Say hello to the blog chatterbox...

Down the left sidebar, you'll see a new addition to the blog: the RamPage Chatterbox. I'm still experimenting with it, so don't be surprised if it moves around a bit or if its title changes.

The chatterbox is a widget to make it easy for you to communicate with everyone else dropping by the blog. I installed it for two particular reasons:

1. Sometimes we all want to say hi or chat, but are reluctant to add a formal, long-lasting comment to a post, especially if we don't feel as if we have something to contribute directly on topic. The chatterbox is a place to have a free-form chat without any worries about social propriety.

2. I have yet to find a blind-header e-mail widget in Blogger that will let you contact me more directly. Because I don't really want to post my e-mail for where all the spambots can find it ( I get enough as it is...), the chatterbox can serve that contact function for now.

All I ask is that we keep chatterbox content relatively clean and respectful.

No commercial ads, please. Listing your blog website in the chatterbox is OK.

I would especially hate to have to remove it if it gets abused in antisocial ways. Similar to the policy on comments to this blog, if you wouldn't do it in someone else's house, don't do it here.

That said, I have a pretty high tolerance for funny repartee -- so have at it, with good judgment. ;-)

You can either use it where it is on the page, or you can click the second icon from the left (next to the cartoon balloon) and see it in a popup unit, assuming you are permitting popups off my blog (and you should -- I don't tolerate commercial popups here ;-).

You can also click the book icon next to the popup window icon, so as to see a history of the last 150 posts to the chatterbox.

Have fun with it! All in the service of building the blog community!

Now, if only I could get the GoogleAds scripts to behave so nicely...