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A chat room or chatroom is an online site in which people can chat online. Sometimes these venues are moderated either by limiting who is allowed to speak, or by having moderation volunteers patrol the venue watching for disruptive or otherwise undesirable behavior.
Chat systems come in a variety of styles ranging from text only messaging systems to fully immersive 3D environments. By far the most common form in recent times is instant messaging (ICQ, AIM, MSN, Jabber, etc). Some would argue that these are not truly chat rooms as they are characterized by being one on one conversations with people in a users "buddy list". However as the popular media has confused the issue, this brief description is included here. Recently these systems have started to incorporate the ability to chat with multiple people simultaneously, but these are still conversations restricted to the users buddy list, not a cocktail/block party style venue as true chat rooms are.
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