Online Chat?

[Ivanhoe]

Hi!
There's one function I'm missing here - live chat.

Two possible scenarios where it could be useful:
1. I see a friend online. I wanted to discuss some stuff which will include fast-paced exchange of opinions and ideas - forum format is too slow for it (including PM) - and calling or using other IM's is not convenient.
2. I see a bunch of friends and we need to suss out some cool stuff together - chat would be perfect as any other means (conference calls, IM's etc) will not work. :
Do you think it's good idea to setup a chat room on PT?
Maybe we (PT community) can vote if it's good/bad idea?
Cheers,
ivan
PS: WARNING! chat is 5 times more addictive!

[whitt]

The question has been asked a while back. These forums have the option of activating chat if desired by Webdesigner.
Back then there was not the demand, since however PT forums have sky rocketed in traffic.
Maybe time to re-visit it or run a poll.

[Monid]

Hi Ivan

I see Whitt beat me to it.
It was discussed here:

http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5422&highlight=chat+room

and here:

http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7361

And as Whitt said it wasn't used much:

http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3664&highlight=chat+room

There are several potential issues:
1. Chatrooms can be too crowded and a hard way to chat. As more people enter and join the chat it can become very disjointed.
2. Publically useful information is lost as the chat progresses its only of benefit to the chatters.
3. Chatrooms favour brief (and in my opinion) reasonably shallow responses. This is my experience of online teaching using forums and chatrooms. The chatrooms wasted everyone's time. Personally when I am teaching in an online learning environment these days I ask the techies to disable sychronious discussion, I've found it pretty much useless for the conveying of complex ideas. Instead its very bitty. I think forum boards are far superior in a learning environment, and I think they are superior here as well.
4. Moderation of chatrooms is basically impossible.
5. Chatrooms lack privacy.

But these are just my thoughts, I'm not a fan of chat.
Personally I would be more keen to build an IM client into PT since that to me is more preferable than a chatroom. But I'm guessing that SarahK will throw things at me for even mentioning the possibility it would probably be major work.

However there is a work around if you have Firefox apparently you can use this extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2488/

To IM people in your browser. So convince your propertytalk buddies to use firefox and install the extension then you can chat to them online while you are both using PT.

For chatroom lovers there is a similar work around:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1825/

Cheers
David

[xris]

Chat? I vote no, for the reasons above and others too.

xris

[Ivanhoe]

OK, so xris will not use chat - fine by me.
If there is a chat function built in vBulletin - why not enable it and see what happens?

It's also very interesting to observe that there's lots of reasoning why chat should NOT be here. Can you come up with any ideas why it would be good to HAVE it here?

[whitt]

There are several potential issues:
1,2,3,4,5 etc

Valid points.

If there is a chat function built in vBulletin - why not enable it and see what happens?

another good point.

It seems we have good reasons for and against.

[tricky]

I think some people aren't suitable to use chat.
They should stay away from it.
Suggesting we need to vote on the topic is a bit silly.
Just enable it and let the chatters loose.
Everyone else keep away.