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I just joined thecodzone.com a couple of weeks ago and just noticed a really cool feature they have there that I think Dakka could REALLY benefit from and would set us apart from other 40k forums....and may cut down on the amount of nonsense chatter you see people posting when they just wanna type.

check it!

http://www.thecodzone.com/forum/index.php?sid=fa3a5d30da68b37eec7f660139c6ae96

I think we could really use something like this chat window. Anyone agree?

Looks good to me!

Definately. A shoutbox would be an excellent addition IMHO

i used to be in a forum with a shoutbox. it did make the forums much better/fun

I have seen those. the probelm is they are hard to mod. you need a guy sitting there 24/7 to cheack the box.

Or, instead of a constant MOD, the MOD's could level HEAVY penalties to those that commit serious infractions in tact.

The chat room could be a VERY priviledged place to be. BEHAVE YOURSELF...or else, REALLY or else. Sort of like a VIP room where everyone has a chance to join but people get kicked quickly.

I just think this could bring so much. On the spot army discussions, quick fixes to painting questions, a place OTHER than the forums to discuss political issues.

C'mon Lego, throw us a bone!

There is a probelm. would there be a report abuse button. if so there would still need to be mod incase people dont report.
Unless you have someone reading the chat in some way or another there is a problem.

Yo, legoburner, you want me to think of a clever variation of 'when hell freezes over' for you?

if there would be a problem in case of spammers, then why not make it available only to people who have posted over 100+ posts?

or worse (for me lol) yet, DCM exclusive

I have vetoed the idea in the past. It may be more feasible now but I'm not overly keen on the idea.

Every large community style forum with a chatroom that I have interacted with has ended up getting discussion driven away from the forum and into the chat room, or has had nobody every use the chat room as nobody signs in at the same time.

Chat adds the fun of real time discussion, but reduces the range of expertise that is available, reduces the level of forum interaction for heavy chat users, encourages the formation of cliques, is easier to type quickly without thinking causing more upset/misunderstandings, encourages significant offtopic discussion (we are a wargaming site above all else), etc.

I've never seen a site that merges chat and forums with any significant success. As such I dont think it is really worth the effort to code and integrate. If there is overwhelming demand then maybe we could link to some third party provider private chat room and see how it goes but I still need some convincing.

As a forum posting addict, I never "got" shoutboxes.

malfred wrote:As a forum posting addict, I never "got" shoutboxes.

In this case.

posting = crack
shoutbox = super crack


Also wouldn't it possibly add a lot of load onto the server?

legoburner wrote: ...maybe we could link to some third party provider private chat room and see how it goes but I still need some convincing.

This is the first thing I thought of as well when I read the header, there really isn't a channel for 40K on any of the major IRC's. If Dakka were to link to a common channel for its members this wouldn't be a bad trial area to see how people behave themselves. The idea of MODing the channel isn't as difficult as you might think, Lego already has a script to censor stuff like "In before ..." the rest would just be a matter of expanding on that idea and applying it to the server side component.

@Legoburner: The biggest drawback I can see here is that no matter how many times you state that it is a third party site\channel and NOT your responsibility, you and your boyz will get a dozen messages and posts asking why people cannot get into the chat room .

The 100+ posts idea would just open the door for spammers and flooders but the DCM exclusive part for a real chat area isn't something that should be overlooked right away. I don't mean to liken Dakka to some sleazy online club but this method is how some match making sites filter out exactly this kind of unwanted behavior with moderate success I might add.

Over all I've never been one for chat rooms, the novelty for me wore off somewhere in the 5th grade. Lego is right in that the instant posting part of a chat area almost discourages a person from censoring their ideas in favor of getting something out for others to read, think about what it would be like if tomorrow Lego decided to break the edit button on the Posts, some of us wouldn't notice and others would be misunderstood and flamed out of existence. A perfect example is me writing this post, I've taken about 6 mins. which isn't an enormously long time but in a chat room the subject would have changed three or four times by now.