The Chat Box/Shout Box/TagBoard

[whisker]

Nov 21, 2012 15:51:33 GMT -8 Ravendolphin said:

It depends. Sometimes  chatboxes do take away the activity of the forum. No one would be posting on the forum as much and would only come to the forum just for the chatbox. It would be good for quick little conversations such as saying "hi" or "I have to leave for vacation- I'll be back soon." It can be good for chating when you are one of two people on the forum while everyone else was not logged in yet.

I agree, Ravendolphin! I do like the chat box, but I prefer for it to be placed inside the forum, not on Home page, where I think it can be obtrusive. Registered members know where to find it - on the Drop-In board, so there is less danger of spammers using it there!

[Ravendolphin]

Nov 24, 2012 6:11:14 GMT -8 whisker said:

Nov 21, 2012 15:51:33 GMT -8 Ravendolphin said:

It depends. Sometimes  chatboxes do take away the activity of the forum. No one would be posting on the forum as much and would only come to the forum just for the chatbox. It would be good for quick little conversations such as saying "hi" or "I have to leave for vacation- I'll be back soon." It can be good for chating when you are one of two people on the forum while everyone else was not logged in yet.

I agree, Ravendolphin! I do like the chat box, but I prefer for it to be placed inside the forum, not on Home page, where I think it can be obtrusive. Registered members know where to find it - on the Drop-In board, so there is less danger of spammers using it there!

That's a good idea, whisker. The chat box is cool, but the forum has to be used too. It's an extra feature to it, but it should not be the main chat session. They aren't meant for long conversations or whenever you are role playing [if that would happen to be the case]; that's what the forums are for.

[Another thing here to add] For admins who hate one liners, they could get a chat box for their forum so they don't have to deal with posts that aren't long enough.

[whisker]

Some more good points, RavenDolphin!

[blueshead]

My members like it. They are very chatty. I use iShoutbox.. Members have to sign up for it and it ties in a spam list..Ip, banning,etc. So far using captcha for guests has not been abused. If and when it does..I'll turn guest posting off.

 If a guest has a banned IP or is on the autospam list, they can not post. They also can not use a registered users name.

I'm a gaming board and members like to touch base quickly without posting in the forums.

[Merewen]

Pros: Overall, I think it is a good that to have on a site that shows activity level, and let's the levity rise a fair bit. It let's the members get closer together and shows guests that they don't have to write in a board. On a board post, Guests normally wait around 15 minutes for their question to get answered and most don't have the patience for that, so they just don't bother. But on a chat box they can wait for the time when someone is on (hopefully) and get answers quicker. Also, a chatbox opens the site up. The one thing that turns me off from a site is if it is closed to guests, and has no chatbox, making it so that you HAVE to join, when all you might want to do is ask a few questions to see if you really want to. 

Cons: Trolling, Flames, and spam can happen too easily, but with rules in place about it, this can be remedied slightly. Also, the load time of some chatbox's is too much for some people with sucky wifi. 

I love chatboxes personally.

[Forgery Zaytsev]

I feel that chatboxes are advantageous to such an extent that there are no downsides. When guests come to your forum and have a question, as was stated earlier, they don't want to create an account just to ask it so they can decide if they want to be a part of your forum. Even if you have guest-friendly areas, the chatbox is a much more expedient way of communication, thus making it easier for guests to ask questions and get fast answers to those questions.

Some would argue that it degrades the general appearance of a forum, but I would argue that that depends entirely on the way you implement your chatbox. If you place a chatbox at the bottom of the page, for example, it's not even visible with the rest of the forum.

In response to spamming on chatboxes, advertising on chatboxes, and other general rule-breaking, I say that it's part of the forum and therefore clearly falls under the rules of the rest of the forum and therefore punishable to the same extent as actions performed throughout the rest of the board. Besides which, many chatboxes let you ban IP addresses, allowing you to keep spammers, advertisers, and so forth from messing with things. If one strikes before you can get to him, simply ban the IP and then delete his message. Problem solved.

I also believe that it enhances the activity of a board. If I post something on your forum and I'm sitting around waiting for a reply with nothing to do, what am I likely to do? I'm going to close the tab and come back some other time. If you have a chatbox and there's one or more people on it, I'm going to be able to bide my time chatting with other members, building relationships with them, and having a good time in general until someone has replied to my post. This, in turn, allows me to reply more expediently and therefore gives greater activity to the forum.

An active chatbox is always a plus, in my opinion.

[the infection____]

I have a chatbox I recently subbed and I love it. People still post often, and it's a great asset to the community. If you're not posting yet or don't have anything to post to, it's great. And if a new member has a question about an app or something of the sort they can talk to you. I think that the only way a chatbox can take away from your forum is if it is used for in character chat/rping.

[Former Member]

My chatbox code does not show on my test forum so hopefully that issue can be solved cause I love my chatbox too!

[HoudiniDerek]

Dec 24, 2012 9:38:29 GMT -8 Forgery Zaytsev said:

I feel that chatboxes are advantageous to such an extent that there are no downsides. When guests come to your forum and have a question, as was stated earlier, they don't want to create an account just to ask it so they can decide if they want to be a part of your forum. Even if you have guest-friendly areas, the chatbox is a much more expedient way of communication, thus making it easier for guests to ask questions and get fast answers to those questions.

Some would argue that it degrades the general appearance of a forum, but I would argue that that depends entirely on the way you implement your chatbox. If you place a chatbox at the bottom of the page, for example, it's not even visible with the rest of the forum.

In response to spamming on chatboxes, advertising on chatboxes, and other general rule-breaking, I say that it's part of the forum and therefore clearly falls under the rules of the rest of the forum and therefore punishable to the same extent as actions performed throughout the rest of the board. Besides which, many chatboxes let you ban IP addresses, allowing you to keep spammers, advertisers, and so forth from messing with things. If one strikes before you can get to him, simply ban the IP and then delete his message. Problem solved.

I also believe that it enhances the activity of a board. If I post something on your forum and I'm sitting around waiting for a reply with nothing to do, what am I likely to do? I'm going to close the tab and come back some other time. If you have a chatbox and there's one or more people on it, I'm going to be able to bide my time chatting with other members, building relationships with them, and having a good time in general until someone has replied to my post. This, in turn, allows me to reply more expediently and therefore gives greater activity to the forum.

An active chatbox is always a plus, in my opinion.

This post has made me rethink my earlier vehemence against them.

I still believe that they can be de-constructive to forums, especially those with few active members.  I had one on one of my forums a few years ago and most of the activity was there instead of RPing.  They would much rather chat with each other than create and it drove other members and potential new ones away.  I agree that they can have some practical benefits, especially in the nature of guests, but I still probably will not use them again.  However, your comments have made me see that they can be utilized more effectively.

[imitateslife]

I just added a Chat Box today and I'm unsure. We have a very small community and we're all pretty friendly, but we all also are stuck in the past and use AIM to talk to one another. I worry that that will render our Chat Box obsolete. However, I don't think that the Chat Box-- if it does see use-- will kill our RP, because we are so into our storylines and our writing. That came first and foremost; why should an additional tool for plotting mess that up?

[HoudiniDerek]

Jan 18, 2013 14:49:17 GMT -8 imitateslife said:

I just added a Chat Box today and I'm unsure. We have a very small community and we're all pretty friendly, but we all also are stuck in the past and use AIM to talk to one another. I worry that that will render our Chat Box obsolete. However, I don't think that the Chat Box-- if it does see use-- will kill our RP, because we are so into our storylines and our writing. That came first and foremost; why should an additional tool for plotting mess that up?

I have just seen it become a way that people don't RP anymore.  They get together and talk there, but don't actively post.  So there were several members on each day, but maybe one new post, if that, coming up.  That's where most of my hatred towards them initially stemmed.  I probably will never have one on a site where I admin, but I don't hate the idea as much now.

[nukestorm]

I've seen this happen on countless of forums, and even though Chatboxes are fun to have, they also take away something that may be valuable of posting on the forum itself.
Since my site basically showcases pivot wrestling animations, for every wrestling event I'll a chatbox up for a day, which I think it is good and doesn't make the chatbox become the only thing for people to come onto the site for.

[JD]

I think that chatboxes can take away activity from a forum. It's very easy to get excited talking to people and forget to go on to the actual site. But I also think there are some serious advantages that outweigh this issue -

01. Members might chat happily in the cbox about whatever but I've also seen them use it to post updates about what they're doing on the boards - "just making a new character", "now posting" etc. and I find that this keeps people interested and chatting between posts on the in character boards. I think it also gets people outside of this engaged and determined to write something themselves.

02. I find that chatboxes are also really useful for guests who view the forum. I know that when I join a forum, the first thing I do is to go to the chatbox and start asking if the forum is active, what is happening on it, and whether it's a good place for me to join in with. If there's nowhere like that for me to ask those questions, I won't go to the trouble of making an account that I might turn around and not want to keep.


I think the issue my be more of a problem for those that have simple discussion forums rather than roleplay forums. If you're site is simply about talking as yourself, a member, rather than a character, then you'll probably do more of it in the chatbox where it is simple, easy and faster to update, rather than going on to the boards. So I think, overall, the chatbox is a more effective tool on a roleplay forum when your purpose on the chatbox and the boards is different. I don't really see the use of a chatbox on discussion sites.

[Snakeair]

We have had this question pop up on a webmaster forum I moderate. Plain and simple, people visit a forum to start threads and post in threads besides lurking around reading posts. The goal of the admin is to get visitors to join the forum and contribute to it. If you want to use a chat service or shoutbox then why did you start a forum to begin with?

If you wanted to, make 1 section where guests can start threads asking questions about the forum before they decide to join. Doing this is much better because other guest might actually read the threads in this section and find the answer that they was looking for then register right away. Would save the moderators and admin's time in repeating same thing over and over again if guests want to ask questions about the forum.

It's just simple, I think these chat services are a waste of time and take away the point of visitors joining the forum to post. What if the chat/shout box service that is installed get's hacked? I mean the host of the chat service get's his account hacked, you might login to find some spam in your shout box or worse. Proboards is much safter and with V5, you really don't need a shoutbox, you can get plugins made to do certain things that was not possible in v4.

[whisker]

Once the shout box is not on Home Page, I find it is not abused. We have the shout box on a board entitled Drop In, and people are free to use it or not! Sometimes, if they are in a huge hurry, it can be quite useful.