Should we add a Chat Room?

[Jon Matcho]

What does everyong think about adding a Chat Room to the forum? Would you use it?

[John Slade]

Absolutely!

Other Vbulletin users must have the same need, so I'd bet there's an add-in available. If it costs something I'm in for a few $ to help pay for it.

[Marc Zeitlin]

These are two very different questions.

 

Originally posted by Jon Matcho

What does everyong think about adding a Chat Room to the forum?

I think it would be an excellent idea.

 

Originally posted by Jon Matcho

Would you use it?

 

Not at all.

 

Since there are two questions here, the Poll is misleading. I'd definitely vote FOR a chat room, however.

[Jon Matcho]

Originally posted by Marc Zeitlin

Since there are two questions here, the Poll is misleading.

Granted, and so let the following help clarify:

 

Question #1 -- What does everyone think about adding a Chat Room to the forum? Post/discuss your thoughts in this thread.

 

Question #2 -- Would you use it? Use the voting options at the top.

[ekisbey]

I believe last night's experment proved pretty conclusively that we have enough interest and membership to make a chat room worthwhile. There are many uses for that type of intereaction, not just limited to goofing around. There was a short discussion on the Yahoo chat client about the potential uses of videoconferencing, though it might be beyond the scope of some of the free clients that would be available for this forum.

 

Would it be possible to include a simple link somewhere that triggers a 3rd Party chat program, such as Messenger or Netmeeting? AOL Instant Messenger is capable of triggering a NetMeeting session amongst multiple users, drawing them all to the same connection (whoever initiated the session). It's a safe bet, I think, that 95% of folks here are using Windows based software, which typically has this functionality built-in; no downloads required, which scared a couple folks away last night. There's also a function at the toolbar of my Internet Explorer titled "discuss." I've never used this before,so I'm not sure what it does, but I suspect it might be yet another form of chat software.

 

In the end, though, I believe simplest method would be to set up a chat room in Yahoo with a password available on this forum to keep out the bots. You know, keep it simple? Just a thought.

[Joe Patterson]

Originally posted by Jon Matcho

What does everyong think about adding a Chat Room to the forum? Would you use it?

 

I should start with, YES the forum seems to need a Chat-Room.

 

It seems to be a waste of forum archives for me to tell everyone how great my day was. This does seem to be a nice "Family/Club".

 

This forum,Although new to me, seems to be a blend of several distinctly different cultures. The culture I come from needs to interact differently than another may interact. In any business I have been assoc. with, half of building a good moral of is Having non-work involment activities.

 

If I was into noticing my feelings, and talking about them........... I would have felt like the hot-tub atmosphere yesterday, was a very warm and pleasant experience. There seemed to be more "Brotherhood" there than at any other time I have visited this forum.

[John Slade]

There seemed to be more "Brotherhood" there than at any other time I have visited this forum.

Definately. I don't know that a lot was achieved, but that's not the point, is it.

 

I think we should do this weekly, ideally with chat software built in next time. Once in a while we could invite "guests" to join us. Maybe one day, Nat, or even Burt himself will drop in. In the meantime I'm trying to think of interesting people we can invite.

 

For example, my hangar owner is Paul Mason of VariEz racing fame. A facinating guy, but I'm not sure how fast he can type. Another hangar mate, "little Al" is a CFII, flys a LongEz and a twin turboprop for his day job. I'd like to have a few Cozy flyers join in. Norm Muzzy, perhaps, Dave Domier, Greg Richter....

 

Suggestions welcome. Bring you're friends.

[Spodman]

My experience of chat rooms is they eventually default to random discussions between horny teenagers, hostile to anybody who doesn't understand LOL & PML, etc. If managed by a host that promotes an event or special guest who has the power to boot off the horny teenages it could be great.

 

My only request for such events would be could the scheduled times include UTC for those who don't reliably deal with US time zones. Like myself...

[ekisbey]

Somehow, I have a hard time imagining any problems with horny teenagers, especially if the event is available as a link only from within this forum, and by those who have registered a user name.

 

I can think of few things that I would have found, as a teenager, less appealing than a bunch of "old farts" talking about Epoxy allergies or the compression properties of BID used with MGS 285...

[Steve Davies]

Chatroom-itis or not, its got my vote. I thought it might be a little more like shaking hands and saying how's the wife and kids kinda thing, Not to mention that it's also useful for bouncing ideas around and getting a quick reaction.

[Norm M]

The Battlebots message board has been active for several years, and uses the chat attached to Delphi. I have established a room that can be used as desired. Note that you need to 'register', but you can use a bogus email address for that. Also, I have less than zero interest in being a moderator or anything like that.

 

http://forums.delphiforums.com/fastglass/chat

 

If someone would like to jump on scheduling a time to try it out, I would try to be there.

 

I also checked to see if there was a chat client available for my webspace. There is, but it is an additional $7 per month.

 

Regards-

Norm Muzzy

[Jon Matcho]

Check this thread -- we have one available for review: www.canardzone.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=714

[cncdoc]

well, it works, but the text entry hangs occasionally, (probably due to my bandwidth handicap).

 

I like the idea:

Upside: Realtime communication with fellow builders, technical tips while-U-wait etc.. Somewhere to go when Epoxy is drying.

 

Downside: One more thing to take time away from GIB with the usual consequenses (so use sparingly) and person with info may not be there when I am. Potential for childish word battles and the like.

 

Overall good outweighs bad (my opinion)

What's my share of the fee?

 

Kevin

[Jon Matcho]

Just in case you have not yet noticed, I dismantled the "chat room" sub-forum and related software -- it wasn't something I saw as valuable (as was evident from its lack of use as well).

[Drech]

I've used the java and web based chat software before and never did consider it up to snuff with a true IRC server. The communication just feels disjointed but maybe that's because I started with regular IRC.

 

Anyway, I have my own servers so I put up an IRC server for folks here (and anyone else interested in canard chat) at www.tribalrage.com, port 6667, room #canards. Just a heads up, that's the standard port for IRC so your client may not specifically ask for the port # (it should assume 6667 for the initial connection attempt on its own).

 

If you run some flavor of unix, you already know what irc client you will use.

 

If on Windows, there are several clients but I myself am not familiar (some like mIRC).

 

On OS X, I tried and liked Colloquy and it meets my needs for chatting.

 

Googling for any of these should return a bunch of results.

 

Anyway, it's available, it's free, there are no ads, and it's a full chat server that can communicate with any chat protocol on just about any device, so people can connect however they like.

 

Use it or not, it's always available (unless I cook the config but remember, just like message boards, you have to check every so often to catch people online. Some people never disconnect, and that's fine too.

 

Dustin