No chatbox?

[Atomicwarz]

Just seems like it couldn't hurt to have one. Though for some reason, it seems like most people dislike chatboxes and shoutboxes in websites. What do you all think?

[Vaynor]

Well, there's an IRC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115696). I'm not sure if anyone still uses it though.

[Atomicwarz]

Can't they just get one of the hundreds of free online ones? Just like, embed it below the forums or something.

[Maximum Zersk]

Can you imagine how hard it would be to moderate one of those? Especially considering the shortage of active mods at this site.

Might not seem like a good idea.

[Krade]

I also seem to recall bandwidth issues that are still present (if not quite as bad as they have been in the past)

Also, this should probably be in Board/Site Issues. Just saying.

[Ravens_cry]

I belong to BAUT Forum and while there is a chat, I never, ever, have seen it used. I pop in about once month tops, but no one is ever there, 'sides me of course. I don't really see the point. Forums allow a much more rich exchange of ideas, in my opinion.

[Thajocoth]

I also seem to recall bandwidth issues that are still present (if not quite as bad as they have been in the past)

Also, this should probably be in Board/Site Issues. Just saying.

I remember those issues... I think they changed servers or something. It was right when I joined, the site would go down what seemed like every few minutes... Glad that's over.

I wouldn't really use a chatbox. There's already the Random Banter topic, which is almost a chatbox. If they added a chatbox, it wouldn't likely go much faster than that thread does.

Post in Board/Site issues though, as Krade mentioned. See what the mods think of the idea. You never know.

[Quincunx]

We have a chatbox at my home site, and to all appearances it refreshes independently of the main site, but how many users are going to not make the distinction and reload the forum's page instead of just drawing on the chatbox server's bandwidth? If my home site is representative, then "all of them" is the answer. Not good for the forum, especially this one with known bandwidth problems.

Mind you, a lot of Silly Message Board Games would fit seamlessly into the chatbox format, and if I was making a forum from scratch, I'd probablycertainly use them for that. However, our chatbox also effectively killed our catch-all threads which would run at the speed of Random Banter, and that in turn almost brought down the entire sub-forum. I'd be interested to see a board with a lively chatbox and a lively paragraph-minimum-post thread, to see if having the chatbox does effectively separate those two contrary mindsets. It would be worth the bandwidth to keep those variant speeds of posting from spoiling the other's fun.

Ravens_cry, you're thinking of a chat room. A chatbox is a minimalist forum thread, more akin to a Twitter conversation but with longer character limits. Conversations persist in chatboxes (for a certain number of lines) so it can be read like a forum thread.

[Rawhide]

No chatbox, no plans for one either. A chatbox would be far too resource intensive.

[Atomicwarz]

Ah. Well I didn't think to post it elsewhere, since I was aiming for more of a conversation as to why you'd think one isn't needed than 'Gr, chatbox now!'. But those are good reasons to not have a chatbox. I'm just a talkative person, so I prefer being able to converse more quickly than normal forum posts.

[Kobold-Bard]

Ah. Well I didn't think to post it elsewhere, since I was aiming for more of a conversation as to why you'd think one isn't needed than 'Gr, chatbox now!'. But those are good reasons to not have a chatbox. I'm just a talkative person, so I prefer being able to converse more quickly than normal forum posts.

Use PM's followed up with MSN or something maybe?

Though I highly recommend Random Banter.

[Flickerdart]

Well, there's an IRC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115696). I'm not sure if anyone still uses it though.
You kidding? The IRC is brimming with life.

[lesser_minion]

The IRC (irc://irc.gamesurge.net/giantitp) is quite popular, actually. It's a useful place to catch up with people who are hiding from the forums, among other things.

HTML 5 adds PostMessage (I think that's the name, anyway), which is explicitly intended to help sites use widgets that are hosted on a different site. If a suitable host could be found, that might be a possibility.

However, I suppose that's still in roughly the same category as turning the website into some kind of AJAX extravaganza.

[Alias]

Just seems like it couldn't hurt to have one. Though for some reason, it seems like most people dislike chatboxes and shoutboxes in websites. What do you all think?

No -- Hell no. This site is running vbulletin 3.5. At it's current size the shoutbox plug in would bring the server to it's knees. They just recently got a server that handle the comic and the forum without the forums having to be closed on each comic update - and I for one don't want to go back to 3 minute page loads.

[Vaynor]

You kidding? The IRC is brimming with life.

Which is why I said "I'm not sure if anyone still uses it" as opposed to "no one uses it." I haven't logged on in ages.

[Tikor]

Envolve is a website-based chat application (kind of like facebook chat - only for any website) in public beta. Here's the e-mail I got about it.

I imagine many of our various forum communities might appreciate the real-time discussions it enables between users looking at the same thing.

I hope you get Giant in the Playground in the public beta!

"Dear Tikor,



You are receiving this message because you opted to get monthly updates from Envolve when you created an account.



We are releasing our public beta today. This means website owners can install Envolve free of charge and without a private invitation. If you run a website, or know someone who does, you can sign up here: http://www.envolve.com/admin/#create



If you’d like to see the latest version of Envolve please visit our blog.
http://www.envolve.com/blog/2010/06/soft-launch-of-our-public-beta/
http://www.envolve.com/blog/



Regards,



Envolve"

[Mando Knight]

It would increase the server and moderator load for very little benefit. I'm not a moderator, but I can tell you that the answer is 99% likely to be no.

[Serpentine]

The possibility of having some sort of in-site chat service has been brought up before, and unequivocally crushed. Doubtful, I'm afraid.

[Roland St. Jude]

No chatbox, no plans for one either. A chatbox would be far too resource intensive.

Sheriff: What the man said.