chat-examples

chat examples

Examples of how chat transcripts are marked up currently, with the idea of moving towards a

Authors

• Kevin Marks
• Robert Boyce
• Christopher St. John

IRC transcripts

These are plaintext logs with space separated fields, so are posted wrapped in <pre>

12:06 Tantek: what does the datetime stamp represent?
12:07 KevinMarks: in iRC, when it was said
12:07 Tantek: is it a point in time *before* they started speaking?
12:07 Tantek: or *after*?
12:07 Tantek: or somewhere in the *middle*?
12:07 KevinMarks: usually it is quantised to seconds
12:07 KevinMarks: and it is time the msg was received
12:07 Tantek: but the second they started typing or pressed return?
12:08 KevinMarks: prssed return i think

Or as plaintext + <br> (eg http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/8/25/1169654.html)

(22:20) gturneruk: oh, i just remembered. windows 95 is ten years old today
(22:22) Suw: good god. i mean, i shouldn't be surprised, it being 2005 and all. but still, where did that time go?
(22:22) gturneruk: lost clusters
(22:23) Suw: i obviously need to defrag

xChat2 log format

**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Wed May 14 04:36:29 2003

May 14 04:36:29 -->     You are now talking on #test
May 14 04:36:29 ---     Topic for #test is Test Topic
May 14 04:36:29 ---     Topic for #test set by nick1 at Thu May  8 18:45:05
May 14 04:58:45 ---     You are now known as nick1
May 14 05:03:44 -->     nick1 (~nick1@2.1.3.narf-42905) has joined #test
May 14 05:05:48 <nick1> test message
May 14 05:10:24 *       nick1 test action
May 14 05:11:19 <--     nick1 has quit (quit)

**** ENDING LOGGING AT Fri Jul  4 00:28:22 2003

Snak log format

Log file opened at: 5/26/04 12:00:11 AM
[12:00:11:] nick1: test message
[12:10:29:] * nick1 test action
[12:13:16:] ***: nick2 (~nick2@test.net) has joined the channel
[12:20:35:] ***: nick2 has quit IRC ("Computer going to sleep...")
[12:21:31:] ***: You have joined the channel
Log file closed at: 5/26/04 2:29:08 AM

iChat transcripts

iChat handles timestamps differently, inserting them between statement blocks, every 5 minutes.

12:25 AM
Reconnecting to tantekatwork…
Kevin Marks: So, iChat shows timestamps between entries
Tantek: yes
Tantek: what about Adium?
12:30 AM
Kevin Marks: my copy is 230 days old...

Bash.org

Bash.org and other QDBs collect funny IRC transcripts and let people vote on them. They use plaintext + <br />, wrapped in <p> http://bash.org/?23396

<Donut[AFK]> HEY EURAKARTE
<Donut[AFK]> INSULT
<Eurakarte> RETORT
<Donut[AFK]> COUNTER-RETORT
<Eurakarte> QUESTIONING OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE
<Donut[AFK]> SUGGESTION TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
<Eurakarte> NOTATION THAT YOU CREATE A VACUUM
<Donut[AFK]> RIPOSTE
<Donut[AFK]> ADDON RIPOSTE
<Eurakarte> COUNTER-RIPOSTE
<Donut[AFK]> COUNTER-COUNTER RIPOSTE
<Eurakarte> NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON
<Miles_Prower> RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES
<Eurakarte> WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD
<Miles_Prower> ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS

Log Library

Log Library displays a tabular format with divs

<div class="row" name="GusVanNos">
   <div class="timestamp">18:36:28</div>
   <div class="nick"><GusVanNos></div> 
   <div class="message">.+. is a lazy way of saying .{2,}</div>
</div>

<div class="row" name="jawong">
    <div class="timestamp">18:36:48</div>
    <div class="nick"><jawong></div>
    <div class="message">your model is waaaay better, xal.</div>
</div>

JWZ

http://www.jwz.org/hacks/irc2html.pl was used to generate the irc logs for Bar Camp Dallas : http://barcamp.org/f/barcampdallas-irc.html

<table bgcolor="#ffffff">
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <td bgcolor="#eeeeee" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top">
    <font color="#000000">
     <i>[2006/01/28 11:21:34] </i>
    </font>
   </td>
   <td bgcolor="#eeeeee" valign="top">
    <font color="#000000">
     <i>@ jdunck joined channel #barcampdallas</i>
    </font>
   </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="top">
    <font color="#000000">
     <i>[2006/01/28 11:21:40] </i>
    </font>
   </td>
   <td valign="top">
    <font color="#000000">
     <i><tantek> is there a subethaedit-compatible client on windows?</i>
   </font>
  </td>
 </tr>
 ...

MSN Messenger XML Format Logs

Examples at: http://stupidpeople.commo.de/logs/After%20August%202004/, there are a bunch there but not sure how widespread it is. General structure appears to be a Log element wrapper, with toplevel Join and Message elements. It's a little strange how the To element has children indicating all the recepients, normally that would be implicit, but there may be a reason that isn't clear just from this example. Original posting for example: http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-February/002937.html Note that these get published with a stylesheet that makes them viewable directly, they appear to be human-directed.

<Log FirstSessionID="1" LastSessionID="1">
 <Join Date="9/12/2004" Time="6:48:20 PM" DateTime="2004-09-12T23:48:20.716Z" SessionID="1">
  <User FriendlyName="'' Quando não tem oq se ama...É preciso amar oq se tem!!! ''"/>
  <Text Style="color:#008000; ">
   '' Quando não tem oq se ama...É preciso amar oq se tem!!! '' has been added to the conversation.
  </Text>
 </Join>
 <Message Date="9/12/2004" Time="6:48:20 PM" DateTime="2004-09-12T23:48:20.846Z" SessionID="1">
  <From>
   <User FriendlyName="Você vive inventando maneiras pra dizer semp pra dizer que me quer!!"/>
  </From>
  <To>
   <User FriendlyName="http://commo.de/StupidPeople/"/>
   <User FriendlyName=":@TE ODEIO:@"/>
   <User FriendlyName="|I{•------»Victor«------•}I|1 2 3 o corh fregueis! -LLUSSAA EOOOO"/>
   <User FriendlyName=""Tô com sono!!! Acho que vo durmi!!!""/>
   <User FriendlyName="||||Gabriel||||| A Clockwork Orange.."/>
   <User FriendlyName="Pensar para acertar, Calar para resistir, Agir para vencer"/>
   <User FriendlyName="*>.Jessy.<*genteeeeeeeemmmmmmm..trokeiser  tá  aqui:09098217635!!!"/>
  </To>
  <Text Style="font-family:Sylfaen; color:#ff0000; ">
   nossa qnta gente
  </Text>
 </Message>
</Log>

ILRT Logger Bot Format

Found at: http://chatlogs.planetrdf.com/swig/, generated by: http://cvs.ilrt.org/cvsweb/redland/logger/, there are three formats: HTML, plain text, and RDF. The RDF format is described on the chat-formats page, this entry discussed the HTML and plain text files, as they appear to be directed at people.

<div class="log">
 <p>
  <span class="time" id="T00-27-42"><a href="#T00-27-42">00:27:42</a></span>
  <span class="nick"><CaptSolo></span>
  <span class="comment">Gromgull: nice quote re. x years later</span>
 </p>
 <p>
  <span class="time" id="T00-27-57"><a href="#T00-27-57">00:27:57</a></span>
  <span class="nick"><CaptSolo></span>
  <span class="comment">Gromgull: what could one do with those 17mb of invalid n3?</span>
 </p>
 <p>
  <span class="time" id="T01-38-48"><a href="#T01-38-48">01:38:48</a></span>
  <span class="nick"><karlUshi></span>
  <span class="comment">
   <a href="http://aaronland.info/python/pyupcoming/">
    http://aaronland.info/python/pyupcoming/
   </a>
  </span>
 </p>
</div>

Trillian Internal Format

This is for an AIM chat, but one for a Yahoo! chat looks the same. It is saved as plaintext as well as XML. (user1 is local).

Plaintext:

Session Start (user1:user2): Fri Apr 01 17:43:06 2005
[17:43] user2: ping
[17:43] *** Auto-response sent to user2: My hovercraft is full of eels.
[17:46] user1: hey
Session Close (user2): Fri Apr 01 17:47:00 2005

The same in XML:

<session type="start" time="1112395386" medium="AIM" to="user2" from="user1"/>
<message type="incoming_privateMessage" time="1112395386" medium="AIM" to="user1" from="user2" from_display="user2" text="ping"/>
<message type="information_standard" time="1112395387" medium="AIM" text="Auto%2Dresponse%20sent%20to%20user2%3A%20My%20hovercraft%20is%20full%20of%20eels%2E"/>
<message type="outgoing_privateMessage" time="1112395573" medium="AIM" to="user2" from="user1" from_display="user1" text="hey"/>
<session type="stop" time="1112395619" medium="AIM" to="user2" from="user1"/>

There is also a "user2-assets.xml" file for stuff like Buddy icons & file transers:

<asset medium="AIM" name="user2" link="C%3A%5CProgram%20Files%5CTrillian%5Cusers%5Cdefault%5Cbuddyicons%5Cassets%5CAIM%2Duser2%2D1118046544%2Ejpg"/>
<asset medium="AIM" name="user2" link="D%3A%5CPIX%5CY2005%5C0619%5CMOV02050%2EMPG"/>
<asset medium="AIM" name="user2" link="C%3A%5CDocuments%20and%20Settings%5Cant%5CDesktop%5CDSCN0372_resize%2EJPG"/>
<asset medium="AIM" name="user2" link="C%3A%5CProgram%20Files%5CTrillian%5Cusers%5Cdefault%5Cbuddyicons%5Cassets%5CAIM%2Duser2%2D1133932754%2Ejpg"/>

See Also

• chat-formats