What can we do to spice up our chat room?

IMHO chat rooms are a thing of the past. They were really popular in the early 2000’s but not so much now.

The other day I went in there when it was empty, and because we now have that nice panel on the right that @PhiNotPi added to show who’s present, some more folks showed up. By the time I had to leave there were like 5 of us there. Maybe try going in sometimes when the room is empty and others will join.

This question has been raised many times; people are voting with their feet. I’d rather have a discussion as we do on questions than a “hi there”, “bye there” place.

Well to be honest, chat rooms don’t really have much of an appeal on a Q&A forum. There is literally no other Q&A forum the uses one.

Its nice that we have it. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing an increase of popularity there any time soon.

The only thing I can think of that might increase popularity would be if we had the ability to use the chatrooms to post live in real time questions. It might attract more people if we could incorporate live video chat too. Sort of make it something similar to Omegle (without the nudity obviously lol)

I once suggested that we play D&D on the chat room, but it didn’t go over very well. I am making that suggestion again.

I don’t mind chat rooms. I like their synchronous nature, but I don’t have time to check in there very often. I can answer a question and leave and come back throughout the day. Chat demands I’m there and attentive and then if I do start talking to someone I feel rude if I need to leave fairly quickly.

Fluther seems to have a lot of introverts too. Perhaps that contributes to the lack of ‘chat’ action. Also, slow typists can take their time composing a response to a question, chat demands faster responses.

So in answer to your question, I don’t think there’s much you can do.

@Earthbound_Misfit It’s a little unclear to me what you are saying about liking or not liking chat rooms in your first paragraph.

Participation in a chat room is a synchronous activity. You have to participate in the moment. It doesn’t really work if you make a post and then leave. It’s a two-, three-, four- etc. way conversation and it demands immediacy. We need to stay there to respond to the other participants interaction with our posts.

In contrast, responding to a question in Fluther is an asynchronous activity. I can post a response and leave. You then check in and answer a few hours later and then leave. There is no need for you to remain in Fluther to respond immediately to any answers to questions.

I don’t have the time or attention to participate in chat conversations. I can’t make a response and then leave without feeling rude to the other participants. Chat demands interaction with the other members of the conversation. So while I like the interaction of a chat room, I can’t commit the time or attention such communication demands.

Is that clearer?

Yup – thanks.

They actually used to be really busy. To the point where we had a general chat room and a election room and a Olympics room and would make rooms for whatever if it was disrupting the flow of the general chat room. It was pretty common that there would be 5 plus people in the general one and sometimes up to 20.

The thing is you need a seed. When you go in and it is a graveyard people just leave right away.

There was a pretty core group of people that would have the chat open in a tab all day and welcome people that came in and spark up a conversation. Then it would snowball.

There is no longer that seed.

I have a chat on my site and there is pretty much always someone in there between 8AM and 8PM. A few of us just keep the tab open all day. We are working so there isn’t instant conversation but someone will get around to you.

Are chat rooms still a thing? Echoing @chyna.

Spice up a tw@ room?
Give it Thyme?

I like the regular Q & A format of Fluther. It works very well for my needs. I don’t want or like the fast and furious, and some might say frivolous, atmosphere of chat rooms. Also, chatrooms just seem kind of skeevy and they seem like something that’s made especially for teenagers, of which I am not. Maybe I just don’t “get it” but that’s OK, and that’s why I don’t visit them.