responsibilities of looking after the day-to-day running of the talker and moderating the rooms. Most importantly for the newbie, superusers can grant you residency and help you get started. There may be many such superusers on any particular talker. | |
| T | talker | The program which you connect to to chat, not a person who is talking. |
| TLA | Three Letter Acronym. | |
| trigger | Some talker clients allow the use of triggers, which send a string of text of commands to the talker whenever a specified phrase is printed. see also: client. |
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| W | warning | A warning is an official message, which is logged, which member of staff may give to another player when he or she is out of line. |