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
• Chrisopher St. John

IRC transcripts

These are plantext 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>

Adium X

Adium X is currently developing an XML-based log format. This is version 0.3:

<chat date="2005-11-20" account="mactigerz" service="AIM" version="0.3">
    <event type="windowOpened" time=""/>
    <message sender="chz16" time="">'sup?</message>
    <message sender="mactigerz" time="">trying to get to work on the the new XML log format</message>
    <message sender="chz16" time="">Doesn't sound bad.</message>
    <message sender="chz16" time="">Providing you have the log specs, of course.</message>
    <message sender="mactigerz" time="">that's what I'm creating.</message>
    <status type="offline" sender="chz16" time=""/>
    <status type="online" sender="chz16" time=""/>
    <status type="away" sender="mactigerz" time="">brb, working on the XML log format</status>
    <event type="windowClosed" time=""/>
</chat>

This format remains under development, so this page may not reflect the current version of the format.

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>
 ...

ChatZilla Internal Format

Note that there is no proof that this format is being used "in the wild." ChatZilla uses HTML as its presentation layer. This heavily elided excerpt shows two lines from a chat. It gives the flavor (a very big table with each row a chat message divided up into three columns: timestamp, user name and the message itself) but there are many more classes in use in a full log.

<div id="messages-outer">
 ...
 <div id="output">
  ...
  <table view-type="IRCChannel" class="msg-table">
   <tbody>
    <tr mark="even" msg-user="cks_ ME!"
     statusText="01/31/2006 01:39 PM, cks_!n=chatzill@ppp-70-248-121-149.dsl.rcsntx.swbell.net"
     view-type="IRCChannel" dest-type="IRCChannel" msg-dest="#microformats"
     msg-type="PRIVMSG" class="msg">
     <td time-s="57" time-n="39" time-h="13" time-d="31" time-m="01" time-y="2006" class="msg-timestamp">
     </td>
     <td class="msg-user">
      <span>cks_</span>
     </td>
     <td class="msg-data">
      <span>so, using chatzilla for just a minute so i can extract the logs.</span>
     </td>
    </tr>
    <tr mark="odd" msg-user="Atamido" statusText="01/31/2006 01:43 PM, Atamido!n=atamido@cpe-67-9-173-252.austin.res.rr.com"
     view-type="IRCChannel" dest-type="IRCChannel" msg-dest="#microformats"
     msg-type="PRIVMSG" class="msg">
     <td time-s="25" time-n="43" time-h="13" time-d="31" time-m="01" time-y="2006" class="msg-timestamp">
     </td>
     <td class="msg-user">
      <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/Atamido,isnick" class="chatzilla-link">
       <span>Atamido</span>
      </a>
     </td>
     <td class="msg-data">
      <span>
       Here are some examples.
       <a target="_content" class="chatzilla-link" href="http://www.hacksrus.com/%7Eginda/chatzilla/motifs.html">
        http://www.hacksrus.<wbr>
        com/~ginda/chatzilla/<wbr>
        motifs.html<wbr>
       </a>
      </span>
     </td>
    </tr>
   </tbody>
  </table>
 </div>
</div>

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

<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>