Introduction

Welcome to the NINA & Escargot community.

Let's do a quick overview of terms and so forth.

Terms and Terminology

Terms you need to know and understand before asking about AIM in the AOL forum or discord channel, a most egregious faux pas.

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and AOL are two different things

AIM is a small instant messaging program similar to MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger. Where as AOL is a full on, classic desktop program which not only provides the ability to chat, but also send/receive email, look up content, browse the web, etc. Calling AIM "AOL" is confusing in the community, akin to calling "Windows Live Messenger" just "Windows" because it just happens to be the first word.

The term "group chat" is a bad term mostly centered around MSN and little else

The proper term is "chat room". Messages sent privately between two people (like a DM) are "instant messages" or "private messages", those are never called "chats", that's just even more confusing. This is a bizarre and regrettable artifact of Microsoft calling things by names nobody else did.

NINA & Escargot are effectively the same thing

Escargot is only MSN/WLM and NINA is everything else, but it's the same user system, same login, same developers, same everything; they are 100% shared across the platform, in fact it's a single platform/network.

Old Internet Etiquette or "Why isn't anyone talking to me?"

Classic messaging apps aren't meant to be used as on-demand entertainment

That isn't to say they aren't (or can't be) entertaining, it means that you sign on, let the buddy list/contact list hang in the background while you do other things on your computer or mobile device. You can, of course, message someone and they may respond, or you can wait for someone to message you. However, with some younger new users, they expect that if they sign in they'll be instantly bombarded with entertaining conversation like they're pressing play on a video and they will literally stare at an empty buddy list/contact list waiting for something to happen to them. One has to be pro-active in getting (or keeping) a conversation going.

Hello? Hello! Anyone here??!????

Yes, there are probably tons of people around, but keep in mind you're taking a step back in time to the old Internet. That means NINA and Escargot are service where you have to partake in actual conversation and wait for someone to reply, we aren't infested with bots waiting to please you. Interacting with real people in a retro-community means that you say something, try to get a conversation going, and give it so time.

It doesn't mean you join a chat room, demand someone acknowledge you, then immediately leave. You can say "anyone like XYZ?", "I'm about to play this game, I'll be on this server, or on this stream." In other words: chat rooms are only dead if you make them dead, if everyone else is sitting and waiting for someone else to start a conversation, then nobody is talking about anything. Furthermore, conversations can sometimes be fast and sometimes slow, you may say something but not get a response for some time or at all, maybe talk about something else after a while. That's just how old Internet conversation was for a couple of decades, because it's the old Internet, not television or ChatGPT.

This is a slight form of the "be cool" philosophy as outlined by our supporter Phlud: read more (highly recommended you read more).

Before you FAQ

I messaged someone and it said it couldn't be delivered because they aren't online! Your service is broken!

They're not online. Sounds like it's working as intended.

When will AOL (or whatever else) be free?

We don't know. Projects like these take time, money, effort. AIM and ICQ are now free, while AOL remains behind small (but reasonable) paywall to help pay for development. We understand that not everyone can afford $25 for AOL, but we don't sell your data. Hosting, domains, etc are not free, so while we develop things we typically help fund everything by letting people in early willing to pay.

We need your help

If you want to help, the best way right now is to help us keep the lights on and deal with our growth by donating. If you can't do that, tell others about our services, spread the word, but please don't spam.

Is Escargot down?

No.

Is the server/service down?

I already said, "No." We don't go down all the time. It's something on your end, re-patch, re-read tutorials, etc.

See also our Extended FAQ