I seem to remember reading references to a SDMB chatroom somewhere. Is there a currently active one, and if so where/how does one drop by?
Thanks in advance!
Hi there!
This is the chatroom, I believe. It’s the place where we can chat!
There was once, on IRC, but it hasn’t been active for several years now. Every so often, someone tries to get it going again, but it never catches on.
Not on this site and nowhere official.
We had official chat when we were on AOL but that was another place and time.
Any thoughts on initiating it here? I think it’d be a novel experience for one-on-one chatter/banter at a place like this (especially since I wasn’t around in the AOL days).
Sometimes I’ve exhausted the threads I’m interested in, especially on a slow board day/time, so live interaction in a chat room would be like a virtual DopeFest, and might actually inspire and spawn new threads.
I know of 3 chatrooms associated with dopers; somehow I doubt there’s a burning need for a fourth.
Could you tell me where one of them is then please?
The most popular one is probably llamadrama which you can find on giraffeboards. There’s another attached to the mellophant forums but it sees a lot less traffic.
The problem is, the chat room would need to be attached to the SDMB main page; right here, and not off on a splinter forum. Only a fraction of Dopers might wander off to those boards which aren’t officially attached or promoted by this board.
When I’m surfing here, and feeling idle, a chat room would do the trick as at any given time, there are people here, maybe just not actively posting. It’d add value and attraction, no?
I seem to recall a previous thread about this where people (staff?) were afraid it would decrease activity on the board itself.
I’m not the one you need to convince. I just have a hard time believing that of the board population there’s a significant chunk of posters who would use a chat feature who aren’t already using one of the other ones in existence.
A chat feature also opens up new problems in moderation. Do all the board rules hold for chat? If I call poster X a cuntlapper, am I only going to get called on it if a mod happens by chat at that moment? Or will the SDMB devote precious server space to hosting a chat archive and some poor mod must trawl the history and send out warnings as they come across violations? Or should posters wishing to report a problematic chat take a screenshot and send it along with the report?
It being a chat room, there’d be no archive. When a user closes their browser or logs out, it’s all gone. Like in real life, someone starts making attacks, they’ll either argue or leave. Then it’s gone. This kind of activity is largely self-moderating, and trolling becomes pointless.
You have a much more optimistic view of human nature than I do. With your rules, I would expect a lot more pit threads about dickish posters.
I’ve participated in plenty of board based chat rooms, and things rarely ever sprial out of control. It’s less of an optimistic view and more of the nature of the beast. But I’m not much of a hand-wringer by nature. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, pull the plug.
Personally, I think chat rooms are fun. I’d love for the SDMB to harbor one locally, as it’d be the only way to stick. I think it would be a big success, with little risk.
Also, it’s an enter at your own risk / no lifeguard on duty demilitarized zone. With no permanent archive, it’s not a big deal. Most people just banter and have a bit of fun.
Thank you! Next time I’m stuck in on a Saturday night looking for real-time conversation, I’ll wander by 
I used to know a Chat Room Host on AOL Chat. She had full logs, and in fact members could log chat if they so desired. These logs could be edited, which made for some ugly days back in the day.
Hosts could kick you out for a set period of time or TOS you. A Terms Of Service violation was costly. 3 and you’re out IIRC…
So you can say whatever the hell you like to anyone you like, and when you leave, it’s like it never happened. Just like real life!
Not really, how am I supposed to mace anyone over the internet?
I’m totally with you. It would be fun. No self-imposed home-bound dredging up of old posts with them saying, “Really? You’re against expelling gas? What about this one time when you FARTED.”
Don’t need mods. It’d be Free Skate time. Cue the glitter ball.
I used to host for MSN back in 1998.
All chats were required to be logged by the host. A copy was retained by the host and another lodged with MSN.
We didn’t have a TOS lock out though.