Malcolm has since created a new chatroom, which runs independently of tinychat! It's still the same link as mentioned in my earlier comment. In addition, a chatroom for effective altruists (the EA Workspace) now exists as well.
The transition has been mostly smooth and everyone's used to the new format by now, I think.
ALL HAIL MALCOLM OCEAN THE SAVIOUR.
Seriously though, great work and so many thanks for ridding us from Tinychat. :)
Note that you do not (and will never) need a Complice account to access the page. Signing up for Complice adds, well, the Complice-inherent features that aren't essential to the functioning of the chat itself.
Update: As of now, we switched to Malcolm's own chat (which is at the same link as he provided). This means it's not an embedded tinychat channel anymore, and the old tinychat room still exists, but is empty.
(Note: if you're confused because it's not asking you for a password, that's because Malcolm replaced the embedded tinychat channel with his own chat. So we're finally rid of the bane of tinychat!)
Unfortunately, these owls are not being produced anymore so the link doesn't lead anywhere useful. Anyone who still wants one can buy up the rests by the resellers (try googling "Mars&More tweed owl" or similar). I think there's still a few Terrys and Levis to be bought, e.g. on Amazon.
Jkadlubo also found a cheaper spinoff with somewhat different design on a Polish interior decor website, so there's that.
[Edit: or contact me and I'll help you find one if I can.]
We did have 6 owls, one eagle, a duck, an octopus and an angry bird, to count only the plush toys I remember right now. I think we were missing a six feet plush crocodile though. It was oddly bird-centered.
In case you're wondering why there were only 74 participants: 80 people signed up, but 6 did not attend and didn't give notice, so the spaces could not be filled.
I tried to find some first messages that I liked, to give some better examples, but since I tended to message people first myself, there really isn't that much.
Messages I responded positively to: http://i.imgur.com/HPYo0Eg.png http://i.imgur.com/HPYo0Eg.png http://i.imgur.com/3vXiZqj.png (German)
(longer) messages I disliked: http://i.imgur.com/I2Jkuzd.png (this one is German from a guy trying to be funny. It's so cringey that I actually didn't answer at all. I'm unsure about the match percentage but it was probably < 95%)
I'm not the best person to ask for examples of good first messages by guys.
I don't recall individual messages (it was 4 years ago). Trying to look through my messages folder, but I might have deleted some to save space. There were no longer messages I didn't answer. Usually contact broke off after a few messages though.
Reasons I could imagine for not answering:
It doesn't look like that actually happened for first replies, so those are just guesses. Maybe they are reasons for other people to not reply to a first message.
Also, there are not a lot of people with match factor 95% upwards.
I just signed up. Three years ago this was my entry point into the wider community and I'm looking forward to being around again!