Speaking of the chat rooms, what are your thoughts on ways we can improve on the experience and increase their use?

I still think having one called the Secret Ninja Lair had to be good for business.

But the more I read about how Social was first implemented, the more I think that must have led to Chat’s demise. Chat seems to have been the place where people went to have a conversation, when they weren’t (officially) allowed to converse on the threads.

have a permanent chat window on the front page and all pages, at the right edge of the screen.

or even better, have a separate chat window for each question/thread.
It is just a matter of constructing the database’s ERM correctly.

It doesn’t help that the way to get to them is to click on a tiny orange square hidden on the top right of the page. Perhaps you could make them more conspicuous. I’d go in more often if I remembered them.

I didn’t like the speed and seeming shallowness of the chat rooms before and after a few forays, didn’t bother. If, as you say, they might be slower now, I would consider trying it again but it is not my favorite modality. I tend to want to speak to one person at a time which is why I pm them but it might be a place to discuss certain issues.

I am also putting less energy right now into my online life and more into my day to day life so not necessarily looking for greater involvement here. This will no doubt change during the snows of winter!

@ragingloli – That seems like it wold involve a far greater change to the current framework than we can implement; remember that there’s no real development happening on the site. Making the chat button more prominent, as @dxs suggests, is something we might be able to do.

Perhaps if people read a comment by someone that leads to a thought that could derail the conversation, they could send a PM and ask if they are free to chat?

@hearkat That’s a good suggestion, especially for those people who seem to get involved in off-topic lengthy back and forths.

@hearkat I think the PM invite to chat is unlikely to happen on thread topics… especially since chat is always in the nether region between private and public. If you’re going to have a heated discussion with someone, PM is the place for it. If it’s not going to be heated, I think people are more likely to stay in the thread.

One thing that might improve chat is increased privacy/anonymity. I will often avoid chat because I don’t want it announced that I’m entering the room – it tends to bring the conversation to a standstill, and I don’t even know if I want to join whatever the ongoing discussion is. Also, the thing about leaving up the last 4–5 comments, so that anyone who just comes in can read them, makes it harder to speak openly.

@dappled_leaves – I see your point, but we have to be able to hold people accountable in chat to ensure that if anyone harasses another Jelly, they can be dealt with. PMs are for privacy, chat is for banter and small talk – stuff that you’d put in the thread, but know that it’s not really relevant to the topic.

@hearkat Well… yeah. We all get that the mods don’t like it. This question is starting to sound like a reminder to stay on topic, instead of a discussion of how to promote Chat.

I certainly don’t mean it to sound like that, @dappled_leaves – I’m just considering the pros and cons and potential viability of what people are suggesting, within the guidelines and program framework we have to work within. And yes, promoting chat as a place for casual conversation is related to trying to keep people on-topic in the threads. We want to offer the community alternatives to allow for the social interaction that some seem to want.

Anonymity in chat just seems like it could be a setup for disaster – if people want the ugliness of anonymous comments, there are plenty of places for it on the web, but most people like Fluther because it’s not like that. Since you seem to feel that user anonymity would make a difference, let’s entertain the thought:

Let’s hypothetically suppose that we could set it up so that people could ‘sign in’ to the chats under a nickname of their choosing for public view (that could be different any time they signed in as long as no one else was already actively using it, and it wasn’t someone else’s username to prevent deceit), but the server was able to connect the pseudonym to the user in case we needed to review the chat records… What types of ‘anonymous’ conversations do you imagine that people will have?

@hearkat No, I never suggested anonymous comments – I suggested that my presence not be announced when I entered the room. The result would be exactly the same setup as the rest of Fluther. When I open a thread to find out if I have anything to offer, no one knows I’ve done so until I decide to comment.

Oh… I see. I suppose some would not like invisibility because they won’t know who’s ‘lurking’ though – but if we had a count of observers, the way we do on a thread, they could at least know that someone else is there.

And I personally agree with not liking how one can see the past several lines when they log into a room. It’s not like that when we physically enter a room.

@hearkat Yeah, a count of observers would make the lurkers feel less exposed. It is, after all, exactly what is done on Fluther questions.

@dappled_leaves – So that would address your concerns? The name would still appear to the left of the comments though, yes?

@hearkat Yes, I think that would be an improvement.

@hearkat But I assume this would be coupled with a “people in the room” tally, so that jellies can tell whether anyone is listening in.

I didnt read any answers above.

I didn’t like that the chat rooms usually were filled with tons of sarcasm and topics that seemed very trivial. Not that it always has to be a conversation about something serious, but it was quite extreme. There seemed to be a sense of humor in the rooms that I was not keen on, just my own personal thing. It was like the chats were so unrelated to the rest of fluther. Maybe it was intended that way.

What I think would really help the chat rooms is if we could see who is in the room at any given time without having to click on the chat room. So, up at the top of whatever page we are on. The home page, answering a Q, etc. At minimum if the number of people in chat showed up on our screen. If all of a sudden I noticed some of my favorite jellies were in there I would peak in too. I know not much can be don’t with the programming of the site, but I thought I would go ahead and mention it.

@JLeslie “What I think would really help the chat rooms is if we could see who is in the room at any given time without having to click on the chat room. ”

Uh, we already have this. Perhaps you should take a look now, while there’s someone in Chat.

Also worth noting that we’ve basically asked for exactly the opposite things.

Where? Where do I look? As far as I know I need to click on chat to see that information.

It looks like @ragingloli‘s thought process is similar to mine.

Yes, @JLeslie, you have to enter the chat room to see who’s actually in there; but as @dappled_leaves notes, they just wished that the list weren’t there.

And this is the biggest challenge – people want the opposite things.

@JLeslie If you click on Chat, it shows how many people are in each room, and the names of the people in each room.

Oh – I didn’t realize that the names on the Chat page were visible to everyone; I thought it was a Mods-only feature (which goes to verify that I rarely used them before becoming a Mod, HaHa).

@dappled_leaves Yes I know, but since chat rooms are frequently empty I stopped clicking on chat. If I knew jellies were in chat from any page I am on at any given time then I might go over to a chat room. Even if it only just showed me that someone, anyone was in chat I might take a peak. Like right now if it said someone was in chat at the bottom of this page, so before I clicked on the next Q I might click on chat instead.

I don’t understand why people would not want to know who is in chat, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I always thought something like this would work. And say if there were more than three people you could just truncate the list and have it say something like “and 7 others”.

@johnpowell That would be great.

Back in the day we at one time had like 8 rooms. So if you were getting drowned out and wanted to just carry on with a few specific people you could just have those people meet you in another room. This was handy for things like if someone needed computer help. You could just switch rooms where it was only two people.

@johnpowell Soon, we too could be chatting with more, better, BALLS.

The more I think about the idea of anonymity in the chat, the more I dislike it. I think it would be creepy knowing someone is watching the conversation, but not knowing who it is. It certainly would put a damper on the conversation just as much as – if not more than – when someone clearly identified enters.

Again, it’s like when you walk into a room and run into some people you know – their conversation stops, and either they catch you up and bring you into it, or a new conversation starts. Similarly, imagine you’re at the watercooler at work and casually talking to a couple coworkers when in walks someone from another department, with whom you’re casually acquainted – sure, the conversation will be altered to some extent. Now imagine that you’re gabbing with your coworkers and there’s a curtain on one side, and you see the shadow of someone standing there, and you know they can hear every word – how does that impact the conversation differently than when it’s face-to-face with someone you’ve seen around?

I also think that the ‘etiquette’ of chat is fairly loose, so if you pop in for a minute and the conversation doesn’t grab you, you can just leave without anyone really taking offense. A quick farewell and off you go.

@hearkat ” I think it would be creepy knowing someone is watching the conversation, but not knowing who it is.”

By this assessment, all of the questions are creepy, too. Why are we allowed to open questions without being announced by username?

Anyway, you are asking for ideas to increase traffic in Chat. If you want to keep everything just as it is, please feel free.

@dappled_leaves: Because the site is meant for public consumption – we are sharing our knowledge to help others. We know that what we type in the thread is essentially permanent and visible to anyone with internet access. Chat is meant to be more casual, and personal, and more social, and transient, and more private, since only registered Jellies can enter.

I’m neither saying that I want to leave things as they are, nor that I want to change anything specifically. I, alone, am not in a position to change anything anyway. I simply started this post to open a dialogue with the community to find out what might make chat more appealing to people. You made a suggestion and I’ve pondered it, and then expressed why I suspect it wouldn’t be well received among the community.

Not a fan of anonymity, either. Chatting is social, and we’re anonymous enough already.

Anonymity is stupid in this context. It was done in the campfire days and most of our time was dealing with anonymous trolls. The very reason the current chat was built is to prevent anonymity. Dick in chat, banned on fluther.

It isn’t like you are being forced to use your real name. I am the only one idiotic enough to do that.

No one suggested anonymity in the Chat room. Terrific, now I am going to have to repeat this over and over for people who can’t be bothered to read what is written.

@dappled_leaves – You said that you think it would be good to be able to enter the room without your name appearing on the list – until you type something. That is a degree of anonymity for “lurking” purposes.

While that may be beneficial for those who just want to innocently pop in and see what’s going on before deciding to chime in (which was what you said you’d like it for), there are those who might be more inclined only to “lurk” in order to anonymously eavesdrop. That’s the aspect that I think people who want to chat will be uncomfortable with or find “creepy”, and what I was trying to describe in my “real life” scenarios.

You also haven’t responded to my explanation of the distinction between the expectation of privacy being non-existent when writing a Question or Comment on the site since it is public to all the internet, as opposed to an expectation of some privacy when what’s being written in the chat room is accessible only to people logged-in to Fluther, and only visible for a short time. Also consider the distinction between messages to another user whether you leave the “Mark as Private” box checked, or if you choose to uncheck it and have the message listed on their profile. I hope this helps clarify my point.

I haven’t read any of the answers above.

I have no experience with chat rooms on any site. I know how they work but I never used them anywhere. Can someone please explain to me the advantage of a chatroom vs. pm? I mean, you go in and just jump into a conversation already taking place, or you bring up a topic but the only people that can respond are the people in the room presently, so isn’t just regular Fluther better?

@jca: The best analogy I can come up with is that a chat room has the immediate back-and-forth of a telephone conversation – which may be like a conference call if more than 2 people are chatting. PMs are more like playing phone tag leaving voicemails on each other’s machines.

It’s a non-starter for me. All those “Gail has entered the room” and “Hi, Gail”‘s times the number of people in the room… I can barely talk with three or more people in real life.

For the few people with whom I have an ongoing relationship, I use either PM’s or email, or occasionally Facebook.

@gailcalled – So even if we had a ‘Sea Turtle’ room designated for people who want/need a slower pace, you don’t think you’d use it to have a tea-time chat with a couple other jellies?

No, not for me, t hanks.I am comfortable with the other formats and options available, when I need them.

@dappled_leaves What I meant was that chatting is social, so I think it’s good to know everyone who is in the discussion.
[addition]: Meaning if @dappled_leaves is in the room, I want to know (s)he’s there listening to what’s being said and want to greet him/her.

I like the idea of a slower chat room. I’m good with the speed as it is, but it can be stressful at times.

To remind people of the chat, how about you mods adding a new line to your standard “Please keep this on-topic!”? If the discussion involves more than two people, you could say, “If you’d like to keep discussing this, please move over to a chat room.”

Apart from that…hm. Creating a TJBM-room would probably increase traffic. Or a chat which changes daily/weekly, with a set topic? Today, the World Cup Final. Tomorrow, whatever the world is looking at then. Topics could be decided on by the mods, but nominated by all.

Not sure how much work all this would be.

Fluther is on my last nerve right about now, and it’s not a good feeling. I’ll be checking in but not participating in anything for as long as possible. The only reason I’m not going to take the extra step and disable my account is that I want to be able to access discussions I’ve participated in and check the rare pm’s.

^^ How about treating it as diet-Fluther? (I see you’ve fallen off the wagon already.)

We should have a Friday night cocktails hour. Happy jelly hour. Where every one talks nonsense and does not have to spell correctly or watch their grammar. That way it’s more chill.
^^ :P

Good news, @gailcalled. Your loving comment above convinced me to return.

I strongly support loli’s suggestion that the main chat be visible in a sidebar.

AIROW 4 LYFE!

Perhaps a chatbox for with the loosest possible regulation. With a detailed warning of course.

Regarding a room’s pace:

There is a pressure to get replies in just under it’s statement in the interest of simplicity and to avoid confusion. This can lead to the cadence of conversation quickening.

It seems like the chatroom is more lively now almost at the expense of regular Fluther.

^ I predict Fluther Regular will bounce back.

Chat has a social nature that cannot be duplicated by the forums or even PM.

It has been my observation (yes, I did read the comments above) that those with the greatest issues with chat are those that seem to have difficulties with social situations of other kinds as well.

When the main chat topic is one with which I am not familiar or even goes entirely over my head I don’t complain. Neither should anyone else.

@janbb That was kind of the point. To reduce chatter on the questions. :P

@dappled leaves I understood that but it has reduced the number of questions and answers too.

I don’t think chat has reduced the number of Q&As significantly. The people I see listed as being in chat aren’t ones who ask a lot of Qs anyway. I suspect it’s a typical summer lull in activity that has coincided with the addition of the chat box.

@hearkat That could be.

@hearkat I just moved, so hate to admit it but Fluther is currently my social life.

I like seeing who is in the rooms.

^^The join in once in a while!