I spent a few hours in the chat room last night and had some highly enjoyable conversations. The format allows you to actually converse with people, as opposed to an internet forum, where you can only discuss/debate with them. For those who haven’t tried it already, I highly recommend stopping in.
I only wonder what you (David) want the chat to be for? Why is the chat format better than the forum format? The only answer I can find is that it is faster. And I wonder if that is even an advantage.
Okay, I’ve changed my mind. When there are enough people active and a discussion started going, the chat is just great. You reach solutions very early and I think that you sometimes can answer questions better because of more direct feedback. As far as I see it: The chat is a success already.
Some of the conversations from the last few days of Chat have been:
- Love and Dependency
- Determinism and Free Will
- Healthcare in Britain and the US
- Who will take care of the disabled in a free-economy
- Homosexuality
And of course it’s been fun getting to know other members a little better.
Some of the conversations from the last few days of Chat have been:
You forgot these:
- Crayons vs. Chapstick: Which tastes better?
- Morphing the Hamburglar with Michael Jackson
- Are there (straight) men who see Cirque du Soleil on their own, not because of a girl?
Are there (straight) men who see Cirque du Soleil on their own, not because of a girl?
How could I forget that one.
The impromptu discussions are fun. It would be nice, in addition, to collect a listn of topics and schedule specific times for some of them.
Someone was able to log in and change their name to the one I was currently using and then masquerade as me. This urgently needs to be fixed. (I tried changing my name, and then changing it back, and it prevented me from doing so saying the name was already taken - obviously it’s selective about when it chooses to prevent name-clashes).
I would imagine that’s a problem with the way the chat program differs in the way it interprets or stores an automatic name as opposed to a nickname change.
I raised an issue on the forum run by the guy who worte the software. It is a 0.7 version, so bugs can be expected.
Meanwhile, when you go to chat, you will again see yourself identified as “egoist nn”, rather than the forum member-name.
Bug: The bug mentioned above has now been found by the Chat folk. The developer of the Chat software will release it in the next version.
Chat Nick: Most Chat Users know this already, but I wanted to make it public for all:
The user-profile allows one to set up a Chat Nick. If you are logged in to the forum and go to chat, you will get that as your default nick. If that is not set up, your member-name will be used (first 15 characters only).
Login: Right now, we have he ability to force Chat users to be logged in to the forum before they access Chat. Since Chat is new, it probably makes sense to allow it to be a little more open for now, so that non-members can take it for a spin.
Chat Moderation: Broadly, I would think the Chat is an extension of the Forum and the purposes of the Forum hold in Chat. If anyone has thoughts on Chat rules, moderations, etc., let’s discuss the topic.