Live Chat Feature [Escalated]

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Re: Live Chat Feature [Escalated]

Post by Scott »

CataclysmicKnight wrote:
ALynnPowers wrote:It would also be nice if we could have that 30 second lag back instead of the current 45 seconds we have to wait now. ;)
Just saying. :D
I was wondering how long it was! Going from game to game I get the "you can't post that quickly" message semi frequently...

Chat would be great! Although chat is typically flash and my phone doesn't use flash... But when I get a laptop again, it'll be awesome!
Okay, I am changing the time back down to 30 seconds.
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Post by CataclysmicKnight »

Scott wrote:
CataclysmicKnight wrote:
ALynnPowers wrote:It would also be nice if we could have that 30 second lag back instead of the current 45 seconds we have to wait now. ;)
Just saying. :D
I was wondering how long it was! Going from game to game I get the "you can't post that quickly" message semi frequently...

Chat would be great! Although chat is typically flash and my phone doesn't use flash... But when I get a laptop again, it'll be awesome!
Okay, I am changing the time back down to 30 seconds.
Aaaaaawesome! Thank ya!
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Post by Jennifer Allsbrook »

I love the forums but it would be phenomenal to be able to carry on discussions in a more synchronous form. I get frustrated when I post and comment and never get any feedback. I would love for the discussion to have more back and forth. Some posters use the quote feature and respond but in many cases there is little feedback or response from other members. A chat feature is useful in study groups and I have used it for "office hours" with my students. Is this something that this site could handle?
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Post by Scott »

@"Jennifer Allsbrook" The website could handle it, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. How would the chat feature differ from the forums? How do you envision it?
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Post by DATo »

Jennifer,

I am a very big fan of chat rooms and was a long standing member of two of the most famous chats on the net - Talker and Cawfeetawk. I think your idea could be useful; however, there is one serious drawback. All of the participants must be online and in OBC in real time for this to work. Given that we have members who hail from all parts of the globe with different time zones I think this may not be a practical suggestion. In the case of your students you can coordinate them to appear in the chat at a certain time. I suppose this could be done here as well but many people who are at work or sleeping at that time may not be able to participate though they might like to.

For a discussion of this type to occur here I imagine a group of available (logged in and present) patrons spontaneously holding a limited discussion. Later others may arrive when the first group is gone to continue the conversation ... do you see what has just happened? As Scott correctly predicted the chat would now have evolved into a forum discussion with people leaving messages to be replied to by others at a later time - exactly what we already have.
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Post by Jennifer Allsbrook »

Scott wrote:@"Jennifer Allsbrook" The website could handle it, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. How would the chat feature differ from the forums? How do you envision it?
Scott,
I envision a synchronous discussion where feedback to comments would be close to "in real time". I posts in the threaded discussions and sometimes get responses but most of time I do not. I enjoy the threaded discussions but would love more back and forth.

-- 11 Dec 2016, 19:03 --
DATo wrote:Jennifer,

I am a very big fan of chat rooms and was a long standing member of two of the most famous chats on the net - Talker and Cawfeetawk. I think your idea could be useful; however, there is one serious drawback. All of the participants must be online and in OBC in real time for this to work. Given that we have members who hail from all parts of the globe with different time zones I think this may not be a practical suggestion. In the case of your students you can coordinate them to appear in the chat at a certain time. I suppose this could be done here as well but many people who are at work or sleeping at that time may not be able to participate though they might like to.

For a discussion of this type to occur here I imagine a group of available (logged in and present) patrons spontaneously holding a limited discussion. Later others may arrive when the first group is gone to continue the conversation ... do you see what has just happened? As Scott correctly predicted the chat would now have evolved into a forum discussion with people leaving messages to be replied to by others at a later time - exactly what we already have.
DATo,
I agree that different time zones make it difficult for all people to be involved in a discussion at once, but I think it would be really cool to interact with some of the people I have meet on this site "in real time". It would be cool!
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Post by Rachaelamb1 »

I know what you mean with how little response you seem to get when you take time to put your thoughts out there and no one replies back! I think this is because it is hard to keep track of posts. I think it would be nice of we could get notifications when someone comments on a post we made or quotes us. I know when someone tags your username you get a PM notification (or used to anyway). I personally would love to see the forums undergo a facelift to look more like a social media site with appealing browsing and ease of use. I'm not a web developer though so I have no idea what all that would entail or if it is even possible!
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Post by DATo »

Jennifer Allsbrook wrote:
Scott wrote:@"Jennifer Allsbrook" The website could handle it, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. How would the chat feature differ from the forums? How do you envision it?
Scott,
I envision a synchronous discussion where feedback to comments would be close to "in real time". I posts in the threaded discussions and sometimes get responses but most of time I do not. I enjoy the threaded discussions but would love more back and forth.

-- 11 Dec 2016, 19:03 --


DATo,
I agree that different time zones make it difficult for all people to be involved in a discussion at once, but I think it would be really cool to interact with some of the people I have meet on this site "in real time". It would be cool!
@Jennifer Allsbrook ,

I loved to participate in live chat discussions in the past at other sites so I am on your side in spirit, I am just questioning the practicality of it here. I just visited another book site which has live chat and examined a "few of the threads" = (many chat rooms) and found that often, though a discussion was taking place on the same day, there were very long periods of time between comments.

The way it MIGHT work would be to create a SINGLE chat room open 24/7 where OBC patrons could visit and talk to whatever people were available and open to chatting - people with similar subject interests could chat in real time while other conversations (visible to all) were also scrolling by. If someone wanted to say something privately they could PM the other chatter. People could then jump into other conversations as well as return to the one they were originally in since they were essentially all in the same room. This is the way Cawfeetawk Chat worked and it worked very very well. If I were doing it I would take a page from the Cawfeetawk's format and make an auto-refresh capability which refreshed the screen about every 5 - 10 seconds so you wouldn't have to constantly hit your browser's reload button to see if any new comments had been posted.

I'm sure a lot of discussions would wander off the path and become general chit-chat but even that is useful for drawing OBC patrons closer together as a website family. At Cawfeetawk there were over 250 chatters who knew each other intimately - from 13 year old girls to retirees. Six marriages resulted from that website over 8 years as well as other very dramatic events. 1) Like the night a woman had been beaten by her husband and had no one to turn to but her chat friends. Cawfeetawk patrons talked her into calling the police (something she had never done before despite the beatings). They came. They arrested him. Several months later she was divorced and six months later married a doctor who was a patron of the site living in a nearby state. 2) The time I went into the room very late at night and lurked (watched but did not post comments so I was virtually invisible). A sailor on a U.S. warship on the seas confided to a total stranger that he had been notified that afternoon his mother had died. They were the only two people in the room. The Chief's mate had given him a bottle of contraband whiskey and relieved him of his shift so he could be alone. The other chatter told him to wait while he got his own bottle of booze. The two of them commiserated for over an hour drinking as I watched the conversation. 3) The Christmas Eve night I had returned from a relatives home where the family had gathered and stopped by the chat about midnight to wish anyone who was there a merry Christmas. Several wild conversations and a heated argument were going on when a guy from Malaysia began to "sing" (post) the song Silent Night. Suddenly the comments began to taper off. One by one each of the other chatters (including the people engaged in the argument) began to post lines from the song. I can't explain it but much to my surprise tears just began to roll down my cheeks.

A long running chat room can become a place where magic happens. Where people who will never meet become closer than family.

EDITED TO ADD: These events took place about 17 - 20 years ago. Many of us still meet on Facebook on a page dedicated to former posters of that chat site.
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Post by Erik »

Any word on whether a real-time chat option is actually in the works?

I used to be on aol, back in the dark ages, and I became quite close with quite a few people - some of whom I still talk to now. For someone like myself, chats provide a social outlet that is unavailable IRL, and I suspect that with so many introverts on this site, I am not alone in feeling that way. I do think it would be quite valuable.
In the meantime, if anyone has AIM, I am there as ConservatorErik. Please feel free to message me, if you are so inclined.
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Post by kandscreeley »

You know, I was just going to suggest the same thing. It'd be great if you have a quick question or something to be able to pop in and ask whoever is online!
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Post by Wasif Ahmed »

DATo wrote:Jennifer,

I am a very big fan of chat rooms and was a long standing member of two of the most famous chats on the net - Talker and Cawfeetawk. I think your idea could be useful; however, there is one serious drawback. All of the participants must be online and in OBC in real time for this to work. Given that we have members who hail from all parts of the globe with different time zones I think this may not be a practical suggestion. In the case of your students you can coordinate them to appear in the chat at a certain time. I suppose this could be done here as well but many people who are at work or sleeping at that time may not be able to participate though they might like to.

For a discussion of this type to occur here I imagine a group of available (logged in and present) patrons spontaneously holding a limited discussion. Later others may arrive when the first group is gone to continue the conversation ... do you see what has just happened? As Scott correctly predicted the chat would now have evolved into a forum discussion with people leaving messages to be replied to by others at a later time - exactly what we already have.
I disagree because of the reasons specified by @"DATo" here. Let me compare my time with that of the USA. USA is exactly around 12 hours ahead or behind (I don't know) from where I live. Thus, when people from the US are chatting, I won't be able to indulge in the conversation as I will be sleeping and vice versa. Thus, I love the forums the way they are.
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Post by Gravy »

Wasif Ahmed wrote:
DATo wrote:Jennifer,

I am a very big fan of chat rooms and was a long standing member of two of the most famous chats on the net - Talker and Cawfeetawk. I think your idea could be useful; however, there is one serious drawback. All of the participants must be online and in OBC in real time for this to work. Given that we have members who hail from all parts of the globe with different time zones I think this may not be a practical suggestion. In the case of your students you can coordinate them to appear in the chat at a certain time. I suppose this could be done here as well but many people who are at work or sleeping at that time may not be able to participate though they might like to.

For a discussion of this type to occur here I imagine a group of available (logged in and present) patrons spontaneously holding a limited discussion. Later others may arrive when the first group is gone to continue the conversation ... do you see what has just happened? As Scott correctly predicted the chat would now have evolved into a forum discussion with people leaving messages to be replied to by others at a later time - exactly what we already have.
I disagree because of the reasons specified by @"DATo" here. Let me compare my time with that of the USA. USA is exactly around 12 hours ahead or behind (I don't know) from where I live. Thus, when people from the US are chatting, I won't be able to indulge in the conversation as I will be sleeping and vice versa. Thus, I love the forums the way they are.
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Post by kandscreeley »

I was thinking a chat feature in addition to the forums. Something for more personal chats or simple quick questions. Not something for big discussions.
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Post by Wasif Ahmed »

kandscreeley wrote:I was thinking a chat feature in addition to the forums. Something for more personal chats or simple quick questions. Not something for big discussions.
We do have Private Messages. ?

-- 14 Feb 2017, 07:06 --
Gravy wrote:
Wasif Ahmed wrote:
DATo wrote:Jennifer,

I am a very big fan of chat rooms and was a long standing member of two of the most famous chats on the net - Talker and Cawfeetawk. I think your idea could be useful; however, there is one serious drawback. All of the participants must be online and in OBC in real time for this to work. Given that we have members who hail from all parts of the globe with different time zones I think this may not be a practical suggestion. In the case of your students you can coordinate them to appear in the chat at a certain time. I suppose this could be done here as well but many people who are at work or sleeping at that time may not be able to participate though they might like to.

For a discussion of this type to occur here I imagine a group of available (logged in and present) patrons spontaneously holding a limited discussion. Later others may arrive when the first group is gone to continue the conversation ... do you see what has just happened? As Scott correctly predicted the chat would now have evolved into a forum discussion with people leaving messages to be replied to by others at a later time - exactly what we already have.
I disagree because of the reasons specified by @"DATo" here. Let me compare my time with that of the USA. USA is exactly around 12 hours ahead or behind (I don't know) from where I live. Thus, when people from the US are chatting, I won't be able to indulge in the conversation as I will be sleeping and vice versa. Thus, I love the forums the way they are.
There's always someone who can't sleep, or who keeps odd hours :lol:
Yeah. :mrgreen: But it doesn't happen everyday. :lol:
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