How about a SelfSufficientish.com Chat Area?

[kenboak]

Everybody likes to chat online, even though you can waste half your life doing it.

Has anybody thought about a Chat Area for this forum?

With Googletalk, Skype and all the rest it would even be possible to have video and voice conferencing.

Online communication saves travelling, so that must be good for a more sustainable planet?

Any thoughts?


Ken

[The Chili Monster]

Hi Ken,
this has been discussed before: not sure what the current state of play is, though!
I'm getting Skype soon and so a Skype button thingy attached to my posts/profile would be useful (Is it possible, ?)

Anyway, here's the threads so far:
http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1350
http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1764

[Shirley]

I've got skype! Not sure whether there is a button but you could always include it in your signature. I'm not sure I would want to share it with the world mind you

[The Chili Monster]

Hi Shirlz
I was thinking more of the messenger function of skype ... not giving out the number; I wouldn't like that at all, either.

[Martin]

every board I know that's tried it has rapidly ditched it, for some odd reason, behaviour tends to be ghastly, and you very rapidly get trolls and troublemakers (even amongst erstwhile peaceful boards)- it then needs 24/7 monitoring................
Personally, I don't use chat systems, I find them annoying - with the forum system, you can take your time over a reply, or carry on a damned near real time conversation anyway!

[wulf]

Even with a busy board like this, we'd probably find that it would be rare that you'd have enough people available (online and with time to chat) to make it worthwhile setting up.

Wulf

[The Chili Monster]

Martin and Wulf have brought up valid points. Most people use this forum to share ideas, and any social benefit, although welcome, is secondary. If you want to chat with a forum member, then MSN/yahoo is probably the best medium (at least for now.)

[Andy Hamilton]

we have tried out various chat areas

http://selfsufficientish.com/cgi-bin/chat/chat.cgi - very basic
http://www.frappr.com/theselfsufficientishers - slightly better and imediate when you vist the page
http://gabbly.com/selfsufficientish.com - another one that's not too bad.

None of them have proven that popular, if they were to then I would think about installing a proper chat area. Wulf has hit the nail on the head really, many people including myself at the moment, access this forum at work or whilst doing other things - as such many people will not have time to chat.

[multiveg]

I use the chat facility on different messageboards with varying qualities. Sometimes I mourn msn chat rooms, though these still available through msn groups! Have tried mIRC which I don't like either.
I use messenger, and have used yahoo (though not reinstalled since pc fixed by supplier). I don't mind being added. Oops, not put them on profile - will sort those out later when I reinstall yahoo.