This chat room is provided for those who want to talk about robber flies (Order Diptera: Family Asilidae), but live too far apart to use a phone regularly. With this service and some luck the tiny and dispersed world community of "Asilidologists" can have some real discussions, much as if we were all sitting at a bar somewhere. You will have to provide your own beer, though! You may also use this for one-on-one conversations. For more public get-togethers, post meeting times on the asilid listserver (http://asilidae.listbot.com), and be sure to specify the time zone. BTW, anything you say here is public, and can be accessed using a standard Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client at the channel "#asilid". It is also worth noting that the messages posted here are ephemeral: once the chat room has been closed down they disappear forever. Also, when you first get here, be patient. The pages may take a few minutes to load. During exceptionally busy periods the server (irc.webmaster.com) may also refuse a connection. Last, once you are connected, you can use this interface to join other channels, none of which has anything to do with robber flies. Some of these channels may be downright weird or even pornographic. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to turn this feature off. So be warned!