Talk:Omegle/Archive 1

Untitled
Who are the nazis who keep removing content from the Omegle wikipedia page. There was sourced material regarding bots on Omegle, background regarding anonymous chat, etc. Everytime I come to the Omegle wikipedia page, it gets smaller. Its like some Omegle fanatics are whitewashing everything on the Omegle page; which is not the point of wikipedia, but to include all important, referencable information about a subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.209.177 (talk • contribs)

Isn't this site just pretty much a copy of http://www.anicechat.net/ which pioneered the concept? A Nice Chat has been around for about a year. Shouldn't A Nice Chat then be mentioned in the article? In fact, doesn't it even seem more appropriate if A Nice Chat had an article and Omegle didn't, since Omegle didn't really invent anything; what's more notable? Here is a proof that A Nice Chat was discovered 8th September, 2008 on StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.anicechat.net/ which was months after it's initial launch, and months before the launch of Omegle.
 * There have been other similar projects. Can you site any mainstream articles regarding A Nice Chat?  Why don't you go create the article? Webavant (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

shouldn't somebody mention that this is an obvious NSA ploy? like google is? 96.28.215.48 (talk) 01:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)signed off of wikipedia forever

John Gabriel's Internet F*ckwad Theory
SHould we mention how this largely deals with the anonymity that this service provides?Wise dude321 (talk) 17:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Maria_123_me Maria 123 me (talk) 01:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

A Nice Chat
While the two maybe similar knowing of one does not improve knowledge of omegle. It doesn't matter how similar they are, this is the article about Omegle. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you, or if you don't cite a source in this case as knowledge of Omegle is not increased regardless of that mentioning.Wise dude321 (talk) 23:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course it matters how similar they are, otherwise Techtree wouldn't have written about it! And if it's relevant to them to mention about A Nice Chat within an Omegle article, then it certainly follows that it's relevant to mention in the Omegle article on Wikipedia as well.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.226.9 (talk) 07:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * They used to comparison in the article to help the readers understand it using something familiar. However, we don't have to do that because all similar information is mentioned above. It's like if we had, in every platforming game "This game is simalar to Super Mario Bros." Sure, it may have come, but it doesn't help build understanding of this. Further more, A Nice Chat doesn't have it's own article here, and there would be no way, short of going to the site (which very few like to do when navigating Wikipedia) of finding out more information on ANC. It would be like me saying "Super mario 23, is like Jenga". Except you've never played Jenga so you don't know what to expect.Wise dude321 (talk) 14:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, more specifically, they wrote about A Nice Chat in that Techtree article because it launched before Omegle; Omegle might not even have existed if it weren't because of A Nice Chat. Isn't that valuable knowlegde to you?  I will rephrase my edit on Wikipedia and write that A Nice Chat is older than Omegle, to make things a bit more clear.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.226.9 (talk) 04:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with 193.11.226.9 that mentioning A Nice Chat is relevant. Mentioning Super Mario Bros. in every video game article would not be relevant, because not every video game is that similar to SMB. However, take a look at the Giana Sisters article: it has a whole section called “Similarity to Super Mario Bros.”

As far as I can tell, Omegle is extremely similar to A Nice Chat. The concept is identical — to put it bluntly, a total rip-off. But look at the homepages: even the introductory text is similar. Now, Omegle is less than two months old, whereas ANC has been around for — what — a year or two? (Does anyone know?)

Anyway, even if you don’t agree, the source cited by 193.11.226.9 shows that a news reporter thought the comparison was important. That should be enough to merit mention in the Wikipedia article.

— Daniel Brockman (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess I am ok with the mention of "a nice chat" (I just overhauled the whole article a bit, adding references to NY Times article, etc.), though the idea of anonymous chat is far from new - i wouldn't overly credit "a nice chat" as if omegle was a "rip off.". omegle is notable partly because it took an old idea and made it popular once again. --Milowent (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

just my 2 cents : Wikipedia not mentioning "A Nice Chat" here would be like talking about Doom without mentioning Wolfenstein 3D, or talking about Star Wars: Dark Forces without mentioning Doom, complete lack of sense and quality of sourcing. Also, Omegle looks a lot like a copy-paste from A Nice Chat (+ all the articles about it), it would be added in the article (and it seems some Omegle fans/staff are editing there, be careful !). Thanks :) --93.15.255.53 (talk) 21:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Piping RichardFC201 (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice Sivanperumal (talk) 14:07, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Just Jusebell (talk) 23:46, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Claim about spam bots
The article currently says:


 * During July and August, Omegle became the target of a series of spam bots posting messages related to subjects like porn, all of which were scams. On August 13th/14th, these were all removed.

This claim is unsourced, and from everything I've observed as Omegle's owner, there haven't been any significant spam attacks that weren't immediately blocked. However, I don't want to remove the line myself because of the conflict of interest. Could someone else please take a look? Thanks! Eurleif (talk) 00:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed that material, as I was unable to find a reliable source to back it up.  Them From  Space  16:31, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You should put it back up. Omegle is being attacked by a middle man attack, in which the spam bots are posting messages in normal chats between normal people. you can't see them, but the other person can and vice versa, along with Disconnecting you at times randomly. 75.166.116.233 (talk) 03:09, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Site Events
Hey, why was this deleted? It was cited and linked! It was also very true and caused havoc on the site due to them mass amount of people immediately typing in, "Diamonds are Forever"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by HAHAx15 (talk • contribs) 04:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Omegle censoring
It isn't really censoring, but Omegle will place grey text below messages which contain certain keywords. One example of this is when person A posts "I am ember of the FBI" or any message involving "FBI", Omegle places the grey text "If this person says that they have reported you to the FBI, ignore it" or something similar. I have no proof nor a list of keywords (I think another might be a link which automatically signs one in to one's Facebook account if they placed thier username and password in a cookie). Can anyone check on this?

Edit: I just received confirmation that any message the includes the keyword "FBI" (uppercase only) automatically causes the grey words "If the above message says you have been reported to the FBI, it is not legitimate. Please ignore it." to appear below on the receiving end, with no information about it being sent to the sender. Raptortech97 (talk) 23:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jackiedresss (talk) 16:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Claim about reCAPTCHA
The article text states: Are you sure? I am using Omegle for two years now and never encountered any anti-spam filters. Can anyone provide a citation for this claim? Otherwise, it should be removed. -- White rotten rabbit (talk) 12:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The site uses anti-spam software, known as reCAPTCHA, which periodically challenges users in order to prevent spam messages being sent by automated bots.
 * Yes, the site randomly challenges users with reCAPTCHA, more frequently if you exhibit "bot-like" behavior. It seems to work on what's called a velocity filter, the more conversations you start the more often you'll be challenged, until your IP is permanently added to a list that causes you to be challenged every time you start a conversation. I'm not sure where you'd find a citation for this short of getting Omegle to post something, but a quick Google will find plenty of results documenting this, especially if you pay attention to development pages for third-party tools that use(d) Omegle, such as OmegleSpy. Alereon (talk) 11:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Online/Offline changes at least daily, it seems
Is this necessary? Is it appropriate use of this article to basically use it as a status indicator for another website? Sure, if it's going offline long-term, and we have a reliable source, then update it, but do we really need to be "flashing" it "On" and "Off" every time some user or other thinks, from his own research, that it isn't "up" or vice versa? Begoon &thinsp; talk 02:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah this seems pretty pointless and is generating a lot of edits, I'm going to just delete it. Alereon (talk) 08:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Chardon OH school shooting suspect had an Omegle handle
WOIO was showing some pics that the alleged suspect in the Chardon High School shooting, and it showed that he had an Omegle handle. Is there any way anyone can get any official reference of this to add this? The shooting coverage is on MSNBC and Fox News as well, so it's obviously a big deal. Darkpower (talk) 16:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as Omegle "handles", so this was not true. Each user is identified to the other conversation participant as "Stranger" and to themselves as "You", there is no way to create an account, have a name of your choice, or anything like that.Alereon (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

God, did I just do a spit take all over my monitor....
"One stranger asks a thought-provoking question..."

Clearly written by a person who's never been on the site! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.132.254.140 (talk) 05:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Omegle. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://omegler.blogspot.com/2009/03/welcome-to-omegle-blog.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 10:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 July 2016
Please remove under the controversy tab the piece where it mentions the two girls being kidnapped. I find that it doesn't really relate to Omegle but is just a random piece of information put in there. I found that there was no backlash or any controversy really pertaining to Omegle on this case.

2601:440:8100:543:6D0F:61D9:ACB7:14B7 (talk) 05:41, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  17:30, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2016
Hhhsrerh (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Blank request —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 04:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2017
41.238.77.221 (talk) 17:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: No request made Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2018
41.254.9.75 (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —   IVORK  Discuss 02:47, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

"K-Brooks"?
What is that? I've literally never before seen such a form of surname; I mean, "Brooks" is self-explanatory, but what's the "K" hyphenated to it? Presumably it's short for something, but over time the family just abbreviated it in that extremely weird way? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.67.24 (talk) 00:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Some interesting background on the family and the origins of Omegle was published here: https://www.reformer.com/stories/whiz-kid,125457 Possibly it's a family that just enjoys having fun with language and punctuation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.179.75 (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Seem to be several results from the 80s and 90s on Google books (and one from 2006, where it's "K-Brooks", indicating it evolved over time) for a Steven K. Brooks of Brattleboro (this being the hometown of the K-Brooks family according to the Reformer article); seems like at some point they just decided to add the "K" as part of the surname for individuality or some other reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.79.203 (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

The given pronunciation is probably wrong
The article here says it's /oʊˈmɛɡəl/ and cites "omegle.com" as evidence, but that page just says "oh·meg·ull" with no stress mark (which is of course not proper IPA notation, and therefore ambiguous, not really proving how it's pronounced one way or the other). I see no evidence for the pronunciation given here. Can someone explain? 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:948B:A627:6F6B:C260 (talk) 06:48, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 September 2020
1.47.1.247 (talk) 04:16, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. &rarr; Timbaaa talk 06:39, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

English-language
"Available in : English-language" -- that's weird. Please change that bit into "Available in : English". 83.20.229.15 (talk) 14:45, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia  talk  14:58, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

text chat
literally every text chat is either a porn-offering scam or some alleged teenager looking for pics of underage girls, always through kik or snapchat. literally 100%. no legitimate purpose at all· Lygophile   has   spoken  17:52, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I support this statement above. Years ago I used Omegle to improve my language skills and typing, and often had amusing conversations. Although I stopped using it a couple of years ago, by that time it had become completely useless and pointless and mostly offensive. I would suggest it being closed down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.214.49 (talk) 19:09, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

This is retarded. Because "literally every". Because nope, not "literally every" and not even "literally most". So please. [citation needed]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:2CA6:6FE0:2C46:5CFF:9B5D:458A (talk) 07:26, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Hey Imapsycho99 (talk) 17:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Writing Oct 5, 2020 here. Omegle is totally botswarmed out. No interaction with a human is possible. What's worse is that the site now forces you to complete a captcha for every new connected conversation, requiring you to look at several photos and pick out objects. Can't believe how neat of an idea this site is and how it has gone to utter shit.
 * Please remember that this is not a forum for general discussion of Omegle. But if you have reliable sources re these contentions, feel free to add content to the article. ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia  talk  15:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2021
2001:8F8:1D3A:9D49:E0AA:F245:5652:2073 (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC) Hjnnj
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Pupsterlove02  talk • contribs 21:45, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

IPA needed
Is it "Oh-meggle"? "Oh-mee-glee"? "Oh-meg-lee"? "Omaggul"? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 22:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)