Do you folks want a chat room?

Ron Earp · 11-20-03, 05:11 PM

Yea or Nay? The software can do a chat room and I could make one functional in a day or so. If people wish to have it lets discuss it here and see what the vote is.

Not sure how it works in comparison to high dollar chat rooms, but it seems functional.

R

TMR2003 · 11-20-03, 08:13 PM

There is a program that is called mirc that is a chat client you download and hook up to a irc server.

BTW,

I would love to see a chat room for this forum.

LastDeadLast · 11-20-03, 08:24 PM

hmmm... My first thought was YES definitely, but the more I thought about it the more I think no. One of the best things about a forum like this is the search engine.... If I want to know where's the best place to buy a certain type of rear view mirrors, well then a quick search would have a good chance of bringing up something relevant. With a chat room, the records of these conversations are lost forever. With that exception, a chat room is a tremendous time waster and can be a great instant resource. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

HILLY · 11-20-03, 09:17 PM

LDL,
My thoughts exactly. With the current forum it does not matter which time zone you are in or how often you are able to log on, the info is always there to be viewed and revisited when required. With the speed that the forum works at the moment it may be possible to set up a new topic maybe called ‘Chatter Box’ (just thinking out loud) and anyone on line at the time can converse in real time but with the benefit of retaining the history of the conversation for all to review. Any topics which are deemed relevant or useful may be periodically moved to the relevant topic area for safe keeping and the remaining chin wag can be deleted. Just a thought.

Scott · 11-20-03, 09:39 PM

I say keep it asynchronous. I'd be afraid of missing out on data.

Scott

Mark Worthington · 11-20-03, 09:43 PM

No. We don't have enough traffic or users to justify this, in my opinion. And as has been said, we could miss valuable archival information.

40 Bud · 11-21-03, 01:33 PM

The information hiway is great the way it is. I see chat rooms as a giant pain in the rear.

Marty · 11-21-03, 03:29 PM

I'm with you. It's distracting enough to have the internet available at work, let alone trying to keep up with an online chat. And, as everyone is saying, the greatest thing about the GT40s forum - the amazing informtion that's shared - is lost forever unless it's saved right then (or so I believe). that's a crime.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are a few people that would benefit from immediate contact, but there's always e-mail.

I probably wouldn't use a chatroom, but who knows?

Lynn · 11-21-03, 04:14 PM

I check the "who's online" from time to time and there are never more than 3 or 4 registered users on when I have done so. I am not sure that a chat would be that useful. I haven't tried it but a PM to someone who is on line to check his email would be almost as effective and you can include multiple people on the email as well (if they have their email address available.) I am assuming that PMs are delivered near real time.

There are upsides, but who is going to do the periodic preening of the chats and what will the criteria be for keep or toss? We have this at work and it can be very intrusive.

The one real upside I could see is if someone has something staring him/her in the face that, once done, there is no turning back from and they want to get immediate advice or confirmation or "hell no, don't do THAT!" from someone online. If you named it something like the Emergency Room and everyone stuck to that purpose, it could be very valuable.

neils · 11-21-03, 06:00 PM

IMHO, Chat Rooms are quite frankly a waste of time unless there are fairly significant numbers of people on line at the same time... and I agree with Lynn.. when I've checked, no more than 3 or 4 people typically....

If people want to chat just to 'chew the fat' then they might like to use IRC or Instant Messaging......

Otherwise, I have found that if you post on the main forum, you invariably get a reply within a few minutes anyway....

Chat Rooms tend to attract people who want to stir up trouble more than forums, and as some of the longer term members of this forum will know, even keeping the current forum 'idiot free' can be a challenge. Ron has done a world class job in setting up, and maintaining this invaluable resource, and the workload would be an unreasonable expectation for someone who also has a day job!

So my vote is: Its great just as it is....

Yours, strongly opinionated from the UK!

Neil

RobBeddington · 11-22-03, 09:11 AM

I'm a member (and administrator) of a number of bulletin boards both at work and play. Although I'm just a newbie here, here's my two pence/cents: In view of the number of members, and for all the reasons stated above, I see no real benefits of a chat room. The community works extremely well, the way the forums are divided is well thought out (although there shouldn't be many more - it could become frustrating dipping in and out of a number of forums that could otherwise be catered for in the "All GT40" section), and the search archive is available "at your fingertips" - most posts for technical advice get a good response.

Lynn's Emergency forum is an excellent idea, as it's permanently available and, provided you make a note to visit this forum, all recent posts will be available when you log on.

Ron, you've done an excellent job so far - in my book, unless there are another 40,000 GT40 owners out there in the near future, there's no need to do anything more.

Cheers

Rob
"Life begins at 40"

Ron Earp · 11-22-03, 09:22 AM

All good points - no chat room! Thanks for the feedback folks and we'll continue on as we are since everyone seems to like that.

Best,
Ron