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MNHQ

Chat threads

339 replies

tech · 09/03/2005 00:21

We are going to start "retiring" threads in the _chat topic once they are over 30 days old.

What this means is that once they are 30 days old (since last contribution rather than since starting) you won't be able to add messages to them any more - they'll still be in the archive search, they just won't have the "add a message" box at the bottom, and they won't be in the thread lists under the topic. This list is at over 8500 entries currently and becoming useless.

If archive searching starts to slow down, we might start deleting chat threads from the board altogehter after a certain time. As the content of these threads tends to be chats (surprisingly enough) rather than requests for information, there's not a huge amount of point keeping them for future reference.

On the subject of chat, we are currently test-driving chatroom software with a view to putting a live chatroom up on the site - for them as wants.

OP posts:
GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 13:28

Also agree with Twiglett that slow typers get left behind - although that can be for the good. I taught myself to touch type due to my addiction to IRC - AND that skill has got me more jobs than my degree ever did

Hmm, I'm supposed to be listing cons, aren't I?

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 13:35

It beeps if someone says something to you

NOt for me. And not everyone has MSN - some eople may use AOL,or Yahoo - and like it or not ti DOES involved giving out your email address to someone.....even if it isonly a hotmail one.

I never preview posts anyhow, and I'm sure a lot of others don't judging from the number of obvious mistakes (which people often 'correct' themselves after seeing it!) I think lots of others don't too

I often get left behind on threads - and on MSN

People can felt 'igonred' on threads too

With regards to people coming here specifically to 'troll' on the chat - it VERY rarely happens, generally it would be someone that was already registered and using the forums. There are MUCH more enticing, and easier to access, chat rooms for people to troll on than one where you have to register first.

ks · 09/03/2005 13:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 13:44

Gwenwick: you can set trillian up to beep at you too, you know - of course, according to preference. What I generally mean is that you don't have to sit there watching the conversation flow in case someone says something you're interested in.

And trillian is another excellent counter for the people on AIM, yahoo etc, too ;)

I like the security of seeing people's email - even if it is their public hotmail account - it means you know who people are so people can't just change their name to troll. And we've had a few trolls on the boards, so I don't think registering is that much of a barrier...

Justine (mumsnet) · 09/03/2005 13:49

Prufock, Enid and all other chat topic dissenters - have you noticed the new link at top of page - you can now have active conversations without chat? Go on, someone say something nice about it .

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 13:50

I know georgina - but I prefer not to have the speakers on - all the extra sounds you get online with ads these days are very distracting - and you can't multichat with users using different messengers - ie I've got 2 goods friends who I've never talked to goether - one uses MSN the other uses Yahoo.....

motherinferior · 09/03/2005 14:10

I don't like the photos at all - I love the anonymity of MN (I mean, I'm incredibly unanomymous in many ways, have been recognised by friends solely by posts here - but I like the way we can converse, support and get to know each other across rather a lot of social barriers here).

And thinking about it, I don't want a chat room. I do type quickly, and I'm no stranger to MSN. But the quality of the exchange on MSN is profoundly different - even for someone like me who can type quickly and writes for a living. I like the quirky wordiness, the sheer intelligence of MN (at its best, obviously). If the site lost that, I'd be terribly sad.

I also think it's too easy now to let MN assume a bigger reality in one's life than is always entirely comfortable or healthy.

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:13

seems to me that lots of people are like 'some' people in the CofE - scared of change!!!

change doesn't have to be a bad thing, and if you oppose it all the time then places can't 'evolve' - the www is an 'evolving' place - like it or not 'things' (not just talking chatroom) have to change or you get 'left' behind.

I love MN and it's my new 'online home' since finding it - but I feel that a chatroom is one thing it's missing.

Tinker · 09/03/2005 14:17

at mn being compared to a religion!

But change isn't always better either.

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:18

I was using religion as an EXAMPLE - not saying it's like a religion

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 14:18

Gwenwick, with respect - have you actually read any of the posts of those of us who have reservations - a lot of them are very eloquent and specific. It's not about being scared of change, it's not about age or lack of experience. It's unfair to belittle an argument you don't agree with in that way.

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:19

yes I've read all of the posts -

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:20

oops hadn't finished!

And it would appear that people were 'opposed' to a chat forum being introduced - yet it's widely used (obvisouly happened before 'my time' so I don't know the in's and outs').

Im MY opinion many of their worries are unfounded and sound like the sort of stuff we read in the daily mail about how 'awful' chat rooms are.

ks · 09/03/2005 14:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:26

but why are you so sure that it would change it so abrutply?

FWIW I 'arrived' here after the chat boards were introduced - they're already in MASS use when I came and for me that's what helped me to stay - I like the feel of it.

I know of one website whose chatroom is used relatively infrequently - yet has 1000's of posts made each day - once in a while there'll be a 'mass gathering' in there but it certainly DOESN'T affect the boards in any shape or form.

Gwenick · 09/03/2005 14:30

and as I 'write' that particular forum has 89 users online, (out of almost 90,000 registered users!) and no-one in the chatroom.

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 14:31

Should I also put more info into the pot and declare that my dh also is responsible (i.e. wrote and integrated and is responsible for what goes on in) a chatroom on a private site of around 500 users (so small) and I have experience of the hassles that can come up - and that's with all people registered who have no opportunities to change their names!

Okay, it doesn't crop up that often with a group that small, but it does happen - and mumsnet is bigger and you can obscure your identity. I don't think it's a trivial issue and I'm not just saying no for the sake of being a party pooper.

In fact, all this "your argument is just crap" stuff is just making me all the more resolved that it's a bad idea - whereas before I'd have quite happily shrugged and said that I'd reservations but whatever...

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 14:36

Right sorry, calmed down a bit more. Back to more appropriate potential pitfalls for mumsnet to think about and work around.

Are you going to have separate rooms within the chatroom - chatrooms with lots of people in get very difficult to parse - more than 3 conversations ongoing at once and it's very easy to get lost. Of course, the issue with several rooms is that you then have to have moderators for each room.

Are you going to allow private messaging within the chat? Again can be very useful to send someone a "tell" (but also can be embarrassing if you mistype and the tell goes to the whole room!) - again you have issues over abusive messages in "private". They cannot be moderated so easily.

NomDePlume · 09/03/2005 14:38

WOW ! Go you G Never seen you het up before

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 14:38

Another downfall of having separate rooms is that can encourage cliquiness and can cause fallouts.

Dh reckons (just been talking to him about it) that in general the limit is about 20 people actively chatting in a "room" before it becomes unworkable and confusing.

GeorginaA · 09/03/2005 14:39

NdP: the perils of being ill with too much time on my hands

katierocket · 09/03/2005 14:40

Go georgie
Go georgie
Go georgie

NomDePlume · 09/03/2005 14:40

Looking at the reasoned arguments against, makes me lean towards a no. Although i do think that in the name of democracy a trial should at least be offered if so many MNers want it.

flamesparrow · 09/03/2005 14:41

I'm all for a trial run... If things start changing too drasically then take it away again! I don't see the harm in trying it out.

Gizmo · 09/03/2005 14:44

The cliqueyness is the big thing that bothers me.

This is probably not very logical, but my gutfeel is that chat allows little gangs to form that feel quite 'closed' to outsiders.

It's happened with the 'chat' threads (and I'm old enough to remember MN before that) and while I'm not that bothered - thick skinned, me - I know it is the very thing that crops up again and again in posts about RL mothers groups.

Chat rooms exclude:

  1. those of us who can't get at MN for certain times of the day
  2. those of us who don't type very fast
  3. those of us who don't want to use MN for a 'chat' but for information

That's my best effort at explaining why the idea makes me uncomfortable.