A real-time chat applet would be an awesome addition to this forum. What do you girls and guys think?
interesting idear but we are all on different sides of the world and i would miss out because i always seem to get on when no ones around
Chat is nice and has it 's places. One of the forums I used to frequent had one. (It now seems to be defunct). Trouble was, no one used it. Or I should say they rarely used it. IMHO, that is a lot of expense to add a chat and pay the royalties and the problems that come with it. Maybe I am wrong but I would think that a chat applet won't come for free...
One thing with chat is there'd be no way to authenticate users. Anyone could log in as "pine_nut" and start spreading some horrific stories. Also, even though those applets are free, you'd still need a dedicated IRC server. And, as wet1 notes, it's not obvious that anyone would use it.
Two cents on chat options Porfiry The first thing that came to mind for me was that we can cuss each other out in real-time. Not the best idea in the world. However, after I dropped my MSN and AIM handles into my profile, something struck me as a possibility. I have, recently, been tearing up a forum for a developing video game for various reasons, and while it pains me to even offer their url at this time--they have decided, among other things, to screw Mac users due to legal details--I did notice something worth suggesting. The video game is Tactical Ops, and their forums are currently vBulletin 2.2.0. At the end of each post, where common buttons (profile, buddy, &c.) appear, there also appears a little symbol for any chat/messenger service the user has included in his/her profile. Just click on the little symbol, and your messenger launches and so forth ... Just for an example is this thread on releasing the game for Macs. Dunno. It occurred to me that this would give people the option of, say, cussing each other out in real-time if they've bothered to launch AIM or MSN, and furthermore would save you the effort and expense of IRC server space. Is there a royalty for the display of the little AIM guy or the MSN busts and so forth? Harassment liability? How sticky is that, or would/does the TOA cover that? Anyway, just a thought that crossed my mind. As it is, it doesn't seem too troublesome to open someone's user profile to check if they have AIM or MSN or such, but everybody loves click-reduction. thanx much, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Against 1 Posts would degenerate into one liners. More complex ideas could never get airtime. 2 No archive of discussions past. The same ol' stuff would get repeated endlessly because there's no "forum memory". 3 Noob unfriendly. They get no background on existing state of the forum if most of the "talk" is conducted in chats. 4 Existing user unfriendly! User is browsing froum wondering why there's no action, while ppl are in a chat somewhere ... 5 - 10 KB, T1, TS, ISDAman, etc. (5 reasons right there)
I don't undestand your last point\s The rest i agree with the way it is no one has to be on t the same time to talk and decuss
My what weight 5-10 carry. All it would take would be one on each channel and chat is highjacked. Subject limited.
The annyoing cadre of religionists While I think G0D has an excellent point against installing chat in the form of the original suggestion, is there some problem that prevents us from ignoring those chatters? I stand by my earlier post in this topic. Entirely. However, I could care less since I rarely use my AIM or MSN. I'd be willing to if I thought anyone ever would want or need something of me that directly. But making a Sciforums IRC channel would be a bad idea across the board, for the reasons expressed by Porfiry and Wet1, as well as the enumeration of our problematic posters provided by G0D. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
In a way, we already have chat available - in the "private message" function. Granted that the "chat" is not within one window and it is strictly between 2 ppl at a time, but it is in real time. A window pops up whenever you recieve a PM, or whenever you login. Another way of contacting individual forum members is simple email - provided the member has the function enabled. I've nothing against a chat service icon, esp if it brings in revenue for porfiry. But IMO there's no advantage in a service created especially for sciforums.
I would like to have real-time conversations with several sciforums users. Just make it clear that if anyone gets you angry or whatever, you Ignore them; bad behaviour gets a temporary ban. Scripts for monitoring nasty language aren't difficult. As for the registered users/false users thing, I don't see the problem there either. Using IRC for example, you can have channels Invite only, or have them so Keys are required. Keys might be a combination of login and password for example, or channel keys might be emailed out to all sciforums users.
Why don't we have a vote to try the chat out for a month or two and if it doesn't work out we vote again to have it taken away. This way everyone's happy, right?
What am I missing? I seem to be missing a vital portion of this debate. So please, help me out with this .... • Also, even though those applets are free, you'd still need a dedicated IRC server. And, as wet1 notes, it's not obvious that anyone would use it. (Porfiry) • . . . . I could care less since I rarely use my AIM or MSN. I'd be willing to if I thought anyone ever would want or need something of me that directly. (Tiassa) • I would like to have real-time conversations with several sciforums users (Adam) • Why don't we have a vote to try the chat out for a month or two and if it doesn't work out we vote again to have it taken away. This way everyone's happy, right? (Pollux V) So first, a question for Porfiry: As I recall, you don't own your servers. How much would a dedicated IRC server cost you? In the spirit of Pollux V's suggestion, I'll start leaving my AIM and MSN Messenger open. Given that I picked them up to replace telephone commuication with a technophile friend of mine, I hardly ever use them unless something's afoot that requires my immediate involvement. RIght now, they're wasting disk space, but sure, I'll leave 'em open. The handle for either of them is BaronSzurke. As Adam has noted, real-time conversations might serve some purpose beyond the real-time cussing that I've joked about. (I've included Adam's comment also as counterpoint to the notion that nobody would use chat, but it is worth noting that, unless my count is wrong, as of this post, 9 out of Sciforums' 4,568 registered users have sounded off to mixed results.) After a couple of months, I'm quite sure that we can have an answer as to whether the idea of Sciforums real-time is worth it or not. Who knows? Maybe Adam and I can discover new perspectives, maybe we'll just sit up getting drunk bashing at each other Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Heck, there's a Yahoo! Messenger, too, if you really really hate MS or AOL. And, to top it off, if the chat idea takes off, Mac users at least have the option of downloading Fire for multiservice chat. (Don't know about Win users, never bothered to look.) But it seems to me quite simple to test the chat experience without asking Dave to either dedicate part of his existing resources to IRC or to pick up another server to accommodate the new service. When Dave figures out how to charge us money for this website, I'd be more inclined to let the IRC demand go without comment, but I do think at present we have a way to experience the real-time aspect without having to chainsaw the greater Sciforums body. Incidentally, I hopped over to the TacOps forum, where I saw the chat buttons, and checked out a detail I forgot before; they're javascript buttons like the smilies on the new post page. Unfortunately, the utter in-the-hole condition of my ISP (AT&T Broadband), who would rather I believe that every major website from Microsoft to Apple to CNN just happens to have their servers offline at the same time, is making it a little difficult to research the possibilities within AIM, MSN, or Yahoo. But, as of this minute, I do apparently have service, and both my MSN-m and AIM are running. I need to check in on the baseball game, though; the ground crew in Oakland was pulling the tarps a few minutes ago after a rain delay ... no guarantee that the game is going to go on, but I may or may not be at my desk after a few. The messengers are small downloads, and I don't expect them to sack your performance too much. Even running OSX on a G3/400, I can still get away with running my usual complement of applications in addition to MSNm and AIM. I would suggest this method of real-time interaction before asking Dave to start overhauling Sciforums to accommodate it. Of course, if Dave finds it a challenge worth undertaking, I won't object. But in the meantime, maybe I'm missing something ... Is there a specific objection to using other means of chat than IRC? I'm wondering, then, why bother to record MSNm and AIM handles in the member profiles? thanx much, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
tiassa, as usual, brings good points to the thread. While it may seem that I am against having a chat for the sake of chatting, that is not the thoughts I have. I realise that the members here are trying to improve sciforums. I do question the value vs cost. In that since we are not paying the bills here and that is what needs to be looked at. You are asking Porfiry to foot the bill for what you wish. Remember the spell checker thread in this forum? Be real folks. If it was your money going out every month would you? There arlready exists those places to chat. All you need do is communicate that you wish to chat and where. That doesn't cost anything. All you need to do is leave your chat service running in the background, as tiassa has mentioned, and you have chat.
