Just curious, does DP have some kind of chat or IRC setup? Has it ever had something like this? I think something like this would be a great addition to the forum, even if it was just a small shoutbox. Oh also, if any mods or experience people know, how do I see my reputation? Because nothing shows up on my CP.
I don't really think a chat room is that important. It wouldn't really make much of a difference I find.
I still think it would be a fun thing for members, and would open up a whole new area, and lots of opportunities...
It is not neccessary imo since this being advice forum and not a chat room. We can already share information and even socialize freely right now. Plus think about having to add in more servers to accomodate 59,609 active users, when $85K is already needed to get servers to manage this forum. I don't see how it'll open new opportunities though. You can post in BST section and also contact through PM. IMO, if you're thinking about group chat to do business, before you're done replying other's posts will interfere. If you're thinking of also having private 1-1 chat rooms, you still have to wait for both to be on and there PM-ing become handy. Just my 2 cents.
PM isn't the same think than chat. You can contact someone with PM (or email, that's the same, excalty the same for me) and reply to him, it's a discution, ok, but it's not live chat, it's slower & more boring. Main goal of IRC is that you can idle, keeping you mirc/xchat client open and chat whenever you want, read others question (you might haven't read them here), reply when you know something, ask you own question and get direct reply. On a board, you need to create a topic, wait for someone to see it (cause if there are others topics created on the same section, yours could be unnoticed ) and wait for replies. I assume the majority just come, check a few topics and close their browser. On Irc, you ask your question, and if it's a good chan, in 2min you've got support, or, at least, a "i don't know" answer Let's take a good exemple: I'm currently working on a php script, I asked for betatesters. 1/3 is "active" (reply to my PM, and reporting me the bugs he find) but i've 1 PM a day, it's really slow ... 2 others, I don't have any news of them. If I were on an ircd chan, I could have sent the files, have live test with betatesters and direct support with them. Don't tell a board & irc is the same, that's totaly diffrent, that's why the majority of boards have an irc channel. If IM was unuseful, MSN, IRC, ICQ, ... wouldn't be as popular and we would always been to the email era. I hope it's understandable as I'm note native english speaker +1 for the IRC chan TT, Irc addicted
I know the differences between IRC and discussion board. First of all, DP exclusive chatroom as stated in OP will not accomodate and bring up "questions that are not asked/answered in DP". Second it may be just with me but (if millions of lines of chats are not cached and saved <-also impossible and disk space consuming) I am not a fan of "one night stand questions/answers". I like solid staying answers stated in forums. Now, I can go with an example and in fact your example as well, and also considering unnecessary addition of a chatroom (excessive server usage and requirements) here on DP. Correct. Say Person A is working on PHP script and he needs beta testers to report any bugs on DP. Scenerio 1: Just a simple chat room with no groups or what so ever. Person A: I need testers. B: I'll participate. C: I'll participate too. D: I have a webhosting question. E: Hi, I just joined DP. Nice to meet you. F: PR's updated! G: Blog links $5/month H: go here and here and here [spam] A: Alright I'll hire you two to test the bugs. *Receiving PM or even a spam PM is better than digging through the chat for person A's request related replies. Scenerio 2: Private 1-1 chat capability like any messengers/chats. And it also includes your non-boring "fun of idling" and coming back whenever you want. Window 1 A: Can you test the script out now? B: Sure. [done fast] Window 2: A: How's the script? C: [a long pause. 3-4 hours pause]. etc.... * Worst than receiving 1 pm per hour at DP Scenerio 3: Create a group and chat capability A: how's the script? B,C,D,E,F: [5 reported] others: [50 silence and chat watchers] *Same as receiving 1-5 pm / hour at DP. Scenerio 4: The chatroom you've described. VERY active one as you've said (Per your reply, it is also better than receiving 1 pm per hour.) If it is THAT active, 1. It means person A and testers are all there every moment. That would also mean more than 1 pm per hour if pm is used 2. A detailed report every 1 second by many testers through chat will cover up most of the space, making you miss few replies. (Reading time of each PM = same reading time with chat, and you get seperate notice) The only time you will save with chat is, DP will take sometimes to log in, load a PM. But it shouldn't be a problem if you check to receive email notices. You can read through your email. Or get emails for contact through PM and start your own ICQ, MSN, Gtal, etc.. group. Thus PM > chat with DP. And remember, I am referring to the case of not wasting $ on unnecessary additional server cluster just for a chat room, where the jobs can be done without.
This has been suggested for around 578 times now everytime the wise man said NO btw there was a IRC chat room for DP long back but it dint go well
Why do you need to setup your own ircd ? Just use a public one a create a chan for each section (#DP-Chat, #DP-SEO, #DP-Marketing, ...) Of corse, if the guy is away, he won't reply (and that's true for PM & email too ...) I don't rly understand this one I think the main prob in you mind is money for hosting the serv, but we don't need our own serv, there are a lot out there. If chans are specific enough, discussions will be very effective (e.g. a programmation chan I used to go, a person enters the chan, ask his question, smb reply, he leaves > 2 sec, problem solved. On a board it take more time, and when you dev something, being blocked by a piece of code is very boring cause you can't go further) The only real problem will be getting good ops to manage the chans. There is no bad chat, only bad people chatting
I dont think chatbox is a good idea for webmasters here. Though theres a mod available in vBulletin. Adding chatbox would mean a lot of people getting messed up in chatbox and a loads of load on digitalpoint server
No offence, but chat is a bad idea. You can see your rep by clicking "user cp" and scrolling to the bottom. Here's mine: If you dont' see anything, you dont have rep.