Chatboxes on Forums

[DRE]

When I added the chatbox and arrowchat on my site less posts were made because more people were chatting in the chatbox than in the forum or in private and ended up ignoring the noobs who joined. Those noobs eventually left because not many replied to their posts or they were just plain ignored by the members of my site. I feel like I did more harm than good when I installed Taigachat and Arrowchat. I have uninstalled them and user activity spiked sometimes afterwards and the noobs that joined recently got more attention than before. I have never been a regular member of a forum before that had a chatbox and the ones that did have arrowchat I sort've ignored that feature. But from what happened on my own site I now see the cons of it. I was only thinking about the pros back then. Lesson learned.

 

[Russ]

My philosophy is limit the chat box to staff members, can get opinions quicker, better work flow and it keeps the regulars actually posting rather than chatting in the chat box ;p.

 

[DRE]

My philosophy is limit the chat box to staff members, can get opinions quicker, better work flow and it keeps the regulars actually posting rather than chatting in the chat box ;p.

Hey that's not a bad idea. Already uninstalled it though lol.

 

[iTuN3r]

Never had any problems like that with the current community board i am running. It's more like helping me to grow community better . I let guests post in chatbox which results as another new member of board . They usually get around with members for few days asking questions etc then finally jump the ship .

 

[DRE]

Never had any problems like that with the current community board i am running. It's more like helping me to grow community better . I let guests post in chatbox which results as another new member of board . They usually get around with members for few days asking questions etc then finally jump the ship .

Oh that's cool. My community is so small that it makes a huge difference when there's people ignoring new posters cause they're not paying attention to anything else other than chat.

I would basically have to wait until it grows some more if I want to add those features back because I can't afford to let noobs get neglected like that in this site's infancy.

 

[Cal]

I restricted debate in the shoutbox so now all it's really used for is general relaxing and bs. I mean sometimes I see a debate or two....but once I got a harness on it the sb was a huge asset. Mostly because many political boards can't control an sb with their users so no one has one. My users are of a higher standard.

All it took was some simple rules, some persistence on my mods to set an example, a couple infractions, but within a month or two it worked out.

 

[Gabby]

When I added the chatbox and arrowchat on my site less posts were made because more people we\.

Same problems here my friend. Ending up having forum content in chat box. Uninstalled.

 

[DRE]

Same problems here my friend. Ending up having forum content in chat box. Uninstalled.

Oh okay glad I ain't the only one with this issue. Was starting to think no one understood me.

 

[FredC]

I have experienced both the pros and cons of shout boxes on the forums.. But all in all i think the pros outweigh the cons.. Chat boxes have helped me to define community on the forums by allowing members to make small talk in the shout boxes, this helps the members get to know one another quicker and keeps a lot of off topic riff raff off the forums.. At the same time i have totally sworn off Chat rooms in my communities as i have found them to create cliques that did not bod well for the community.. As a matter of fact things were so bad on one of my sites we had to ban thirty (ish) members in one day due to the scheming going on in secret from the chat room. And as you can imagine those thirty ish people didnt go quietly and tried to (and in some cases succeded) take other members with them.. It was a bad experience that took our daily average of visiting members from around 100 a day to less then fifty.. That was over a year ago and we have still not recovered completely.. But i would still ban them all over again today simply because they were very disruptive to the normal community flow with their superior attitudes...

 

[karll]

I've installed TaigaChat, but I don't have the shout box itself on the front page of the forums, just the link. That way I don't think it'll take too much attention away from the forums.

Unfortunately, it seems there is a bug in TaigaChat that is resulting in it rarely being used on my site: The "users in chat" list only shows yourself, so users never know when others are available to chat.

 

[DRE]

I have experienced both the pros and cons of shout boxes on the forums.. But all in all i think the pros outweigh the cons.. Chat boxes have helped me to define community on the forums by allowing members to make small talk in the shout boxes, this helps the members get to know one another quicker and keeps a lot of off topic riff raff off the forums.. At the same time i have totally sworn off Chat rooms in my communities as i have found them to create cliques that did not bod well for the community.. As a matter of fact things were so bad on one of my sites we had to ban thirty (ish) members in one day due to the scheming going on in secret from the chat room. And as you can imagine those thirty ish people didnt go quietly and tried to (and in some cases succeded) take other members with them.. It was a bad experience that took our daily average of visiting members from around 100 a day to less then fifty.. That was over a year ago and we have still not recovered completely.. But i would still ban them all over again today simply because they were very disruptive to the normal community flow with their superior attitudes...

Uh okay explain to me again how the pro's outweigh the cons? The part bolded justifies it's removal.

 

[FredC]

Uh okay explain to me again how the pro's outweigh the cons? The part bolded justifies it's removal.

My favoring the Pros vs the Cons where in relation to a shout box on forum home or the index.. The bad experience i commented on involved a dedicated Chat Room. I still use Shout Boxes as long as they are publicly viewable on the forum pages.. No more dedicated semi private Chat Rooms for me, ever.. As a matter of fact i still do not allow private conversations with multiple recipients in my communities unless its purchased as a premium subscription for the same reasons..

 

[The Reverend]

When I added the chatbox and arrowchat on my site less posts were made because more people were chatting in the chatbox than in the forum or in private and ended up ignoring the noobs who joined. Those noobs eventually left because not many replied to their posts or they were just plain ignored by the members of my site. I feel like I did more harm than good when I installed Taigachat and Arrowchat. I have uninstalled them and user activity spiked sometimes afterwards and the noobs that joined recently got more attention than before. I have never been a regular member of a forum before that had a chatbox and the ones that did have arrowchat I sort've ignored that feature. But from what happened on my own site I now see the cons of it. I was only thinking about the pros back then. Lesson learned.

I would never put a public chat box on my forum, maybe for staff and premiums, but thats it

 

[AzzidReign]

I always recommend new sites to not use chatboxes/shoutboxes. Like you said, it reduces the amount of posts made, leading to less indexed threads and less support in support threads.

I always have noobie kids on my site recommending we get one and I have it on my frequently asked suggestions thread stating that I will NEVER install a chat box on the site.

But I have installed cometchat for my paid members to utilize but thinking about removing that now too.

 

[DRE]

My favoring the Pros vs the Cons where in relation to a shout box on forum home or the index.. The bad experience i commented on involved a dedicated Chat Room. I still use Shout Boxes as long as they are publicly viewable on the forum pages.. No more dedicated semi private Chat Rooms for me, ever.. As a matter of fact i still do not allow private conversations with multiple recipients in my communities unless its purchased as a premium subscription for the same reasons..

K that makes sense... but then the site couldn't even handle it being on the forum home. Can't imagine how much damage a private chatbox would do lol.

 

[DRE]

I always recommend new sites to not use chatboxes/shoutboxes. Like you said, it reduces the amount of posts made, leading to less indexed threads and less support in support threads.

I always have noobie kids on my site recommending we get one and I have it on my frequently asked suggestions thread stating that I will NEVER install a chat box on the site.

But I have installed cometchat for my paid members to utilize but thinking about removing that now too.

Someone told me that would happen but I didn't listen. I'm hardheaded man. Sometimes when your stubborn you gotta learn by experience. Can't remember who told me though.

 

[DRE]

K that makes sense... but then the site couldn't even handle it being on the forum home. Can't imagine how much damage a private chatbox would do lol.

But I have installed cometchat for my paid members to utilize but thinking about removing that now too.

Taigachat was damaging for noobies but Arrowchat/Cometchat is completely worse due to focus one-to-one conversations have.

 

[AzzidReign]

Taigachat was damaging for noobies but Arrowchat/Cometchat is completely worse due to focus one-to-one conversations have.

Well, it does have chatrooms (poorly designed chat rooms at best). But this is why I only have it so our paying members can use it.

 

[DRE]

I want to add the new Taigachat Pro but my forum still ain't ready for it. Probably have to wait another year or so.

 

[Lucas]

I feel like a shoutbox just doesn't need to go in a forum. Maybe on a static site where there is no discussion, but providing a chat for a place where people should be posting in the same page, feels a bit useless. As you said, people will either do one or the other.