The Chat Box/Shout Box/TagBoard

[bobdat]

Personally, I didn't have one on my site, as I had heard mostly the negatives about chat boxes. A few members asked me whether I was going to add one, and I eventually decided to give it a try. I got a good colour scheme, one that matched my forum skin.

A few weeks after I have added it, two things have happened.

1. All the members have started using it, and it is very useful, either for just general chat, or for asking other members to post somewhere ect. It is well used, and is generally a success.

2. The usage of the general board has fallen considerably. Although it wasn't used much to begin with, only the word games seem to have survived.

From this, I decided to keep it. So it is very much a success, and I have added rules saying that advertising must be limited to the 'E-Mail / URL' section, ot on the advertising board. It seems to be working well, and if anyone does ever spam, the C-Box can be moderated, so it is not so much of a problem.

|bobdat|

[Xephyr]

I think that chatboxes are good. Guests can quickly ask questions and spamming can happen there without you having to warn people for spamming and boards...and they are fun. The few things they are bad for...like sometimes guests won't join or something...are bad...but the good things kinda just make you want to get one..>_>

[Dazzle]

Pros:

Chatboxes are great ways to communicate with members and get the members to know each other.

Cons:

Lately I have been experiencing some guests abusing the cbox. This was a guest impersonating me and a few of my members:

lilli
luna your gay? 30 Mar 07 19:06
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ARE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ARE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ARE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ARE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
you guys im gay, obvisouly I am its a [Removed] harry poter site, what gay freaks 30 Mar 07 19:07
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ATRE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
Im gay to 30 Mar 07 19:06
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU ARE GAY 30 Mar 07 19:11
74.14.137.174
Lilli
YOU AREGAY 30 Mar 07 19:10
74.14.137.174
Lilli
luna its okay that you are gay 30 Mar 07 19:09
74.14.137.174


I know, consider that a warning about cboxes to all those who are wondering whether they should get one or not. Another bad thing about CBoxes are that people always advertise their boards on it. It's frustrating.

So after that happened, a few of my members PMed me saying that they were insulted and were going to delete their accounts (harsh, I know) so that was definitely decreased member use.

[Gamoc]

Usually, that kind of thing is caused by guests and spam bots. there is a code in the code database that you should find will get rid of all of that by making the cBox disappear to guests, but appear for members. It is very useful in this case, you could also make a board for the cBox to be in. It can be quite effective and only takes 2 seconds to go check and leave. Of course, it would be pointless, that part, to let guests inside of the board, though. So most of the cons of cBoxes and shoutboxes can be quickly eliminated by doing such small little things like that.

[Zoolu]

It all depends on the type of board you run. If your running a General-type board, then a Chat Box would be a good idea. Or, if your running some form of RPG board, you may want to have several chat boxes(on diffrent boards, of course). This is because it makes RPing a lot easier when there more then one person online.

However, if your running a board where members type stories(like a writers guild or something) then you probably don't want a Chatbox, as it discourages the members from writteing as they should.

[Fallen Anjel]

I have an awesome shout/chat box. It's by Gamechef. (I think he is currently banned from PB, but he still has an awesome shoutbox). It's pretty much a chat but w/ 12 lines. My members use it daily. I use it all the time. It doesn't take away from my forum (12,000+posts), my members seem lost w/o it! It's a way to communicate w/ everyone, ask questions etc. We even have full blown conversations in it, totally bypassing the chat room!

I also have it in my Global headers so it can be seen on boards too, not just the home page.

[MARYA]

My friend had a chatbox, it was good, but it slowed down the opening of the forum. Because of the chat box, the forum took longer to load. So she removed it.

Personally, I think it is stupid to have a chat box on a forum that was made for talking. I think the forum is good enough for talking, it doesn't need an extra chatbox.

[Paper Box]

I have a chatbox on my forum for now. Until I see my members abusing it, and posting their forums, then I'll remove it.

[infestor1]

I don't really prefer those things that you have to refresh the page to see, i prefer chat rooms, so you can just automatically see the message. I also like Chat Rooms becuase they can be moderated and some allow moderation bots that auto-ban people for cussing in them. that is why the only tag board/shoutbox service i like is SayBox because it allows you to easily moderate without paying or any problems. I really that Ron and Renegade for that (just so they know).

[Freckle578]

I can't see how chat boxes would be beneficial to forums that are just starting out (I've seen forums where there is more activity in the chat box than in the forum itself). On the other hand, I can completely see how they would work quite nicely with forums as large as Enchant's forum, where membership seems to be loyal, and activity is not a problem. They can be good - creating a better sense of community and allowing members to chat in a way that is much closer to normal conversation. That's probably why they're so popular. But, they can take too much away from new forums.

I wonder if any admins of brand new forums have had success in improving forum activity with the aid of chat boxes.

[nfisher]

I recently started a Board ( [No Advertising] ). I'm trying to put a chat box on it, so other charactors can talk on it. My name on it is Rogue Warrior.
Thank You

[~»tobi«~]

Our site has 2 chatboxes and both are very popular with members . I do not think they detract from our site activity , just the opposite , members can leave a quick hello or inquiry and they yell loudly if we take the boxes down for any period of time . If it makes them happy then I prefer to have them .

[Jon]

A lot of people say they are bulky, or don't fit in with your proboard.

But there are ways to make them fit!

I have found cbox to be the best. There are small, infrequent advertisements, but other than that, the free version has many great features, such as:

Customizing colors
Customizing Smilies
Banning IP addresses
and more stuff.

All you need to do is blend you cbox and then make it the height and width you want. You can even add a border around it to match you forum.

For a good example, see my site (in siggy).

Yea, they are definetly worth having.

The biggest downside I have seen is that it atcually slows down loading time in IE.. sometimes up to two - four seconds.

[FatedLunar]

The proboards forum I'm an admin(not the original) at has a cbox, and I think it gave our forum a lot of benefits. When I first joined the forum, it really helped me a lot. My problem is that I tend not to post on forums at all, because I'm shy, and pretty much afraid of people. And when I do post, I have a tendency not to even look at replies because I'm half-scared that it's someone yelling at me for posting or something along those lines.

With the cbox at our board, it just really helped me get over those issues. I wasn't scared of posting in that box at first, and with people, including the admins talking on there, it helped me to get to know them, and get over my shyness and fear of actually posting on the board, so in my case and others, it actually helps the post count.

It's just good for regular discussion and with the type of forum we have, it helps to see if people are online so we can link up our Nintendo DS' as that stuff is easier to organize in a box than it is in a forum or PM. Our forums also a bit small though, and both the forum and cbox is used.

A previous poster had brought up people pretending to be other people. We actually had a few incidents where that happened in the box. Someone almost got banned because of it. Another user got demodded when his brother snuck on the computer and pretended to be him, but was remodded a few days after as we kept it off for security reasons. The cboxes also have the option of banning people.

One of our members managed to solve the masquerading problem that the previous poster bought up though by upgrading the thing to a premium cbox. We use password-protected names on there now, so you can't do it, though the sibling thing can still happen when they forget to logout, but nothing as huge as our other incident yet thankfully. It also has the nice addition of being able to ban straight from the box which is useful so you don't have to log onto the site and look up the IP everytime someone misbehaves.

So overall, yes, I think chatboxes actually add to a forum, and sometimes even encourage people like me to actually not by too scared of posting on the site.

[dtedder2]

I keep getting script Erro's on C Box when I use it on my forum.... Whats up with that???