Chat

[Peter Burgess]

Does anyone ever use "Chat"?

I clicked the tab by mistake this morning, and it loaded up a blank chat window, with no options, no text area, nada, nothing.

When I came back to forum Home I saw that both myself and Bubba were in "Chat".

I assumed it wasn't activated or something when the blank screen came up. Perhaps its a browser thing - I am using the horrible AOL browser this morning.

 

[bubba]

Well it's only been active for 10 minutes so you beat me to posting a topic about it. When you tried to load it the permissions were set incorrectly.

This is another "experiment" - my line of thinking is that if people want to have a lot of banter about stuff, then they can do so in the chatroom, rather than in the forum.

Might work, might not but I thought i'd try it out

 

[bubba]

There should be a bot in the chatroom that you can talk to for testing purposes.

 

[bubba]

Actually, i've stopped the bot because it's a bit weird talking to some AI

 

[Downer]

Actually, i've stopped the bot because it's a bit weird talking to some AI

Bloody hell, it must be a good one if it freaked you out. Can you leave it for a bit just for giggles? Might get a few people using it who would otherwise be tempted to go and derail a thread about global warming (thanks for moving it BTW, next stop the Shit Heap eh?)

 

[bubba]

Ok, i'll start the bot again - more info on it can be found at http://www.alicebot.org/

I suspect the global warming topic may be headed to the heap but i'll have to read through it first to see if it's saveable i guess.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Ok, i'll start the bot again - more info on it can be found at http://www.alicebot.org/

I suspect the global warming topic may be headed to the heap but i'll have to read through it first to see if it's saveable i guess.

I might have a look later.

Re Global warming: if you're going to read it all, I guess the topic is safe for another month.

 

[bubba]

One thing i should point out is that chat is logged so all please be nice to each other.

 

[Downer]

One thing i should point out is that chat is logged so all please be nice to each other.

Do we have to be nice to that bloody CaveBot? It makes the best case for an IGNORE button yet. (And yes it has got one.) One thing though, I don't know if it's possible to change the default options - all those sounds you get until you find the mute option are a real PITA, it's like going back to AOL.

edit - I'll say this about having CHAT, it may or may not help threads stay on topic but it will be very useful if you find a discussion becoming a long drawn-out argument - prime example being the two nuclear arguments in the global warming thread. You could suggest, on the forum, take this to chat, go over the fine points in a few minutes and then return with however much of a resolution you reach.

CaveBot is terminally crap though.

 

[Elaine]

Ooh, I like the chat room. Thank you!

 

[bubba]

I've killed the bot again - it is rather annoying.

Glad people think the chat has some use - I think it will be good and as Downer says, handy for quicky thrashing out an argument in real time.

It might be useful for support issues too

 

[Downer]

Could you explain how creating new chat rooms works? They seem to disappear after you've left or logged off or something, but there are two persistent ones, Caving and Idle Chat. Is that more-or-less the way it works? I can see people landing in the wrong room if they don't know.

 

[bubba]

Yeah, that's about it - there are the two permanent rooms but you can create other temporary rooms on the fly which is very handy if you want to chat without being interrupted by others.

I assume that the temporary rooms will dissapear when the last user in them logs off.

 

[VivB]

I clicked on chat (nosey) and now it says I'm in chat, even when logged out.  I'm not chatting, i'm scared.  Let me out! 

Doh:  Worked it out.  The red smartie is a x closey thingy! 

 

[darkplaces]

lol I logged into chat, kinda cool, nobody in, then Peter came into chat, I said 'er' then he left...

lol

 

[darkplaces]

Is this IRC based or DataBase driven?

 

[bubba]

Flash / php / mysql - not irc based i don't think

 

[darkplaces]

AHh I have both on c**tplaces, its rarely used.
http://www.c**tplaces.co.uk/phpBB2/irc_chat_client.php

IRC based and database driven

 

[bubba]

I chose this one coz it was very easy to integrate into the forum, and use the existing user logins.

It'll be interesting to see how much it gets used.

 

[Downer]

I chose this one coz it was very easy to integrate into the forum, and use the existing user logins.

It'll be interesting to see how much it gets used.

One of two directions I should think. The big problem is arranging to meet. It may get used like I said, by agreement at a given time, but I doubt whether people randomly dropping in to natter will ever work, there's not enough of us. Maybe around 11:30 on Friday nights when everyone comes home drunk from the pub and decides to have a look in before downloading their porn and going to bed. (I shall be doing none of those things :halo:, either being left behind trying to get out of my wetsuit somewhere cold or else peacefully asleep watching TV until I wake up hypothermic at 2:30...) No, it's nice to have but I don't suppose it will be used much.