Chat Rooms
energy said:
I echo Mike, Dave and Wes' view of the chat room. I log on as soon as I get here and they are empty. After waiting a few minutes I'm gone and go the forums. It's a hit and miss thing to find someone to engage chat with. Then, what do we say? "Hello"
I have phpMyChat set up at the moment but may switch in the near future to other chat software. I am working on a way to show on at least the forum home page who, if anyone, is in chat.
Chat was asked for long ago. I didn't then, nor do I now, see chat as something most people here will use. It was relatively easy to set up on the last server and this server so I installed it. I did try to make it easy by configuring it so you can just put in your name - no password is required unless you want to set up a login name which no one else can use.
I used to be interested in IRC some years back - like back in 1995. It was OK but not my cup of tea. Some people like it a lot anhd some boards even have IRC connection built in so anyone with an IRC client can chat as well, but their focus is usually gaming or such.
I do think it has its place. I don't believe it will ever be 'big' here. But it will be nicer if I can get it so that if you're in the forums you can see who, if anyone, is in the chat rooms.
For those really interested in chatting, just open a new browser window with the chat screen and leave it open and to the right side of your screen where you can see if someone enters. You can leave the window open all day (evening, whatever) if you want.
To be honest, we're really close to video-audio conferencing - chat is 'old hat'. I know on the Mac iChat, and I think AOL's chat program, are now audio-visual enabled. That I would like. I played with I-see-U (or whatever it was) some years back and it was kinda nice. White board programs also have their place and some years back was fun to use.