The CB guide

The CB is the street’s radio: a chat channel patterned after citizens band radio, in a panel in the corner of every page. This guide goes through it part by part, top to bottom, with every button named the way the radio names it. To get on, go to the front desk at the Community Center; the house norms are there too, and Privacy says what the CB keeps. Last updated 2026-10-04.

Where it is

The radio sits in the bottom right corner of every page. Two places do not have it. The Healing Checkpoint and Stay Frosty each promise something the radio would break, so it waits outside their doors. The private rooms off the Town Hall show it only to the moderators each room is for. The Community Center has its own front desk instead of the bar, and once you sign on there the radio appears in the corner.

Before you sign on: the guest bar

Until you sign on, the corner holds a smaller bar. It is not the radio. It knows nothing about the channel and sends nothing to it, and the only thing it remembers is whether you left it open.

The front desk at the Community Center has the same form, and one more: Forgotten the password for a username you claimed? It takes Your username, The recovery code, or a moderator’s reset code, A new password and The same again, then Set it and sign on.

The bar

Signed on, the bar runs along the top of the radio. You can drag the radio by any part of the bar that is not a button.

Sizes, and folded

The radio is never wider or taller than your window. If it would cover a film’s play button when you are getting that film ready, it goes Small for the moment and says so; Size puts it back.

Tuning: World or this room

Under the bar, a line says On the channel as and your handle. Then two buttons choose what you hear:

A line above the messages says Tuned to World or Tuned to the room’s name. Every channel keeps the same rules: ten messages, gone at midnight. A quiet one says Nobody has said anything today.

Be seen here

In a room, Be seen here shows you, by your handle, to anybody else signed on who has switched it on in that room, and shows them to you. It is one switch both ways: while it is off, nobody sees you and you see nobody.

• Also seen here: lists the others, alphabetically, by handle. Nobody else here is seen. means just that.
• In this room’s call: lists everybody in the room’s call, so you can see who is there before you join.
• Names only, and never a count. The lines update quietly, without announcing themselves.
• Your browser remembers the switch. Folding the radio, leaving the page or putting the tab behind another takes you out of sight.

Reading messages

Each message starts with a line: the sender’s handle, a mark if it has one, and the time it was sent, by your clock. Then come its words, a picture or sticker if it has one, and its reactions.

Links in a message. An address on this street is an ordinary link. An address on another site, written with https://, opens in a new tab and has an arrow and the site’s name after it, like ↗ example.com, so you can see where it goes before you press it. A room written as #the-den shows as #The Den, linked. A time like @34:12 is a button that moves your own film to that place: see watching together.

It never scrolls under you. If you have scrolled up to read, new messages wait at the bottom. The radio follows them only when you were already at the bottom, or when you have just transmitted.

Reactions

React opens a row of quick reactions: a heart, thumbs up, laughing, a party, eyes, sparkles, a penguin for a pebble, a dog, a cat, an otter, a rainbow, a unicorn, the sign of the horns, a hedgehog, a hugging face, people hugging, and a crying face. Under them, Or any emoji takes one emoji of your own from your system’s emoji picker (Control, Command and Space on a Mac, the emoji key on a phone, Windows and . on Windows), and its own React button sends it.

Under the message, each reaction shows the handles of everybody who pressed it, alphabetically, and never a number. Press a reaction there to add yours, or to take yours back.

Writing a message

Answers from the radio, like Transmitting… or No signal. That did not go out., appear in one line just above the box. If you send more than twelve messages in a minute it asks you to wait a moment.

Markdown

A little Markdown works, and the radio builds it into the page as text, never as code.

There are no headings, images or HTML, and a link’s words are always its address, so [words](an address) stays exactly as you typed it.

Pictures

Press Picture and choose a screenshot or a photo. The radio redraws it in your browser before it goes, which takes off where it was taken and everything else the camera wrote into it. Then:

• Say what is in it, if you like is a description, up to 280 characters. It is offered, never required, and it is what a screen reader hears.
• Remove the picture takes it off the message.
• It goes with your next Transmit, with words or without. It is deleted when its message goes, and one you never send is deleted within the hour.

Pictures on the channel have no public address. Only people signed on can see them, and the same norm as a screenshot applies to passing one on.

The row of tools

Under the box is a row of buttons. Some only appear when they can do something.

With both New messages to a screen reader and Speak new messages aloud on, a screen reader user hears everything twice. At the foot of the radio are links to the house norms and to this guide.

The teleporter

Teleport opens a box labelled Teleport to a room and a list of every room on the street, in walking order. The room you are in says you are here; the others show their #tag.

• Type to narrow it. It finds rooms whose names start with what you typed, then rooms with it inside a word of their name, so fire finds The Campfire, then rooms whose own description uses the word, with a few of those words shown.
• ↑ and ↓ move through the list, Enter goes to the room highlighted, and Escape puts the box away.
• Going is ordinary navigation. Nothing is sent to the channel, and nobody learns where you went.

To search the words on every page rather than the rooms’ names, use the search box on the front page or the map.

Watching together

When people watch the same film in a room, each person plays their own copy and pauses when they like. These help everybody find the same place.

A spot’s room is a link. Following it takes you to the film’s play button, ready to start at that place when you press it. Nobody’s film moves unless they press something themselves.

Calls

Every room has a voice and video call, run by 8x8. Join this room’s call on the radio opens it, and some rooms have a panel of their own that says Join the call as and your handle. A few rooms at Cavendish Coworking also let in people who are not signed on: they type The name you want to be called in the call and press Knock on the door.

The call opens in a window of its own in the bottom left corner.

Inside the window is 8x8’s own screen. Your browser may ask about your camera and microphone so it can show a preview, but both start off, and nothing goes to the call until you join there. Folding the radio leaves the call running.

Profile

Profile opens a tray with two parts.

Your username

• Claiming. An unclaimed handle can be used by anybody with the community password. Type A password of your own and The same again, then Claim and your handle. From then on only your own password signs on as it, and your messages carry CLAIMED. There is no email.
• The recovery code is shown once, when you claim. It is the way back in if you forget your password, at the front desk. Keep it, then press I have kept it. A moderator can also give you a reset code.
• Change my password asks for Your password now, A new password and The same again, then Change it. Every other device signed on as you is signed off.
• Delete my account asks for your password, then Yes, delete my account or Keep it. It cannot be undone.
• Five wrong passwords lock a claimed username for fifteen minutes.

Your pets

• Every pet you have adopted, with its drawing, its name and when you adopted it. Rename or Name them gives one a name; the name it came in under is kept on the list of everybody adopted.
• Show my pets on the CB lets anybody on the channel press your handle and see them. It needs a claimed username, and it starts off.
• Forget me deletes everything the street keeps under your handle: your pets and whether they are shown. It asks first, with Yes, forget me or Keep my pets. The animals stay on the list of everybody adopted, with nothing connecting them to you.

What moderators see

Our moderators sign on as the base station, and their messages carry BASE. They also have Take off on every message, which takes it off the air, and Clear the channel, which clears the channel they are tuned to. In a call, the base is the only one who can record or turn on transcription, and the house norms ask them to say so first. If something is wrong, tell the base.

Keys at a glance

What it sends and keeps

In short: the radio asks this site, and nothing else, for the channel while it is open and in front of you. The channel keeps ten messages, until midnight. No IP address is stored, nothing anybody types is logged, and there is no list of who is on. Your browser keeps your handle, your pass and where you put the radio. Privacy has the whole of it, and Architecture says how it is built.