I know programs exist and technology is there and Gand doesn't have to do much more than just install it into forum (..maybe worry about where to put it)

The problem with IRC chat is that its empty. Half the people that might turn up here won't bother with it. Even if they do, wrong timezone.


I could give an example of what it looks like, but then the one I know is Korean, feh ~_~ (.. it even stores the text said in the last 24 hrs within the chat interface itself, so you could "leave messages" for people, and supports login, so only membered logged in can see the chat and etc.)
But there's got to be an English version somewhere right? :mellow:



.. It might just help with the withdrawal symptoms suffered from lack of General Chat.

Ah.. crap I miss that thing.

Your talking about a Shoutbox?

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h255/porschegtiii/untitled-6.jpg

What's the difference between that and a thread?

Would not that cause people to post less in the General Chat by having another way to discuss things apart of threads and IRC?

And that youngcomposers shoutbox. :P

The IRC channel isn't dead isn't, not even close to it.

A shoutbox isn't necessarily a bad idea, but IRC is plenty alive~

Cause we're there~ <3

Perhaps if Kou became a regular in the IRC channel, he'd see that there are several active users in IRC. The server's not as active as EFNet or FreeNode, but it's certainly not as "inactive" as you say. I will say, thought, that majority of the active users are in the Western Timezones, but that's not really a justification to try and change things. That shows that not many people from the Eastern Hemisphere care about our IRC channel. If you want more activity on the eastern side, then get members to join the chat!

Also, don't forget that Ichigos is an English speaking community. There's a large portion of the east that do not know English enough to visit our site, which is not their fault, but ultimately the truth. Majority of our members are located in either Europe or America, so it's not likely that many users even exist in those timezones.

And, like you inferred, it sounds like you're trying to reinstate the General Chat. The Staff here have already argued about the General Chat and deemed that it was not needed. Hence we closed it, contrary to what the users wanted. Sure, there were complaints about the thread's closure, but forum activity hiked up about 22% and topics are becoming more active because they're no longer funneled into one thread. The General Chat was hindering Ichigo's growth.

It was broken, therefore we fixed it. Right now, nothing's broken, so why fix it?


Also, the only way to really do what you've suggested is to hack a skin template to include an IFRAME element which loads a CGI interface of some sort; of which would slow down page loads and break the IRC server as each page load in the forum would be a disconnect and reconnect. vBulletin doesn't have a pretty AJAX interface either (at least not a big as this type of solution requires), so I don't see anything truly working these kinks out. There is not a way to directly integrate an IRC chat into a forum without causing problems for both the forum members, the irc server, and the site admin.

A shoutbox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoutbox), as porsche mentioned, does not work the same as IRC and the two systems are not compatible. Sure we could add it, but then we'd have a redundancy in immediate chat systems. We'd have to pick one or the other. In terms of management, IRC is far easier to maintain and moderate than a shoutbox, and we also don't have to seek out a third party. Not to mention a shoutbox would quickly fill with spam messages requesting a particular sheet of music that should be made a thread or sought out using the (somewhat broken) search feature on the forum. The technology does not exist, rather a similar solution exists that have different purposes, with IRC being synchronous and shoutbox being asynchronous. A forum is already a form of asynchronous communication, so why add an additional interface for something we already have?

Also, the shoutbox would eventually turn in to General Chat mk. III, and I've already pointed out why we don't want that to come back.

My vote: I'm against a merger, but it's ultimately up to Gand to decide.

What they said, it's alive and doing fine.

I didn't mean the shoutbox. It doesn't update real time like a chat, and its also heavily limited in its function as a chatbox. Shoutbox might be easier to implement here, but it sucks. And no its not another attempt to reinstate GC.

I get your point, but since my original intention seemed to have been interpreted a little off lemme elaborate it a little more.

As for the chatbox I meant, I found the English site. It actually works like a widget(.. is the closest word I can think of atm) and you can chuck it into any page with html allowed. More like a frame rather than actually integrating it into IPB I suppose.

If you're interested (for your own purposes rather than for the forum - Its damn useful anyway, doesn't hurt to know one exists)
http://www.gagalive.com/live/

While this may possibly decay the forum (but then forum is for the more concrete subject, rather than simple,short chat), it may also clean up some of the forums (i.e Music discussion) by getting rid of short question threads that can be answered in a matter of seconds? I dunno. There are the pros and the cons, I just chucked an idea around.

*As you said M, my main problem is that I live in a different timezone, plus that members usually around our side of the world don't bother with IRC. This may fix that by giving easier access.

So.. how about a reevaluated feedback?

eh.

Chat in IRC, post in the forum. No need to mix them up, IRC has enough regulars and lots of drive-bys.

My 2c.

What Gand said :yes:

fair'nuff, now let me go have a cry in the corner about being in the wrong side of the world... and i still can't be bothered with IRC which is sad, lol.

thread should close since it served its purpose?

totally off topic just wanted to say bliz posted lol
and how sexy his set looks on him :D