Q on interface settings..RE: IM/Chat for groups

I am fairly new( under 30 days) and one annoyance I keep running into is Chats popping up in the groups i belong to, when I'm not interested in seeing them.
Is there a setting I'm missing to turn off the group chats so they don't keep popping up all the time. I got banned from one place because I answered a question I thought was directed at me in the area I was standing in.
It wasn't it was a member of the group I belonged to in the chat channel. The owner booted me for answering his question.
This is a real pain.

So again.. any way to turn it off so the only chat I get is private chat directly to me, or from someone in the area I'm actually in?

If you close the window with the little [X], it will not pop up again that session.
This is a common nusance and often asked for feature. For now, sadly, it's just something you have to do every time.

This is the only way I know to shut it off. Any other way and it will pop up every time someone says something in chat. Yosef is right. This issue drives people ape. If you are in a lot of chatty groups, you won't be able to think straight with all the IM windows popping up.

Thanks.. I love this forum.. straight answers and friendly residents.

"Will someone send me a TP?". Grrrrr if had a quid for every time I've seen that this week I would be loaded. In the past I have reluctantly left groups because of this, it's really irritating.