ChatBox Good / Bad Poll

[lester]

It seems to me that many users don't really care

There are 60 or so regular users, i.e people that visit this forum daily or weekly and most of them have not even voted, its obviously a non event to the vast majority.

and of those that have voted there is no clear feeling either way.

maybe i should force users (at log in) to visit this thread and encourage all to vote??????

[mackrackit]

maybe i should force users (at log in) to visit this thread and encourage all to vote??????

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[ScaleRobotics]

More votes is always good. Right now it is 7 love it, 7 hate it, and 5 think it should have a spot. So it seems that 12 want it and 7 don't want it. Seems more decisive than a lot of polls (official or not) that I have seen! Also in tune (at least with USA's) voter turn out, at about 30 percent.

[Archangel]

More votes is always good. Right now it is 7 love it, 7 hate it, and 5 think it should have a spot. So it seems that 12 want it and 7 don't want it. Seems more decisive than a lot of polls (official or not) that I have seen! Also in tune (at least with USA's) voter turn out, at about 30 percent.

That's funny scalerobotics or is it walter ? how many votes represented there (are you)? Statistics are a funny game by yours 12 want it by mine 13 either hate it or want it limited. I will stand Alone if necessary as being against anything which makes the forum slower to load. This includes silly chat rooms, big or moving gifs of signatures, or avatars, huge images loaded by users etc. I think the thing I hate most about the chat room is it is at the top of every flippin' page . . . pun intended. And while on my soapbox that includes the slide out message thing on the right side of the forum page, it requires a script to hide it and that is really slow too. It also means in order to not have to look at it i have to allow scripts to run while in here, lovely.

[ScaleRobotics]

Well Joe, it looks like I am in the majority then, by both by your and my statistics! I am pretty sure I had the first vote for the poll. My (single) vote was to limit it to an area. It would be unethical to vote more than once, don't you think?

I am a bit on the fence about the chat room. But I have not found a reason to hate it. And from what I see, it seems like people are enjoying it. I haven't seen it abused, and I haven't seen load time have a noticeable change. So I say, let people have it if they want it.

Oh, by the way Joe, you can call me Walter, or ScaleRobotics. My parents call me Walt, and people at work call me Wally. And of course I have been called a lot worse. So you can pretty much call me anything you like.

-Walter

[lester]

note: on any modern machine with a decent amount of application ram and a decent processor the chatbox and other features mentioned should not slow down the load time.

the chatbox does refresh periodically and requires some bandwidth if you dont ahve decent bandwidth available to you then yes that will slow the chatbox refresh

ideally i'd suggest that the minimum spec for a good experience should be dual core 1.2Mhz processor with 1Gb memory and at least 1Mb/s connection...........but i have a machine with an old P4 and 1Gb memory and 1Mb/s and it works just fine running firefox.....ie7 & 8 are very slow on that machine !!


I use Firefox almost exclusively.

[sayzer]

Having a slow PC was my thought also.

One of the best thing about this chat feature, in my opinion, is that I now can talk with people who has some coding and hardware knowledge.
So when I make a joke, at least now there are people who will understand.
They won't be clueless.

I have not started making jokes there yet !


Sitting in front of this monitor whole day, and having a live chat box is great.

[Archangel]

Well Joe, it looks like I am in the majority then, by both by your and my statistics! I am pretty sure I had the first vote for the poll. My (single) vote was to limit it to an area. It would be unethical to vote more than once, don't you think?
-Walter

Yes I do think so. As moderators we have the unenviable position of staying above suspicion, and raising that suspicion first. Like internal affairs, Devil's advocate.
Walter works for me, and thank you for having the guts to respond to that question Walter.

lester

Re: ChatBox Good / Bad Poll
note: on any modern machine with a decent amount of application ram and a decent processor the chatbox and other features mentioned should not slow down the load time.

the chatbox does refresh periodically and requires some bandwidth if you dont ahve decent bandwidth available to you then yes that will slow the chatbox refresh

ideally i'd suggest that the minimum spec for a good experience should be dual core 1.2Mhz processor with 1Gb memory and at least 1Mb/s connection...........but i have a machine with an old P4 and 1Gb memory and 1Mb/s and it works just fine running firefox.....ie7 & 8 are very slow on that machine !!


I use Firefox almost exclusively.

My system is better than listed above, I have tried Cable internet - - slower than DSL! Any DSL I get comes through good OLD reliable AT & T regardless of the carrier, and it BLOWS ! It beats dialup for speed,
but not reliability. Sometimes speed is ok. THE USA needs to update it's tired old telephone system, but it ain't gonna' do it until forced to. Some 3rd world countries have better internet service. Usually the "better areas" have better service. I am 1/2 million Dollars short of moving to one.
Go figure ! Funny thing is they pay the same rate for service. And I only use Firefox too + Adblock, No Script, and Image zoom.
Maybe I am too old but I have no use for chat rooms, Facebook, or Twitter, or Trivia games, I don't waste time on foot ball, either kind, you couldn't pay me to watch baseball, or any kind of ball game . . ugh maybe women's tennis
Having said all that you might get the impression I do not like to waste time, given that my bathrooms are libraries, there seems to be supporting evidence. This forum is NOT a waste of time, at least for me. That is why I come here. I respect it, I support it through trying to answer questions and moderating out spammers. I think feedback is critical to keeping it orderly, and useful. I have seen too many forums explode into unmanageable marshmellows where the original intent is lost.
[/soapbox]

[rsocor01]

Hi,

Well, I don't like the chatbox feature either, but I don't see a reason to kill it since some people seem to enjoy it. In my opinion the chatbox goes against the spirit of the forum, which is to provide serious and expert guidance to those that need it in PBP and related topics. The beauty of having threads in the forum is that you can find posts/code that were written years ago with a simple search.

Hmm, some people are going to hate my comments in this post. Maybe, the best solution is to give the user the option to set the chatbox on or off.

Robert

[emildodge]

I don't mind if you keep chat box, because I have lot of option for chat.

[.W4GNS]

Uhhhhhh, Well Lester, that seemed to work in my case

maybe i should force users (at log in) to visit this thread and encourage all to vote??????

[l_gaminde]

can't you put it under its own heading where I will never have to see it unless I want to

[HenrikOlsson]

Hi Larry,
You can minimize it and you won't see it. It tends to pop back at times, for me at least so I have to remind it to stay out of my way.

Since a decision to keep it apparently have been made can we PLEASE have the big yellow message about voting for/against it removed? At one time I managed to get it out of the way but it too keeps comming back. Yes I HAVE voted and no it was not in favour of the chat box....

[lester]

Now, If you dismiss the poll vote reminder, it will not reappear.

The poll is on going. the number of users that have bothered to vote is very low. if more users decode to vote that its unwanted i'll remove it.

The option to show the chat is one forum area defeats the object of the chat system. The chat system, if being used, needs to be visible across all forums, else you cannot be involved in a chat as you browse the whole of the forum system.

I consider all votes for the chat as positive, so votes for the chat and votes for the chat in a single forum area are accumulated

Thus the for votes out number the against votes, quite dramatically.

Personally i don't favour the chat system.....but the majority of users that have voted, do seem to favour the chat system.

Now, it has occured to me that some of the votes for "Its OK, sometimes, so limit it to just 1 forum area." Might be people that are being polite. Really they dont want the chat system, but they accept that some do. So maybe I should not lump their votes with the FOR.

The bottom line is that which ever way i view the results, its favourable towards the chat system.

[Ioannis]

So we keep it. But once again it seems that people are coming get what they want and then disappear. Mybe that is why the people that voted is low. Along with the low visibility of topics.

But then how can this change if one is not bothering to search?

Ioannis

[lester]

Hi Ioannis, sorry but i don't follow your train of thought

But once again it seems that people are coming get what they want and then disappear.

Can you explain?

Along with the low visibility of topics.

???

Chat is transient, so topics come and go and change depending upon the conversation.

I do agree that with the level of conversation being so low the fact that the history is limited, means that you cannot browse backwards to see many different topics. But that's the nature of a chat system.

It seems to me that people have voted YES for the chat, but then use it like a forum post, rather than an instant message between others users in the same time zone to discuss some transient subject matter.

I don't think that the chat system works very well on this forum, but it was requested and the result of the poll seems to be that it should stay.

Its a shame to see it under used and mis undertood. It takes time to set-up and maintain these features, so if they are requested and voted to keep, it would be satisfying to see them used, and used correctly.