nikki ♫ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fascinates) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ofurotaimu2010-08-01 07:11 pm
fascinates) wrote in ofurotaimu2010-08-01 07:11 pm
Entry tags:
Nico Nico Guide V : Namahousou, Timeshifting, Netiquette
A lot of people were asking about this, and it's hard to explain one by one in the comments, so here is a mini guide on how to watch/use/explore Nico Nico Douga live. I haven't explored the whole site, to be honest, so this'll be very basic. I'll also be including stuff for those with premium accounts. I hope this'll be of help ^^;. All images are my screencaps and all the steps were written by me. Please do not post the guide carelessly in other sites. If there are people wanting to learn from this, please direct them here. Thanks!
12-27-10 : Edited this to be more updated with the new version of Nico Nico Douga.
I. INTRODUCTION
ニコニコ生放送 (Nico Nico Namahousou or Nico Nama) is the sub site of Nico Nico Douga for streams of live broadcast. Namahousou (shortened to nama) literally means a live broadcast. In order to access the site, you need to have a Nico Nico Douga account, something which you should have by now :). You go to the url: live.nicovideo.jp and see the front page below. I'll be calling the broadcasts "nama" or "namahousou" now throughout the guide for uniformity.
Here's a general view of the namahousou homepage.
The menu at the top are the categories where various namahousou are placed. Under the names, you will see the number of namahousou ongoing under that category.
TIMETABLE : has the schedules of all the featured namahousou for the week.
GENERAL : has all except the TV and R18 namahousou listed.
YATTEMITA : namahousou of musicians, singers, artists, etc. who do their thing in the nama.
GAMING : basically namahousou of people talking about games, playing games, etc.
KAODASHI : has namahousou of people who show their faces in the broadcast
INTERACTIVE : has namahousou of people who interact with their viewers by calling them or inviting them into the nama via Skype.
TV : broadcasts of television shows.
R-18 : namahousou of mature nature, although nudity and profanity is still limited and overuse of it can result to banning
The featured broadcasts up front can be those daily scheduled segments (Nicoraji, for one), concerts of either Nico Nico people or artists (like Gackt, Do As Infinity, etc), celebrity shows (like seiyuu-oriented shows or artist interviews) or current events-related namahousou (like the Hayabusa special, etc.).
On your right, you can see the list of namahousou held in communities you have joined. It also has the list of other namahousou featured in different categories.
Clicking on the "General" Tab will lead you to a list of namahousou held under that category.
The namahousou are usually listed according to the time they started, but as with the videos in Nico Nico Douga, you can arrange your results to your liking by clicking on the drop down box. In order, the selection is as follows:
- arranged from most recent
- arranged from most viewers
- arranged from most comments
- arranged from highest community level
- arranged by topic/subject (premium only)
- arranged by community activity (premium only)
Unlike in the previous Nico Nico version where your bookmarked namahousou as well as ongoing namahousou from comms you joined are listed on top of the results, this new layout has those namahousou on the sidebar, similar to the one on the top page.
When you enter a namahousou, you will see these two parts we'll discuss one by one:
This screencap is from [TEST]-san's namahousou. At the top part on the green field, you'll see the title of the namahousou, the one who is holding it ([TEST]) and the date it is shown (important in timeshifts). Right at the bottom is an intro about the namahousou as well as the person holding it. On the right is a link to his/her community and the option to join it (if you haven't). The community frame also has the community level, the overall total of viewers in all of the comm's namahousou as well as the overall total of comments received.
The bottomest has the tags which are related to the person, the community and the topic of the namahousou. These tags can be added by anyone in the namahousou and so it changes real-time (you can see it change before your eyes if the viewers are active). Most of the time, the tags are cracked, but they help you understand a bit of what's going on in the namahousou at that moment.
This one if the screen of the namahousou itself. There are times when the video doesn't have any...video, but instead has a placeholder image or if the person is lazy, a black screen XD. Above the screen is the announcement field where other namahousou are advertised. When the person doing the nama writes something, it also appears in this field. His/her message will also appear in the chatbox at the left, in red font.
Now, below the screen is a menu bar. It has the time that has elapsed since the namahousou has started. It also has the sound option, which you can mute or adjust. Next to it is the comment button which you can click if you want to stop the comments from scrolling across the screen. Beside it is the window adjustment button which you use to resize the screen.
Right below it is the comment field which you use to type in your comment. There are two options: sending a comment right into the nama's chatbox (the black logo) and sending a comment in twitter (the one with the twitter logo). There are some namahousou with the Twitter option disabled, so that means you're not allowed to send comments to your twitter regarding the nama. This usually occurs in namas which are locked to the community.
Clicking the green button at the far left will give you options on typing comments:
The first row refers to the colors you can use. Free users can use these ten colors, although premium users can use any color using hex codes (typing them at the smaller box beside the comment field). The second row refers to how big you want your comment to be. It can be small, normal or big, respectively. The last row refers to how you want your comment to behave. The first option is the scrolling option, the second is the bottom flash option where your comment will just appear at the bottom of the screen, and the last is the top flash option which is the opposite of the bottom flash option.
The right part of the screen is the chat field. The tabs at the top lead to different menus, like the twitter part where you see the people tweeting about the nama, the NG part where you can report users who use foul language in the comments, and the system part where you can modify how you view the namahousou.
Below the comment box on the left is the number of viewers (top) and number of comments (bottom) in the namahousou. The right part is your floor and seat number, which you will learn more about later on.
There are times when you try to enter a namahousou and end up in this page:
This means that the namahousou is locked to community members and you need to join the community in order to view it. You can click the JOIN COMMUNITY button at the bottom part of the window, but you will need at most 15 minutes to be able to view an ongoing namahousou.
There are also times when you see this window:
This can mean two things: 1) the namahousou is FULL and therefore you cannot enter or 2) the namahousou has yet to be broadcast and you have to wait for the doors to open. The timeshift button here is important, especially to free users because clicking it will allow you to watch the namahousou at a later time.
More on timeshifting...
Any namahousou with a yellow button has a timeshift. A timeshift option has two uses:
1. You can reserve a namahousou in advance in case you're going to miss it on its broadcast date or if you cannot enter it while it is ongoing.
2. You can watch any TS-enabled namahousou from communities you've joined by clicking them on the nama log page in each comm (premium only).
If, for example, you won't be able to watch this particular TS-enabled nama, but you want to watch it later, you can click the yellow button to reserve it for later watching. This is also same for occurrences when you cannot enter the namahousou (since it's full and you're a free user).
Upon reserving a namahousou, you can watch it one hour after it's finished. You have seven days before your TS reservation expires, so watch it as soon as you can. For premium users, the TS in namas enables you to watch it for seven days since it's broadcast whether you reserved it or not. Exceptions to the 7-day rule are concerts/daikaigi namahousou. \
Free users can timeshift up to ten namahousou. Premium users can TS up to thirty. You can access the namahousou you've timeshifted in the "ongoing namahousou" page in your MY PAGE. You can see a screencap and translation of the sections here. By the way, the blue button beside the timeshift button is an alert button. This appears in namahousou which are booked and haven't started yet. Choosing the alert button will make NND send you an e-mail or text (for JPN-based people) when the namahousou is about to start so you'll be reminded of it.
* NOTE: I got a lot of questions about getting kicked out from a namahousou in the previous guide. So here's a short explanation on floors/seats:
When you are in a namahousou, you get "seats". You can see your "seat" in the lower right corner of your namahousou screen. In a normal namahousou, there are two "floors" with seats: the arena, or the main floor; and the tachimi/s, or the standing room. When you are in the arena, your comments can be viewed by the one holding the namahousou. When you're in any of the tachimi (Tachimi A, B, C, etc.), the host cannot see your comments unless s/he uses a program to view all the comments from all the floors. In bigger namahousou, you get other floors like "balcony" and "side floors" in addition to arena. Anyway...
When you get kicked out of a namahousou, you either get a nice boat video (the ferry thingy) or you get a notice then end up seeing the page with the silver and gold gates. This happens to free users most of the time. See, when you enter a namahousou, normally you end up in arena if there are a few people or tachimi A/B if there are many. However, premium users get priority in these "seats". If the namahousou is starting to be full, the free users are pushed towards the standing floors (tachimi) and eventually, they get kicked out when there are too many premium users in the nama. Basically, it means a premium user gets your slot ^^;. Two things to deal with this is to 1) refresh max until someone leaves and you gain a slot or 2) Timeshift the nama.
II. ALERTS
Now that we know how to view/comment on a namahousou as well as what to do if we get kicked out, locked in and all that jazz, the next thing to know is: how to know when a person you're following has a namahousou?
Normally, you see when someone's doing a namahousou when you look at their community page and you see this image:
You can also see which people are having namahousou in your MY PAGE. But what if you do not have the time to refresh max these pages? That's where Nico Nico Alert comes in.
The Nico Nama Alert is a small program which you can download for free. When you have downloaded it, you need to input your username and password in it. Then, when you open the program, it will unobtrusively stay in your taskbar. It'll will be quiet...until a namahousou of a community you joined or a featured nama has started. When one does start, the program will make a small notification sound and a small window linking to the namahousou will open. You just need to click that to watch. You can download it by clicking on the circled part.\
This is a very useful program, but aside from that, you can also get namahousou alerts in Twitter, from the personalities themselves XD.
III. HOW TO COMMENT + NETIQUETTE
Although most of us would prefer lurking in namahousou, it's still important to understand certain terms and activities in order to understand what they're saying/doing in the nama. When you join a namahousou, you will most probably encounter these terms/activities:
• waku - This is the "slot" for the namahousou. Nico Nico Douga doesn't allow all namahousou to broadcast at once. People who want to hold a nama are in a "queue" until they're able to open a broadcast. This is why people say "Wakotsu" or "Waku otsu" to the person holding the nama when it starts.
• enquete (アンケート） - This means a survey or poll. This happens when several numbered options suddenly appears on the screen and you're made to choose which you like the most. Not all namahousou has the ability to hold a formal survey so sometimes, they use a vote of hands. When you're asked to raise your hand for your opinion, you can do a ノ for "yes" or a "wave" and ヘ for "no".
• shoken (初見) - This means "first time listener" or "newbie". When you enter some small-group namas, you'll often see "shoken welcome!" which means they welcome newcomers. It's common courtesy to announce yourself as a newbie （初見です。） when you listen to a nama for the first time.
• kotehan - This means "handle name". When you're new and you're in a small-group nama, you'll often be asked for your handle name so they'll know how to address you. Before, you have to do the @nickname after your reply so they'll know your name, but with the new version, your nickname (from your profile) can be seen even without you typing it out, it seems. This is as long as you disable the anonymous option from your system options. Which leads us to the next term.
&bull 184 - This means "anon". When you're unnamed in a namahousou, you're technically 184. In order to remove your anonymity and let the host see your name from his/her comment box or comment reading program, you need to disable your anon option.
Unclick the box of the encircled part in order to be un-anon.
• waku enchou - This means "nama extension". Normally, a namahousou only lasts for 30 minutes. After that the host will queue again and wait for a slot of s/he wants to continue. However, by paying with points, they can extend their namahousou for more than 30 minutes. When people ask if there's an enchou, it means they're asking if the nama will last for more than 30 minutes.
For more words used in a Nico Nico namahousou, you can read my mini dictionary here :).
Of course, with the great fun in watching namahousou comes awareness and responsilities so you do not act rude or KY (clueless). Here are some things you should keep in mind. They look pretty stupid to do, but believe it or not, a lot of people do it in namahousou.
1. Do not spam. There are spam emoticons/symbols in namahousou sometimes, called danmaku, but they are mostly used for performance namahousou, etc. You are free to leave comments, but it is no excuse for you to spam, unless the broadcaster allows it. Asamakku has specifically asked their members not to spam when either Asamaru or Jack are in non-Asamakku nama (meaning those held outside their comm).
2. Do not excessively use English or other languages apart from Japanese. Most personalities understand English and they probably just have problems constructing sentences which is why they cannot respond in the same language. However, that is not an excuse to use English (or other languages) in a namahousou unless the host specified so. This is a Japanese site after all, with the majority of the viewers Japanese. Using English seems very KY and rude and you might get rude responses if you keep it up (FYI 日本語でＯＫ is quite offensive if you're spamming in English). You might be even driven away if you can't take a hint ^^;. Aside from that, you might be giving a lot of stress to the host because s/he has to spend time trying to understand and answer your comment. I might be a bit extreme, but seriously, it's one of those things you just want to avoid when watching a namahousou. IF YOU CAN, COMMENT IN JAPANESE. Some might say, "but I don't know enough Japanese to comment unlike you." Well, I did start listening to namahousou using only "wwwwww" and "88888888" and emoticons ^^;;.
3. Do not say you don't understand what the broadcaster is saying. Connected to the previous one, this is a bit ridiculous but I keep seeing it. There were some Dasoku and Wotamin nama where foreigners kept saying, "What is s/he saying?" and "I do not understand you, Minmin/Dasoku (crying emote)". I'm sorry but I think it's really ridiculous OTL. People will tell you off saying "If you cannot understand, why are you still here?" <-- this really happened. So please...uh...watch your words.
4. Do not give unnecessary links in the comments. Links to communities/sites offering illegal content, porn, online dictionaries... I think that's self-explanatory.
5. Keep your messages uncomplicated. Especially if you cannot speak Japanese. Google Translate Japanese is BAD. I know there are moments wherein you really, really want to comment to someone with all your might, but Google Translate is not the way. Actually, in Google, when you search for a simple statement's translation in Japanese, chances are you'll find it ("[sentence] in Japanese is") in some learning sites. I'm really sorry that I'm discouraging this right after I said don't comment in English LOL. But err...if you want to embarrass yourself or make the broadcaster spend so much time figuring out what you're saying then I guess to each his own ^^;.
These guidelines are based on my experiences of watching namahousou. If you have any other Netiquette-related things to add, just tell me in the comments and we'll see how to add them here :).
And so, that's it! Enjoy your nama-viewing. Just a warning: watching namahousou can be very addictive. Some of them have nama up to 3AM in the morning (JPN time) so good luck to all of us ^^;. If you have any questions, please comment and I'll see what I can do :).
12-27-10 : Edited this to be more updated with the new version of Nico Nico Douga.
I. INTRODUCTION
ニコニコ生放送 (Nico Nico Namahousou or Nico Nama) is the sub site of Nico Nico Douga for streams of live broadcast. Namahousou (shortened to nama) literally means a live broadcast. In order to access the site, you need to have a Nico Nico Douga account, something which you should have by now :). You go to the url: live.nicovideo.jp and see the front page below. I'll be calling the broadcasts "nama" or "namahousou" now throughout the guide for uniformity.
Here's a general view of the namahousou homepage.
The menu at the top are the categories where various namahousou are placed. Under the names, you will see the number of namahousou ongoing under that category.
TIMETABLE : has the schedules of all the featured namahousou for the week.
GENERAL : has all except the TV and R18 namahousou listed.
YATTEMITA : namahousou of musicians, singers, artists, etc. who do their thing in the nama.
GAMING : basically namahousou of people talking about games, playing games, etc.
KAODASHI : has namahousou of people who show their faces in the broadcast
INTERACTIVE : has namahousou of people who interact with their viewers by calling them or inviting them into the nama via Skype.
TV : broadcasts of television shows.
R-18 : namahousou of mature nature, although nudity and profanity is still limited and overuse of it can result to banning
The featured broadcasts up front can be those daily scheduled segments (Nicoraji, for one), concerts of either Nico Nico people or artists (like Gackt, Do As Infinity, etc), celebrity shows (like seiyuu-oriented shows or artist interviews) or current events-related namahousou (like the Hayabusa special, etc.).
On your right, you can see the list of namahousou held in communities you have joined. It also has the list of other namahousou featured in different categories.
Clicking on the "General" Tab will lead you to a list of namahousou held under that category.
The namahousou are usually listed according to the time they started, but as with the videos in Nico Nico Douga, you can arrange your results to your liking by clicking on the drop down box. In order, the selection is as follows:
- arranged from most recent
- arranged from most viewers
- arranged from most comments
- arranged from highest community level
- arranged by topic/subject (premium only)
- arranged by community activity (premium only)
Unlike in the previous Nico Nico version where your bookmarked namahousou as well as ongoing namahousou from comms you joined are listed on top of the results, this new layout has those namahousou on the sidebar, similar to the one on the top page.
When you enter a namahousou, you will see these two parts we'll discuss one by one:
This screencap is from [TEST]-san's namahousou. At the top part on the green field, you'll see the title of the namahousou, the one who is holding it ([TEST]) and the date it is shown (important in timeshifts). Right at the bottom is an intro about the namahousou as well as the person holding it. On the right is a link to his/her community and the option to join it (if you haven't). The community frame also has the community level, the overall total of viewers in all of the comm's namahousou as well as the overall total of comments received.
The bottomest has the tags which are related to the person, the community and the topic of the namahousou. These tags can be added by anyone in the namahousou and so it changes real-time (you can see it change before your eyes if the viewers are active). Most of the time, the tags are cracked, but they help you understand a bit of what's going on in the namahousou at that moment.
This one if the screen of the namahousou itself. There are times when the video doesn't have any...video, but instead has a placeholder image or if the person is lazy, a black screen XD. Above the screen is the announcement field where other namahousou are advertised. When the person doing the nama writes something, it also appears in this field. His/her message will also appear in the chatbox at the left, in red font.
Now, below the screen is a menu bar. It has the time that has elapsed since the namahousou has started. It also has the sound option, which you can mute or adjust. Next to it is the comment button which you can click if you want to stop the comments from scrolling across the screen. Beside it is the window adjustment button which you use to resize the screen.
Right below it is the comment field which you use to type in your comment. There are two options: sending a comment right into the nama's chatbox (the black logo) and sending a comment in twitter (the one with the twitter logo). There are some namahousou with the Twitter option disabled, so that means you're not allowed to send comments to your twitter regarding the nama. This usually occurs in namas which are locked to the community.
Clicking the green button at the far left will give you options on typing comments:
The first row refers to the colors you can use. Free users can use these ten colors, although premium users can use any color using hex codes (typing them at the smaller box beside the comment field). The second row refers to how big you want your comment to be. It can be small, normal or big, respectively. The last row refers to how you want your comment to behave. The first option is the scrolling option, the second is the bottom flash option where your comment will just appear at the bottom of the screen, and the last is the top flash option which is the opposite of the bottom flash option.
The right part of the screen is the chat field. The tabs at the top lead to different menus, like the twitter part where you see the people tweeting about the nama, the NG part where you can report users who use foul language in the comments, and the system part where you can modify how you view the namahousou.
Below the comment box on the left is the number of viewers (top) and number of comments (bottom) in the namahousou. The right part is your floor and seat number, which you will learn more about later on.
There are times when you try to enter a namahousou and end up in this page:
This means that the namahousou is locked to community members and you need to join the community in order to view it. You can click the JOIN COMMUNITY button at the bottom part of the window, but you will need at most 15 minutes to be able to view an ongoing namahousou.
There are also times when you see this window:
This can mean two things: 1) the namahousou is FULL and therefore you cannot enter or 2) the namahousou has yet to be broadcast and you have to wait for the doors to open. The timeshift button here is important, especially to free users because clicking it will allow you to watch the namahousou at a later time.
More on timeshifting...
Any namahousou with a yellow button has a timeshift. A timeshift option has two uses:
1. You can reserve a namahousou in advance in case you're going to miss it on its broadcast date or if you cannot enter it while it is ongoing.
2. You can watch any TS-enabled namahousou from communities you've joined by clicking them on the nama log page in each comm (premium only).
If, for example, you won't be able to watch this particular TS-enabled nama, but you want to watch it later, you can click the yellow button to reserve it for later watching. This is also same for occurrences when you cannot enter the namahousou (since it's full and you're a free user).
Upon reserving a namahousou, you can watch it one hour after it's finished. You have seven days before your TS reservation expires, so watch it as soon as you can. For premium users, the TS in namas enables you to watch it for seven days since it's broadcast whether you reserved it or not. Exceptions to the 7-day rule are concerts/daikaigi namahousou. \
Free users can timeshift up to ten namahousou. Premium users can TS up to thirty. You can access the namahousou you've timeshifted in the "ongoing namahousou" page in your MY PAGE. You can see a screencap and translation of the sections here. By the way, the blue button beside the timeshift button is an alert button. This appears in namahousou which are booked and haven't started yet. Choosing the alert button will make NND send you an e-mail or text (for JPN-based people) when the namahousou is about to start so you'll be reminded of it.
* NOTE: I got a lot of questions about getting kicked out from a namahousou in the previous guide. So here's a short explanation on floors/seats:
When you are in a namahousou, you get "seats". You can see your "seat" in the lower right corner of your namahousou screen. In a normal namahousou, there are two "floors" with seats: the arena, or the main floor; and the tachimi/s, or the standing room. When you are in the arena, your comments can be viewed by the one holding the namahousou. When you're in any of the tachimi (Tachimi A, B, C, etc.), the host cannot see your comments unless s/he uses a program to view all the comments from all the floors. In bigger namahousou, you get other floors like "balcony" and "side floors" in addition to arena. Anyway...
When you get kicked out of a namahousou, you either get a nice boat video (the ferry thingy) or you get a notice then end up seeing the page with the silver and gold gates. This happens to free users most of the time. See, when you enter a namahousou, normally you end up in arena if there are a few people or tachimi A/B if there are many. However, premium users get priority in these "seats". If the namahousou is starting to be full, the free users are pushed towards the standing floors (tachimi) and eventually, they get kicked out when there are too many premium users in the nama. Basically, it means a premium user gets your slot ^^;. Two things to deal with this is to 1) refresh max until someone leaves and you gain a slot or 2) Timeshift the nama.
II. ALERTS
Now that we know how to view/comment on a namahousou as well as what to do if we get kicked out, locked in and all that jazz, the next thing to know is: how to know when a person you're following has a namahousou?
Normally, you see when someone's doing a namahousou when you look at their community page and you see this image:
You can also see which people are having namahousou in your MY PAGE. But what if you do not have the time to refresh max these pages? That's where Nico Nico Alert comes in.
The Nico Nama Alert is a small program which you can download for free. When you have downloaded it, you need to input your username and password in it. Then, when you open the program, it will unobtrusively stay in your taskbar. It'll will be quiet...until a namahousou of a community you joined or a featured nama has started. When one does start, the program will make a small notification sound and a small window linking to the namahousou will open. You just need to click that to watch. You can download it by clicking on the circled part.\
This is a very useful program, but aside from that, you can also get namahousou alerts in Twitter, from the personalities themselves XD.
III. HOW TO COMMENT + NETIQUETTE
Although most of us would prefer lurking in namahousou, it's still important to understand certain terms and activities in order to understand what they're saying/doing in the nama. When you join a namahousou, you will most probably encounter these terms/activities:
• waku - This is the "slot" for the namahousou. Nico Nico Douga doesn't allow all namahousou to broadcast at once. People who want to hold a nama are in a "queue" until they're able to open a broadcast. This is why people say "Wakotsu" or "Waku otsu" to the person holding the nama when it starts.
• enquete (アンケート） - This means a survey or poll. This happens when several numbered options suddenly appears on the screen and you're made to choose which you like the most. Not all namahousou has the ability to hold a formal survey so sometimes, they use a vote of hands. When you're asked to raise your hand for your opinion, you can do a ノ for "yes" or a "wave" and ヘ for "no".
• shoken (初見) - This means "first time listener" or "newbie". When you enter some small-group namas, you'll often see "shoken welcome!" which means they welcome newcomers. It's common courtesy to announce yourself as a newbie （初見です。） when you listen to a nama for the first time.
• kotehan - This means "handle name". When you're new and you're in a small-group nama, you'll often be asked for your handle name so they'll know how to address you. Before, you have to do the @nickname after your reply so they'll know your name, but with the new version, your nickname (from your profile) can be seen even without you typing it out, it seems. This is as long as you disable the anonymous option from your system options. Which leads us to the next term.
&bull 184 - This means "anon". When you're unnamed in a namahousou, you're technically 184. In order to remove your anonymity and let the host see your name from his/her comment box or comment reading program, you need to disable your anon option.
Unclick the box of the encircled part in order to be un-anon.
• waku enchou - This means "nama extension". Normally, a namahousou only lasts for 30 minutes. After that the host will queue again and wait for a slot of s/he wants to continue. However, by paying with points, they can extend their namahousou for more than 30 minutes. When people ask if there's an enchou, it means they're asking if the nama will last for more than 30 minutes.
For more words used in a Nico Nico namahousou, you can read my mini dictionary here :).
Of course, with the great fun in watching namahousou comes awareness and responsilities so you do not act rude or KY (clueless). Here are some things you should keep in mind. They look pretty stupid to do, but believe it or not, a lot of people do it in namahousou.
1. Do not spam. There are spam emoticons/symbols in namahousou sometimes, called danmaku, but they are mostly used for performance namahousou, etc. You are free to leave comments, but it is no excuse for you to spam, unless the broadcaster allows it. Asamakku has specifically asked their members not to spam when either Asamaru or Jack are in non-Asamakku nama (meaning those held outside their comm).
2. Do not excessively use English or other languages apart from Japanese. Most personalities understand English and they probably just have problems constructing sentences which is why they cannot respond in the same language. However, that is not an excuse to use English (or other languages) in a namahousou unless the host specified so. This is a Japanese site after all, with the majority of the viewers Japanese. Using English seems very KY and rude and you might get rude responses if you keep it up (FYI 日本語でＯＫ is quite offensive if you're spamming in English). You might be even driven away if you can't take a hint ^^;. Aside from that, you might be giving a lot of stress to the host because s/he has to spend time trying to understand and answer your comment. I might be a bit extreme, but seriously, it's one of those things you just want to avoid when watching a namahousou. IF YOU CAN, COMMENT IN JAPANESE. Some might say, "but I don't know enough Japanese to comment unlike you." Well, I did start listening to namahousou using only "wwwwww" and "88888888" and emoticons ^^;;.
3. Do not say you don't understand what the broadcaster is saying. Connected to the previous one, this is a bit ridiculous but I keep seeing it. There were some Dasoku and Wotamin nama where foreigners kept saying, "What is s/he saying?" and "I do not understand you, Minmin/Dasoku (crying emote)". I'm sorry but I think it's really ridiculous OTL. People will tell you off saying "If you cannot understand, why are you still here?" <-- this really happened. So please...uh...watch your words.
4. Do not give unnecessary links in the comments. Links to communities/sites offering illegal content, porn, online dictionaries... I think that's self-explanatory.
5. Keep your messages uncomplicated. Especially if you cannot speak Japanese. Google Translate Japanese is BAD. I know there are moments wherein you really, really want to comment to someone with all your might, but Google Translate is not the way. Actually, in Google, when you search for a simple statement's translation in Japanese, chances are you'll find it ("[sentence] in Japanese is") in some learning sites. I'm really sorry that I'm discouraging this right after I said don't comment in English LOL. But err...if you want to embarrass yourself or make the broadcaster spend so much time figuring out what you're saying then I guess to each his own ^^;.
These guidelines are based on my experiences of watching namahousou. If you have any other Netiquette-related things to add, just tell me in the comments and we'll see how to add them here :).
And so, that's it! Enjoy your nama-viewing. Just a warning: watching namahousou can be very addictive. Some of them have nama up to 3AM in the morning (JPN time) so good luck to all of us ^^;. If you have any questions, please comment and I'll see what I can do :).