Still lurking?

[Vilhem]

typically on IRC, people stayin the chat all the time. They aren't always monitoring the chat but may still be doing something on the PC. If you type a chat and include a person's name, their client will usually produce a ding sound to let them know someone is trying to talk to them.

Too many people don't understand this though, and pop into a chat, wait 5 seconds, and leave when they don't see any activity.

This. Lol.

I tab to chat every so often but people run away after not even waiting a minute or so lol. I mean, I'm not gonna sit and stare at the chat window all day, but I do leave it open and tab over to it while I'm doing other stuff.