Live chatroom

[stitchcounting]

I love the idea of talking with people faster and stuff but i think it will maybe to private? idk how to say this but this is a forum and everything we write EVERYONE can see it and maybe a chatROOM would be better because than it can be easier for the mods to check up. justa thought :bun

 

[bonbean01]

Just a few thoughts since my husband and I ran a Poetry chat room for several years once a week for poets to submit a poem they wrote for feed back and other writer's suggestions. It was geared for all ages since we had some youngsters and old timers and every age inbetween. It was for two hours once a week and that meant we had to schedule other things in our lives around that time...without moderator/s and the option for a "kick out" button, it would have been a mess. As it was, we ended it because there will always be people that do not follow the rules, or come to the live chat just to disrupt it. Not sure what kind of kick those people got from it, but yeah...we'd finally had enough of babysitting adults. Some people would come back with different screen names and type something awful (and not suitable for children...or adults for that matter) and get kicked, just to return with yet another name.

It was something that we thought would be a great tool for writers and to share their poetry. Poetry sounds pretty tame...who would have thought it would turn into something that caused stress? LOL...was not relaxing. Many wonderful poets out there, and a shame some people enjoy ruining other people's enjoyment. Instead of poetry, topics turned to politics, religion, race hate, pornography, etc...

Sorry for the long post off the topic of BYH, but something to think about with a live chat on BYH. Takes time for the moderators and can cause stress. I love the idea of a live chat, but would hate to be a moderator for them...been there, done that :/

 

[autumnprairie]

Just a few thoughts since my husband and I ran a Poetry chat room for several years once a week for poets to submit a poem they wrote for feed back and other writer's suggestions. It was geared for all ages since we had some youngsters and old timers and every age inbetween. It was for two hours once a week and that meant we had to schedule other things in our lives around that time...without moderator/s and the option for a "kick out" button, it would have been a mess. As it was, we ended it because there will always be people that do not follow the rules, or come to the live chat just to disrupt it. Not sure what kind of kick those people got from it, but yeah...we'd finally had enough of babysitting adults. Some people would come back with different screen names and type something awful (and not suitable for children...or adults for that matter) and get kicked, just to return with yet another name.

It was something that we thought would be a great tool for writers and to share their poetry. Poetry sounds pretty tame...who would have thought it would turn into something that caused stress? LOL...was not relaxing. Many wonderful poets out there, and a shame some people enjoy ruining other people's enjoyment. Instead of poetry, topics turned to politics, religion, race hate, pornography, etc...

Sorry for the long post off the topic of BYH, but something to think about with a live chat on BYH. Takes time for the moderators and can cause stress. I love the idea of a live chat, but would hate to be a moderator for them...been there, done that :/

I was also a moderator for a live chat too it can be horrible at times

 

[Nifty]

There are ways to make a live chat room work. I know of some systems that require you to scan a copy of your driver's license, etc. to really decrease the probability of problems.

Independent of the moderation problems with a chat room, here the main reason I don't really like them: They aren't a good information storage system.

I got into forums 10 years ago because I LOVE the fact that the help is one to many. In almost all other systems you have one person helping another. In a forum you have one person helping 10, 100, 1,000, or even 100,000 others. A single answer to a single question may provide help to hundreds of thousands of people over the life of the forum. On all of my forums (I run 5 of them) I see people coming from Search Engines that looked for an answer that was posted years and years ago... it's really cool!

In chat, you loose almost all of these benefits. The information isn't stored for others to read and learn from and also isn't searched / indexed by the search engines. The value of forums, and the reason I'm still running them after 10 years, is because of the amazing value they provide indefinitely.

There definitely are some pros to chat systems, but IMO, the cons tend to outweigh the pros.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

There are ways to make a live chat room work. I know of some systems that require you to scan a copy of your driver's license, etc. to really decrease the probability of problems.

Independent of the moderation problems with a chat room, here the main reason I don't really like them: They aren't a good information storage system.

I got into forums 10 years ago because I LOVE the fact that the help is one to many. In almost all other systems you have one person helping another. In a forum you have one person helping 10, 100, 1,000, or even 100,000 others. A single answer to a single question may provide help to hundreds of thousands of people over the life of the forum. On all of my forums (I run 5 of them) I see people coming from Search Engines that looked for an answer that was posted years and years ago... it's really cool!

In chat, you loose almost all of these benefits. The information isn't stored for others to read and learn from and also isn't searched / indexed by the search engines. The value of forums, and the reason I'm still running them after 10 years, is because of the amazing value they provide indefinitely.

There definitely are some pros to chat systems, but IMO, the cons tend to outweigh the pros.

Great point!! I never really thought of the longer term disadvantages or a chatroom but those are some excellent points. I really don't see it working out. I think that most people on here wouldn't want it on here anyway. It never works out well...

 

[kstaven]

I know lots of people love the chat thing but as a mom whose daughter loved BYC and was always on the site I watched how much it changed with the chat thing (sorry, I'm an oldie- I know I don't have all the right lingo).My daughter is no longer aloud on BYC because of it. Way too much inappropriate conversations, way outside of chicken stuff.
Maybe Royd Wood has a good point about it being GHM only.
If you do a chat could there be a way to permanently disable it? I guess I'm just a little worried about our young users.

That is why it was removed from BYC. Far too many issues and fights. Then hurt feelings and grudges that spilled over to the public board. IMHO the only way it would work would be GHM only. Even then it would likely need a moderator.

 

[Southern by choice]

Nifty- well said!

this week I used the index to look up some things about goats, instead of posting another question that I thought more than likely has already been asked a hundred times. The info I found was excellent! So many people had given their experiences. The varying opinions are so helpful. Don't know if it's the mods or the people- but there is respect for those different opinions. Don't see the nastiness that some sites have. Thanks BYH!

 

[bonbean01]

Very true...I also have gone back to much older posts looking for a problem/question I had and usually found it had been posted long ago with many answers and suggestions.