What are you looking for in a chat?

[PCGUY]

This question is for all of SpudFiles

What exactly are you looking for in a chat room? I have 2 main things to decide between...

-Do we want a chat that acts like a dedicated chatroom? You click the "chat" button, it opens a new window that is specific for the chatroom. Mainly useful when there are multiple people on that want to chat at the same time. Mainly useless when no one else wants to chat. Refresh times on the chat however can only be so fast, maybe 5 seconds at best so it's not quite like an IRC chat or AIM chatroom.

Pros - More like a dedicated chatroom. Can have large conversations.
Cons - Only useful when people are online at the same time & want to chat with eachother.

-Do we want a chat that acts like a "shoutbox"? This would mean that registered users would have a little box on 1 specific page, probably the main forum page. http://www.spudfiles.com/forum.html The box would be near the top and fit directly into the layout. This would allow someone to "shout" basically at others, regardless if anyone is on SpudFiles at the time or not. All users on this page would be able to see this, and it would refresh once every so many seconds only on that page/in that box. Someone could come online, and ask/reply to anything posted in there at any time regardless if there are people online or not.

Pros - Less like a dedicated chatroom, people can "chat" to eachother over much longer periods of time. Does not require others to be online/participating at that time. Easy way to ask quick questions and have someone come respond later, for all to see.
Cons - Not very realistic if you had say 20 people trying to have an active conversation at once. Could entice people to shout "junk" but mods can handle that by removing people from it/warning/banning/etc whatever is needed.

Thoughts?

[mark.f]

I think a traditional chatroom is what I would use most. A "shoutbox" on the forum index or the "new posts" or "unread posts" page would catch more people, though. People just checking new messages could see an active conversation and join it whereas that same person would have just visited the site for a total of two minutes to make sure there were no new topics.

[jrrdw]

I like the shout box, I use the box on the airbrush forum regular and it's great.

[dart guy]

when will the chat be here?

[POLAND_SPUD]

Can't we get both ?? Combining it can get the best of both worlds. Some users have abused the chat (cough cough cough DYI cough) because well what's written doesn't show up anywhere... on the other hand we all want to have a real time conversation with other memebers. Soooo wouldn't it be possible to get both ?

[dart guy]

Hey, when will it be here? I also think that it should open in a new window so that one can remain on SF to chat about spud stuff, and i also think it could lead to quicker answering of questions.
(/Edit: how am i more popular than poland_spud? the world is tumbling into madness!)

[Zeus]

Can't we get both ?? Combining it can get the best of both worlds. Some users have abused the chat (cough cough cough DYI, Zeus, SB15, MrC, Mobile Chernobyl, Mr Sandman cough) because well what's written doesn't show up anywhere(cough cough redheads cough)... on the other hand we all want to have a real time conversation with other memebers. Soooo wouldn't it be possible to get both ?

¿por qué no tener tanto

[Ragnarok]

Well, I'm sort of... out of date on how things are running here (looking at my posts tells me I basically jumped from Oct 2011 to Nov 2013 - that's the last time I play poker with a Time Lord), but I prefer a dedicated chat to a shoutbox.

I thought it worked reasonably well in the past with this topic to organise a pile-in on the chat, and the short question topic suffices for... well, short questions.

We don't really need a shoutbox for people to type "gruntfuttock" in.

That said, I do remember Spudfiles being a bit more active two years ago (although my memory may not be correct), so a dedicated chat might not work as well these days.

[SpudBlaster15]

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[Mr.Sandman]

I prefer the old flashchat, a shoutbox would be cool and all but after using one on an unrelated forum, its kind of lame.

[PCGUY]

Thank you for the input everyone! Should be enough to go ahead and implement the chat.

[Mr.Sandman]

Thank you for the input everyone! Should be enough to go ahead and implement the chat.

YUS!!!!!! I missed the flashchat so much.

[Zeus]

Inb4 shoutbox

[DYI]

Late to the party, but I would dearly love to have the old chat back. It was a veritable fount of fascinating and humorous conversation, and typically contained the highest level discussion anywhere on the site, including the forum. I don't think we abused it - we made it fun. I would jump at the chance to get that conversation going again.

[lilysmith]

I like the shout box, I use the box on the airbrush forum regular and it's great.