Bathroom Monologue: LOBBYGAGGING (Proposed Neologism)

Many match-making programs feature a lobby system that puts partially-completed groups of users into a chat room while they wait for enough members to join. Most of my exposure to electronic lobbies are in videogames, waiting to fill up a team so we can go lose at Left 4 Dead. Yet in every game or other program in which I’ve ever been shunted into a lobby, there’s come at least one time when no one else joins no matter how long I wait or what settings I tweak. This has happened on game consoles, PCs and Macs, on indy games and blockbuster titles. You wait around until it’s obvious nothing will change, then start up a new lobby, which fills up shortly, and it becomes evident the previous lobby somehow fell out of priority in the system.

I feel like anyone who messes around on the internet has been stuck in such a spot. It’s destiny; no multi-user code is perfect. But a persistent problem that causes users to be stranded in a lobby, itself lagging while they are forced to lollygag, deserves a name. In fact, I think it deserves exactly one name.

Ladies and gentlemen, from henceforth please call this event “LOBBYGAGGING.”

We all win if this works out.