Elly and I were having a private chat today on chat, using the private chat feature, and another member who was there could see everything we were saying. We tested different things, for instance when Elly talked to Anna in private chat I couldn't see it but when Elly and I talked, Ana could see it. Just wondering why? And a little warning, if you're wanting to talk about something very private, it might not be working.

Edit: On testing this out, I could see Leandra and Elly's private chats as well when they were private chatting with each other.

This was quite awkward, realizing someone's listening to your private chats.

I meant to post some kind of warning about this somewhere and didn't know where and thus forgot to do it... the private chat feature was never actually finished and is therefore not actually done. It has a lot of problems, and shouldn't be used for actual private chatting.

In other words, feel free to use it for fun, but not to actually be private. It's also not supported, I understand, since Dieki is working on a completely new chat system.

Ooh; thanks for explaining that, Vanya. I was able to delete the ones that were for both our ears only, so that was ok. At least now we know not to use it.

Thank you, Vanya.

Yeah, private chat is pretty broken right now. The issue isn't so much that it was never finished; it's an inherent design flaw.

When you post a normal chat, it gets sent to the Holy Worlds server, which then sends it off to all the computers currently connected to chat. When you post a private chat, it still sends it to all the computers, even the ones that aren't supposed to see it. However, it includes an instruction telling those computers not to display the post, just to forget it's there.

However, some browsers ignore those instructions, so some people are still seeing the chat. It's also possible to tell your computer to ignore these instructions, but none of us are malicious enough to do that.

The right way to do it is the have the Holy Worlds server only send the private chats to the computers which are actually supposed to have it. That would make reading other people's private chats impossible. Unfortunately it's very difficult to do within the current chat framework.


Now, this isn't the only thing that's hard to do with the current chat system. There's a bunch of other stuff we want - chat logs, separate rooms, avatars, and more. For this reason, we've decided that chat needs a complete rewrite, which I'm working on right now. The new chat does private chatting right, so nobody will be able to see it.

Until then, I recommend that you use PMs instead of HW Chat for stuff you don't want other people to see.

I should make an announcement or something, so everyone knows that. Thanks for the explanation, Dieki!

I am sooooo sorry I feel so embarassed !!!

It wasn't your fault, Ana darling!!

There was a private chat feature?

Is. Next time you're in chat get someone to show it to you. There doesn't appear to be a thread.

Varon, there is a list of peoples names who are on chat at the same time as you, click on the green dot by their name (The one that goes from orange to red when you don't chat for a while) their name will appear something like this [*Varon] in the chat bar, type after that and the chat will go to them directly. If you don't click on the dot by your name as well you will not see the chat you sent.

I didn't know that.

*huggles Ana* It's not your fault. I didn't know private chat was broken.

The new chat is live, so this issue has been resolved.

Then this must be obsolete.

*ring glitters as thread disappears in Q&A and reappears in the Library*