Shout Box / Chat

[Mokeli]

Ive noticed this has become a big deal , It would be alswome if there was a built in shout box , make it Ajax or something pro , it would still be nice. We have over 15 members online it would be nice if we could chat to spare time. Or There could be Shoutbox Mod addons . So we can edit it and make it more appealing with more features. And I think you should add a feature where you can take of the side bar and leave the stats at the bottom of the forums or make the forum text a little larger, Plus with description the forums would look bad.

Mokeli
Admin Junction Founder
Goodbless

 

[Trevor]

1. Shout boxes are a strain on server resources. A site with 30 people simultaneously chatting is not a pretty sight, trust me.

1a. Shout boxes become a problem. Here's a good basic algorithm: More users = More problems, period.​

1b. Did you know that forum shout boxes deter from actual forum growth by 13%.​

2. Shout boxes are used in small to medium sized communities from what I've seen and have experienced.
3. A Shout box is considered a plug-in or add-on, not part of the actual forum software.
4. A good way to implement some type of quality shout box or chat would be to use some type of Ajax Push or Comet solution.
5. When there's the forum, and the personal messenger, and your profile comments, what would be the need for a shout box?
6. When I think of shout box, I don't think of a chat room.
IMO, chat is more ... *thinks of the best word to use* persistent and redundant.
Shout boxes lag (see #1), they aren't scalable, and really don't give that edgy "real-time" feel to it.

That's my $0.02.

 

[Markos]

I have used for many years a forum hosting service, with the possibility to use a shout. The shout box increases the partecipation/registration of new users, when a guest see a forum with a shout - he thinks: "that forum are alive!".

And yes, in a medium/big community, the shout can be a problem (server intensive, etc.).

 

[Paul B]

I still don't know what the difference is between a shoutbox and chat.

It has been explained on here but from what I can tell, they do exactly the same thing.

My members would lynch me if I removed chat from the site.

 

[mlx]

A shoutbox as an official add-on would be great.

I don't know ... maybe it's just me ... but while we were seriously thinking about adding one to our vBulletin ... and my fellow admins kept bugging me ... I never really liked one of the vB.org solutions ...

 

[Sage]

And how many of those forums were large communities? Shoutboxes work for small-medium size communities, but for larger ones, I wouldn't even think of having one just due to the potential overhead.

Total Forum Posts: 3,127,781
Total Members: 330,219

Quite a few of them are fairly large.

 

[Decado]

1. Shout boxes are a strain on server resources. A site with 30 people simultaneously chatting is not a pretty sight, trust me.

1a. Shout boxes become a problem. Here's a good basic algorithm: More users = More problems, period.​

1b. Did you know that forum shout boxes deter from actual forum growth by 13%.​

2. Shout boxes are used in small to medium sized communities from what I've seen and have experienced.
3. A Shout box is considered a plug-in or add-on, not part of the actual forum software.
4. A good way to implement some type of quality shout box or chat would be to use some type of Ajax Push or Comet solution.
5. When there's the forum, and the personal messenger, and your profile comments, what would be the need for a shout box?
6. When I think of shout box, I don't think of a chat room.
IMO, chat is more ... *thinks of the best word to use* persistent and redundant.
Shout boxes lag (see #1), they aren't scalable, and really don't give that edgy "real-time" feel to it.

That's my $0.02.

Interested where you got your stats from on 1b, do you have some large scale research to back this up utilising different shout/chat boxes?
With vBShout we have only ever heard of forums growing larger, perhaps due to the multitude of post encouraging features (Notifications in the shoutbox whenever threads are replied to etc)

6) Shoutbox is more or less the same as a chat room, though it can be used in a variety of ways. The strain on a server depends on the configuration of the box in question, not all boxes are created equal, and some ARE scalable (our own vBShout for instance has a ton of options to help with server load in the event of lots of users, such as auto idle, adjusting how often the AJAX is refreshed, grabbing data from a flatfile etc...) Not to mention the ability to restrict it to certain usergroups, to certain forum categories etc...

100% Disagree about chats being pointless - people still like to talk to each other in real time, and always will. It's also a great way to get new members involved in the community ^.^

Just my $0.02 coming from someone who has been involved in shoutbox development etc on a large scale for almost 6 years.

 

[Trevor]

Total Forum Posts: 3,127,781
Total Members: 330,219

Quite a few of them are fairly large.

I'd like to take a little look at this forum, if you don't mind.

 

[CFodder]

1. Shout boxes are a strain on server resources. A site with 30 people simultaneously chatting is not a pretty sight, trust me.

1a. Shout boxes become a problem. Here's a good basic algorithm: More users = More problems, period.​

1b. Did you know that forum shout boxes deter from actual forum growth by 13%.​

2. Shout boxes are used in small to medium sized communities from what I've seen and have experienced.
3. A Shout box is considered a plug-in or add-on, not part of the actual forum software.
4. A good way to implement some type of quality shout box or chat would be to use some type of Ajax Push or Comet solution.
5. When there's the forum, and the personal messenger, and your profile comments, what would be the need for a shout box?
6. When I think of shout box, I don't think of a chat room.
IMO, chat is more ... *thinks of the best word to use* persistent and redundant.
Shout boxes lag (see #1), they aren't scalable, and really don't give that edgy "real-time" feel to it.

That's my $0.02.

1. Do you have any links to these statistics you've quoted, although 1a sounds more like personal opinion to me.
2. Unsure, we're not a large community by any stretch so I can't say.
3. This again is just your personal opinion on them
4. Dunno, not a programmer so can't comment on this.
5. One point of a shout/chat box is it's visible on certain pages in your forum, like forumhome for example, don't have to bother going to these separate places. Well that's how we use ours anyway.
6. Fair enough

You don't like shout/chat boxes I assume and don't use them ... fair enough don't have a problem with that . Would just be nice if you're going to bandy around figures to have some back up for them.

Not trying to troll you, just some thoughts on your post.

 

[Elizabeth]

I still don't know what the difference is between a shoutbox and chat.

It has been explained on here but from what I can tell, they do exactly the same thing.

My members would lynch me if I removed chat from the site.

Brogan, a shoutbox is usually visible on the main page to all members (unless the admin has it open to everyone) and people typically "chat" right there. It scrolls so that it is seen by everyone in the forum while there. 
A chat typically resides in a separate room and you have to actually sign in to chat.  And those on the forum can not see what is being said.

Some other things I read while going thru this thread:

I always get the feeling it's a nice gadget for 13-year olds and that's it.

I had a forum of 40+ year olds until about 2 years ago...ran a shoutbox on it...they LOVED it because it was an easy way to wish people a Happy Birthday or to say Welcome or any quick messages like that.  We were sure any member signing in would see the shoutbox, whereas they might not READ the message on the forum. At one point I upgraded and lost the shoutbox for about a week, they kept bugging me to get it back. So no, it's NOT just for 13 yo's.

its true that a shoutbox results in less content added to your forum itself. that is an issue for some people at least.

 
I was in the some people crowd. It didn't affect the amount of postings on MY forum one bit.

I moved to vb 4 and couldn't find a free replacement to the shoutbox I had. I couldn't afford, at the time, the paid one because I was sinking money into other endeavors.  A shoutbox was not a high priority. 

 
 

 

[gib]

A built in Shoutbox, no thanks.

A chat feature would be more useful though, especially if you could do group chats

 

[Elizabeth]

A built in Shoutbox, no thanks.

A chat feature would be more useful though, especially if you could do group chats

Or need them for classes or guest spots

 

[Paul B]

Brogan, a shoutbox is usually visible on the main page to all members (unless the admin has it open to everyone) and people typically "chat" right there. It scrolls so that it is seen by everyone in the forum while there.
A chat typically resides in a separate room and you have to actually sign in to chat. And those on the forum can not see what is being said.

Thanks.

My chat seems to be a mix of the 2 then as it has it's own page or can by embedded on any forum page.
It is visible to all though but only signed in members can use it.
I can of course hide it to guests if I so choose.

This is my chat and I hope something very similar is created for XF: http://www.cliptheapex.com/chat.php

 

[Trevor]

Don't get me wrong, I like shout boxes, but don't love em enough for it to be any type of priority for XF anytime soon. Maybe a chat room...
On another note, shout boxes are for shouting i.e quick hello or annoucement and gtfo -- not meaning to carry on a conversation for hours and hours.
A chat room should be capable of creating user-generated rooms for private chatting with your friends or if you want to host a primary topic.

 

[Decado]

Love em used em', just don't love em enough for it to be any type of priority for XF anytime soon.
On another note, shout boxes are for shouting i.e quick hello or annoucement and gtfo -- not meaning to carry on a conversation for hours and hours.
A chat room should be capable of creating user-generated rooms for private chatting with your friends or if you want to host a primary topic.

Some boxes allow you to do both, including have instances placed in certain forums, on certain pages etc with different content =)

 

[Trevor]

Some boxes allow you to do both, including have instances placed in certain forums, on certain pages etc with different content =)

That's "doing too much" lol.

 

[Decado]

That's "doing too much" lol.

=P Hundreds of customers would disagree

 

[Trevor]

They probally would.

 

[Decado]

Can't take much credit as i only designed the layout and features of it from about 2005 to present. Coding was done by 2 different talented individuals over its lifetime.

 

[Trevor]

Can't take much credit as i only designed the layout and features of it from about 2005 to present. Coding was done by 2 different talented individuals over its lifetime.

Ahh, ok. Cool.

 

[Robbo]

I would assume that someone will make a mod for a shoutbox. It really isn't that hard...