What is a person who participates in computer network chatting, called?

Question

I just wrote the word “chatter”, but then, googling it, I found no definition in the direction of “one who participates in a computer based chat”. Can the role of such a person be called a “chatter”? If not, then what?

Example usage:

With a Turing test anything that would place the computer at even more of a disadvantage than it already is, is strictly forbidden. Hence the text only chat communication with the skeptics/critics/judges (whatever). One doesn’t want an observant skeptic noting, say, that one chatter is metallic with a lot of electric wires, while the other one looks and sounds very much like a human female, has a glass of water at her side, and even wears a nice perfume.

Answer 1

The old school way is to refer to them as "chat users" or "chat room users"

Google provides the proof

"chat user" 411,000 results
"chat member" 235,000 results

"Please follow the rules when communicating with other chat room users."

If you google users with "chat room" , you will find 7,000,000 results. The first results will show popular companies referring to "chat room users" on their websites.

Answer 2

My take is the proper and correct word is chatter, and that any ambiguity created by other, parallel, meanings of that word will be resolved by context, just like everything else.

Having said that, if you're really in need of an alternative, you may consider interlocutor.

From Collins:

interlocutor: a person who takes part in a conversation.

And again from Wikipedia:

In linguistics, discourse analysis, and related fields an interlocutor is a person involved in a conversation or dialogue.

Edit: Just noticed @DavidPugh previously suggested this in the comments under the question. Credit where it's due!

Answer 3

In common sense 'chat users' is the way to go - going vice versa , few foreign languages I know all use a local analog of it . In the Turing test case though, as it is more of an experiment I'd say 'participant' .

Answer 4

I think that a common definition is:

• chat member

From The Internet Encyclopedia:

• This type of implementation tends to be significantly slower at distributing messages to chat members.

From Writing and Digital Media

• IC contributions are usually sent to the server for distribution to the other chat members only when the writer presses the RETURN key to dispatch what is usually a line of text, though in some systems like Hotline the limit may be as much as ...

From www.computerworld.com:

• Anonymous member arrested during online chat after threat against FBI

Answer 5

On IRC, one of the oldest chat networks, participants in a chat were simply called : "user".

Answer 6

"mudders" or "spods"

A mid-80's technology that is the ancestor to both modern MMORPGs and to what we know as internet chat today was the old Telnet client "multiple user dungeons" or "multiple user domains", called MUDs. Users were called "mudders", and chat-only MUDs with game elements removed, known as "talkers", had users called "spods"

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spod

spod (plural spods) 1.(Internet) one who uses talkers

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/talker

talker (plural talkers) ... 5.(Internet) A stripped-down version of a MUD which is designed for talking, that predates instant messengers; a kind of early chat room.

Answer 7

Other answers cover the most appropriate terms, but I'd like to add one more option:

Since your question seeks to describe participants in a Turing test, you might call these participants test candidates, or just candidates (in other words, they are "competing" for candidacy of the status of "most humanlike" in the eyes of the test administrators).

Answer 8

Since you've already used "person" and "participant" in the question itself, you're obviously looking for more specific terms. Chatter in the sense of "one who chats" is not defined in any dictionary I have found. As already mentioned, an interlocutor is "a person who takes part in a conversation or dialogue." This is accurate, but it's a five-syllable mouthful. "Conversationalist" and "dialogist" are equally accurate but cumbersome. "Talker" and "Speaker" are only two syllables each, but the idea of chatting back and forth is lost.

To discover or create a more specific term for “one who participates in a computer based chat” it may be helpful to specifically define "computer based chat" or give it a richer context.

Services such as AIM, Skype, Facebook Chat and Hangouts havse uers.
Chat rooms and forums, usually classify their users as moderators, members, and guests, indicating role permissions in the environment.
Meetings (online or otherwise) typically have one or more hosts, presenters,speakers, participants, attendees, listeners, or observers. Similarly, a talk show usually has a host, staff, guests, and an audience.

So many terms, but none of them unambiguously referring to chat users. I'm not sure there is a one-word solution without supporting context.