Untergangers Chat

The Untergangers Chat is an independantly run chat room set up by Trapped Antics for Untergangers. It was created on 12 April 2012 when his inspiration for web design came back. It's open to any one to use and does not require sign up (though functionality is somewhat limited for non-logged in users).

Background
The very first suggestion for a chat room was made on 10 January 2012 in the Downfall Parodies Forum's suggestions board by AtomicAntics. Very soon after, HRP set up an IRC-like chat room in the DPF. It doesn't require users to have a forum account to use, but HRP's decision to implement an IRC-like chat instead of IM-like implementations, added with IRC's inherent complexity, proves to be deterring to most.

In order to provide a more user-friendly chat room, and coinciding with the launch of a chat platform on Wikia, the Hitler Parody Wiki enabled Wikia's chat extension some time after after the DPF and was available on the HPW website (i.e. this wiki). Wikia's IM-like chat is more user-friendly, and it attracted some attention. Master Studios would come to the wiki's chat at a certain time of the day regularly, but in the end neither this chat, nor DPF's, seems to be gathering much traffic.

Finally, on 12 April 2012, Johnnomonster set up the current chat room on Chatango's platform. This time it received a very positive feedback from Untergangers. The DPF quickly switched its IRC chat room to the Chatango one, thanks to Chatango's extensive support for embedding their chat on other websites. The wiki's native chat remained in place for some time, until mfaizsyahmi discovered a way to embed the Chatango chat room on the wiki as well, through a chance encounter with a similar implementation in Dead Island Wiki. Around May 2013, the chat is also available on all DPF pages. With the same chat embedded in many websites around the Unterganging sphere, a unified chat room for all Untergangers is achieved.

Support of the chat in the wiki has been found to violate Wikia's Terms of Use by Wikia's staff and had to be taken down on 14 June 2013. After a minor script rewrite to get around the violation, it was reinstated on 7 August 2013, retaining the original look and feel.

Impact
For the first time ever, Untergangers are able to chat in real life with each other. The establishment of the chat has helped fuel collaborations, spread news and ideas, and promote many new Untergangers.

A few in-jokes have developed over time, such as members greeting with the first line of the Numa-Numa song (e.g. "Alo", "Salut" and sometimes humorously continued with "sunt eu un haiduc"), the coining and promulgation of terms such as "Göringitis", TheSilverUniverse being nicknamed the Sleeping Dragon, and so forth. The chat played a crucial role in the community parodies where Untergangers started making parodies about each other based largely on interactions within the chat.

However, the chat is often mistreated as an 'official' chat despite the chat being independently run and rules agreed on by the group of moderators, of which are well received by the majority of its users. The moderators reaffirm their stance on this matter that there are alternatives to the chat and it should not be seen as the only option.

Rules
''Taken directly from the rules page and may not be up to date. For the up-to-date and currently enforced rules go to the official rules page at http://chat.untergangers.org/''
 * No racism or intolerant remarks. National stereotypes in moderation, racial stereotypes are strictly disallowed.
 * No spamming.
 * No meaningless usage of internet acronyms.
 * Game discussion is allowed, but in moderate amounts.
 * Political debate is not allowed.
 * No topic diverting unless its urgent. If no users are interested in your topic, stop discussing it. Serious topics should go before other topics (e.g. MC, Polandball)
 * No role playing and impersonation. Only one username may be used at a time by a single user.
 * Do not flame and insult other users. Criticize constructively.
 * Do not beg for views, votes or subscribers. 'Sub4sub' is strictly banned.
 * Sexual content and discussion should be kept to a minimum.
 * Speak English. Exceptions are very limited.
 * Users must be at least 13 years of age to participate in this chat.
 * Have some formality while using the chat, be modest and respect others, regardless of who they are.
 * Breaching of the rules will result in a temporary ban, generally lasting 1 day to one week. Third ban is permanent. Moderator decision is usually final.
 * Take note that moderation is not limited to only these rules. Users may be banned by moderators discretion as seen fit.

Disclaimer
It should be noted that this chat should not be treated as an 'offical' chat and a user's participation may be refused as seen fit. Matters pertaining to the chat are to be discussed via private message on Chatango or the meta thread, when appropriate.

Moderators

 * Trapped Antics (John) - Founder
 * Mfaizsyahmi
 * JennieParker87
 * DictatorAntics
 * MFDK
 * MabusParodies

Moderators are usually selected by existing moderators in case a new one is required. Moderators are still fully subject to the rules and must enforce them.

The moderators list is periodically changed and moderators may be removed due to but not limited to inactivity, failure to comply with rules and/or failure to enforce rules.

Websites

 * http://dealantics.chatango.com - Original site, full size.
 * http://chat.untergangers.org - Untergangers.org full mirror, no banners
 * http://s1.zetaboards.com/downfallparodies/ - Downfall Parodies Forum, widget docked at lower right corner of browser window (similar to Facebook chat). Available on all pages beginning May 2013.
 * http://s1.zetaboards.com/downfallparodies/pages/chatroom/ - Downfall Parodies Forum - full size embedded chat.
 * http://hitlerparody.wikia.com/ - Docked at the right edge of the viewport (refer to this screenshot).
 * Wiki users have to agree to a disclaimer before the chat is enabled on the user's system.
 * Only appear on pages where the Wikia Rail (the "Recent Wiki Activity", "Photos", etc. modules) appears.
 * Contains extra features - ability to pin/unpin the chat on the current page, and quick links for easy copypasting (customizable on Special:MyPage/chatango)

Controversy
In August 2012, there had been a notable increase in Untergangers going off topic and overusing Internet acronyms when there is nothing remotely humorous to "LOL" about. In addition to that, there had been a notable amount of people participating in talking about games all day and posting videos that have no relevance to the topic of the chat, despite warnings from moderators. To remedy the situation, stricter rules were added and moderation had become stricter - each user was warned once when breaching the rules and banned in the even of future breach. In late 2012, Slainender became the center of controversy. He spoke in the chat with mangled English, which caused frustration with most users in the chat and was severely uneducated about any topic being discussed. Further frustration surfaced when he tried to divert the topic of the chat to discussing his own channel and creations. His banning and had sparked a lot of argument, with the majority of untergangers agreeing with the banning. Ignorance and lack of common sense is looked down upon by most users of the chat, especially when a new user would impersonate a character (especially from Downfall) and use improperly spelt quotes from the film, which is against the rules of the chat. It is also looked down upon when a user shows signs of laziness, asks others to create parodies for them, asking questions which can be easily answered by using a search engine as well as relying entirely on others for ideas and not using their mind. In June 2013, a mild controversy also arose after someone struck Benad361 from the list of moderators, after he had been a successful moderator for almost a year. He was never given an answer to why he was removed from his position but didn't personally ask the admin, causing some confusion as the reason behind his removal remained unknown. It was later confirmed he was removed along with another moderator for long periods of inactivity and was replaced by two newer ones once it was discovered there was controversy behind this, months later. Presumably, his activism was the cause for his inactivity. From August 2013 to the end of 2013, there has also been a persistent controversy regarding GabrielleFluer1947, who's attitude in the chat has sparked dissatisfaction of several regular chat members as it is their belief that she takes things too seriously as well as regularly diverting the topic and posting multiple emotes when something of her distaste is mentioned. When a member make a joke about another member, even though in a friendly way, she would step in to defend the one whom the joke is targeted at although it is not necessary and the recipient of the joke understands it is in a friendly way. Some members also dislike the way she uses French grammar when it comes to punctuation although it's regarding grammar in general. It is also thought that she has started making use of sarcasm in a bad manner whenever someone spoke to her in a way that may be interpreted as critical (although it's usually constructive) but it is currently unclear. She has later setup her own chat in late December 2013, which blatantly plagiarised rules from the Untergangers Chat, causing further controversy and disapproval of herself as well as driving a large amount of users who previously were neutral on the matter to losing respect for her. There has been no more provocative actions from her since the last days of 2013. Simultaneously, AdolfRantsParodies was often visiting the chat to spread the news regarding taboo topics, namely his sexual encounters although it is uncertain whether there was any actual merit to his claims. He was known to ask users of the chat when they first discovered the action of pleasing one's self, sexual intercourse as well as pornography; this was initially seen as humorous by the majority of users but views had changed in the opposite direction after he would repeatedly discuss the topic in every visit, degrading the humour pertaining to the topic. The most notable incident was when a female user of the chat was asked if they had sexual intercourse in the past, driving both controversy and humour. He quickly lost favour in the community. The majority of the chat with the suspected exception of one undisclosed user had grown to despise him based on his actions. After 4 bans in a short time span, he was given a final warning though he had disputed the reasons for his bans; when asked to provide evidence of his actions, he dismissed a screenshot of his actions as fabricated even in the presence of users who had witnessed the incidents. In November 2013, he was permanently banned from the chat after bringing up taboo topics despite warnings. After months later, he still attempts to defend his actions to this day. In March 2014, John (the admin of the chat) asked for users to show restraint after racial stereotypes were frequently posted in the chat. It had come to his attention when he had noticed that a small number of users would frequently make 'jokes' about ethnic groups, mock or express disapproval of certain nationalities, refer to ethnic groups by racial slur and call other users by a stereotypical name pertaining to their ethnicity. Mfaizsyahmi and Soalric agreed with him that the type and frequency of stereotypes being posted was highly obnoxious, with the former feeling put off the chat and taking a break from it (to this day) and the latter expressing concern that due to the nature of the meme, one should be careful about about what they say. On 13 March 2014, John had updated the rules list with terms that would completely disallow stereotypes of ethnic groups to be posted and national stereotypes to be posted very infrequently. The week following the rule update, a few users and moderators decided that they would post stereotypes of ethnic groups and disregard the rule altogether when John was not around. Upon his discovery of this happening, he issued a firmly worded message that having moderator privileges do not make them an exception to the rules and stated that any further violation will result in the moderators in question being demoted; he also reinforced his statement that non-moderators would also be banned if they do not comply. Some users have issued him an apology but it is yet to be decided whether the issue is resolved.

List of regular patrons
Here's a list of regular patrons sorted alphabetically. Note that this list will not accurately depict patrons from any particular time, and would change from time to time. Former frequent visitors, of which occasionally visit:
 * AlphaSkyRaider
 * DictatorAntics
 * Das Phoenix
 * Gokyr586
 * Hansi Krebs
 * JennieParker87
 * Johnnomonster
 * KnightTemplar1453
 * MabusParodies
 * Mfaizsyahmi
 * MFDK
 * MisterTalkingMachine
 * Soalric
 * Subtitlecomedy
 * TFPStudios
 * TheLawlDawg
 * Benad361
 * Hitler Rants Parodies
 * TheSilverUniverse

Bugs
It should be noted that these bugs may not be exclusive to the Untergangers Chat and are likely apply to Chatango in general.
 * In the wiki, the chat module is drawn incorrectly on Chrome-based browsers. The module appears to scroll along with the rest of the page while in fact it's still at its correct place. Moving your pointer at its correct place will force a redraw. Later versions of Chrome do not have this problem.
 * The chat will copy any clicked links to your clipboard. While not a bug per-se, it does and has caused problems when sharing links. double-check your clipboard content before posting.
 * In mobile version, all emoticons appear as smile faces, with the exception of sad face
 * Flash version of chat cannot handle most Unicode characters, while the mobile version has better Unicode support