Have you ever thought of installing a chat room?

[AsteroidBlues]

I've been poking around the site for a while, and I've noticed something. On any given day, while there are usually a few people on the site at any given time, there is no place to really connect with those users because there aren't enough people around to keep a forum board active enough with topics to participate in.

Say you have a few Silent Hill fans online at the same time wanting to talk a little shop, but there is no way to participate in the community in a way that will garner response at that given time. Obviously you're not going to start a new thread just to talk, that's reserved for when you have something interesting to add to the board.

With Vbulletin it's possible to have multiple separate chat rooms active above the actual forum (Chat for Umbrella Labs, Off Topic, etc). I'm assuming that is still possible with VB4.1.12, as I am only familiar with an older version of VB. I just thought it might be an interesting addition.

[Alzaire]

Yes, the idea was brought up and discussed several times. It was decided not to have one.

[AsteroidBlues]

Yes, the idea was brought up and discussed several times. It was decided not to have one.

Ah. Alrighty then! xD

[Carnivol]

We tried running a test room for a couple of months a few years back. Had a steady 5 or so idlers in it and a total of 20-something forum users dropped by to check it out. To sum up how this mostly went down;

Remember back in 7th grade when someone in your class would join random chat rooms and everyone were kinda gathering around the computer screen shouting "COME ON!!! TYPE /ME FARTS!!!" DO IT!!!" and then the person at the keyboard would type that and they'd think it was the funniest shit ever and people would start high-fiving eachother while plotting their next "amazing" move?


Yeah, that's pretty much what was going on whenever someone from the site would join that chatroom. (It was even worse when they joined in pairs, since then you'd basically have them giggling it up on Skype/MSN/AIM/whatever on the side, proud-fucking their ingenious behavior). If I bring up my old desktop again, I'd be more than happy to post the logs too, just to show you exactly which members it were and how you'd really not expect that kind of behavior from them, but it goes to show how this community really isn't "good enough" for a living and breathing chat room.

(I am actually THAT butt hurt over how miserably the chat room failed, since I spent nearly two years convincing Dot50Cal we should have one and the site staff should at least run it as a background task and idle there ... but of course, those mighty 6mb of memory and 0.01~0.00% of CPU idle power were too much to spare for most during their uptime, it seemed.)

[Alzaire]

Must have been before I was around here. I don't remember the chat room at all.

[Carnivol]

C'mon! We even had a news post for the test room being up (with server info and everything) after a thread here in the comments and suggestions section

Think it was right before Dot50Cal decided to chase after the podcast idea.

[AsteroidBlues]

We tried running a test room for a couple of months a few years back. Had a steady 5 or so idlers in it and a total of 20-something forum users dropped by to check it out. To sum up how this mostly went down;

Remember back in 7th grade when someone in your class would join random chat rooms and everyone were kinda gathering around the computer screen shouting "COME ON!!! TYPE /ME FARTS!!!" DO IT!!!" and then the person at the keyboard would type that and they'd think it was the funniest shit ever and people would start high-fiving eachother while plotting their next "amazing" move?


Yeah, that's pretty much what was going on whenever someone from the site would join that chatroom. (It was even worse when they joined in pairs, since then you'd basically have them giggling it up on Skype/MSN/AIM/whatever on the side, proud-fucking their ingenious behavior). If I bring up my old desktop again, I'd be more than happy to post the logs too, just to show you exactly which members it were and how you'd really not expect that kind of behavior from them, but it goes to show how this community really isn't "good enough" for a living and breathing chat room.

(I am actually THAT butt hurt over how miserably the chat room failed, since I spent nearly two years convincing Dot50Cal we should have one and the site staff should at least run it as a background task and idle there ... but of course, those mighty 6mb of memory and 0.01~0.00% of CPU idle power were too much to spare for most during their uptime, it seemed.)

You're kidding! I wouldn't expect that from THIA (Granted I've been here a short time). I know exactly what you mean though, I've taken part in all levels of forum management but the worst was monitoring chat rooms filled to the rafters with retards. xD But it sucks that you had to go on a fucking crusade to get one installed and once it was, it fell flat on it's face.

[Mr. Spencer]

I doubt anyone would use it on a regular basis. I like the idea though.

[News Bot]

Forum chats are shit.

Use IRC if you're going to use anything at all.

[Carnivol]

^Ofcourse.

We did have a cheap-o java client set up for those who for some reason didn't want to install a client too.
Channel was hosted on ETG (EnterTheGame).

Would be interesting to give it a second shot, but only if the same guys I see idling 24/7 on *insert IM client of choice* are willing to add another server (and/or room) to their idle list in the form of an IRC client.

Need a strong idling force of at least roughly 10 for me to at least care.

[AsteroidBlues]

^Ofcourse.

We did have a cheap-o java client set up for those who for some reason didn't want to install a client too.
Channel was hosted on ETG (EnterTheGame).

Would be interesting to give it a second shot, but only if the same guys I see idling 24/7 on *insert IM client of choice* are willing to add another server (and/or room) to their idle list in the form of an IRC client.

Need a strong idling force of at least roughly 10 for me to at least care.

Well if you guys decide to give it a second try and end up a little short handed, I'd be glad to lend a hand wherever needed.

[Project Omega]

I remember IRC chats from back in the day. Damn, we kids back then.