Chat rooms

I use a shoutbox on my forum and it is pretty active, but I have to prune it from time to time because it takes a lot of space in my database.

 

I remember doing that! Everyone would go crazy on my forum to be the first "shout" after a prune.

 

:lol: same here

 

Chat Rooms, IRC channels, all those others really do take away from community participation.

I have a shoutbox for Bird is the Word and I see no increase in activity (but then again, we're still VERY new) but with the Chatango for Setsou Design, more people are into that. Basically, what's happening, members advertise our Chatango link and their friends come over to chat, etc.

Also, off-topic; when your chat room is on another page, I think that decreases activity. If you have your shout box located inside your forum, members can still interact while post too - make sense?

 

Yes, very much so.

 

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My first site had a chatbox, but it killed forum activity >__>

The one I run now has one, but it's not quite as efficient, since I obtained it through Xat (the first one came with the provider)...I'll probably scrap it sooner or later, anyway...

 

What worked for my site is a weekly scheduled chat, after which I post the transcript.

 

Personally, I do not like Chatrooms or Shoutboxs. From my experiences, they take away your forums activity.

 

Ah! I like that idea. Once the transcript is posted, does that thread receive a decent amount of discussion?

 

There will usually be a few replies to it, but it more often serves as a jumping off point for new threads. (You'll see me saying "you should start a thread about that" fairly often.)

And every now and then, we convince someone big in the industry to join us for the evening.

 

shoutbox & chatbox is realy nice.. if you would like to chill you could use the chatbox ... :p and shoutbox is just for random spams or sometihng

 

Maybe the shoutbox activity could be automatically archived as a thread every so often? At least then you'd have all that text in your database, though it would probably be full of "hi everyone"s and "laters".

 

While Shoutboxes and such may take away from forum activity, I do think it gives a place for members to get to know each other better.

 

I have flashchat installed on my forum. Its not used a lot - as compared to the total number of members, but it is used.

IMHO - chatrooms add a nice option for your members. It helps to create a better rounded community.

 

I actually think a chat room is fine in some circumstances, but it would be better utilized to set one up for certain parts of the day to promote community interaction.

 

I leave the chat room open all the time, but the only serious chatting occurs during the weekly scheduled chats.

 

Doesn't it take away from some of the discussions on the board or does it help it?

 

The original owner thought it was killing the discussions but didn't have the heart to take it away from them; that's why he sold the site. Once I started posting transcripts and urged the members to start posting again, the place came back to life.

 

We on Pisoga have a flash chat, and I have to admit that it doesn't take away activity!