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PhiNotPi's avatar

What can we do to (and should we) bring back Fluther's chat rooms?

Asked by PhiNotPi (12681points) July 29th, 2012

Well, it’s official. The chat rooms are more dead than ever. I’ve been in the room a lot recently, which is enough to gather some stats:

The average number of other people that enter the chat room in one day (not at the same time) is around four.
The number of times that I chat each day, even by staying in the room for as long as I can: 1 time.
Most people that enter the room are there for less than one minute, and idle out.
Likewise, most people in the room do not say anything.

So, the chats rooms are empty. Big surprise.

In my opinion, this is the make-or-break time for the Fluther chat rooms. We can either make a community effort to increase the usage of the chat room (instead of chatting in Social threads), or we can ditch the idea of trying to bring back the chat rooms.

I’m fully for the first option. I believe that the chat rooms are the appropriate place for us to do many of the things that we do in Social, such as “the Great Fluther War,” which is currently in the same category as opinionated, but otherwise serious questions.

However, there are some difficulties. Programming changes won’t happen. Also, we need community effort: nobody will enter a chat room if it is already empty, but by being in the chat room, more people will join.

I particular, this will need the mod’s support. Everyone saw how much happened because of the t-shirt contest. The mods have a lot of power in the community. Mods, what do you think?

In light of the difficulties, I suppose this is also prime time to ditch the chat rooms and forget about this issue once and for all.

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18 Answers

blueiiznh's avatar

I was unaware that this was such a pressing issue.
Perhaps we could get the candidates for the November general election to see where they side.

wundayatta's avatar

I think we should have a kind of notification we could sign up for, so that when someone enters the chat room, it sends out a notification to everyone who has signed up for notifications that [person’s name] has just entered the chat room. That way, people who are interested in chat can have some idea when it’s good to go there.

PhiNotPi's avatar

@blueiiznh It is the most pressing issue of all of history! Even more pressing than politics! Wars will be waged!

Sunny2's avatar

I don’t like all the time you waste waiting for people to type in responses in a chat room. I have no objection to others wanting them and using them. I’m just not in that category.

SpatzieLover's avatar

Maybe everytime someone thinks up a game question it should be transferred to the chat room.

zensky's avatar

I find that a fun thread that is active with people I want to “speak” with is not unlike a chatroom.

rooeytoo's avatar

I look in often but there is never anyone there. Of course I am on the other side so I figure my timing is not the best for most others.

bkcunningham's avatar

I think the mods should isolate @Randyonlynicepeopleshouldanswerthisquestion to a chat room. It would certainly bring more interest to the chat room and could be very interesting.

ucme's avatar

Raise the dead?

blueiiznh's avatar

@PhiNotPi this will be the beginning of the 100 year Fluther Wars

Berserker's avatar

@ucme I’m up for that. Lol. Also @wundayatta has a good idea too. Even if it doesn’t involve black magic

ucme's avatar

@Symbeline Ha, naturally ;¬}

wundayatta's avatar

@Symbeline I’m sure we could incorporate black magic into the notification system, if truly desired.

Shippy's avatar

There are fluther chat rooms?

Brian1946's avatar

@Shippy

There are, but they’re usually unoccupied: http://www.fluther.com/chat/

Shippy's avatar

@Brian1946 Thank you I’ll be sure to take a look.

Mr_Paradox's avatar

Why isn’t there a catergory for stuff like “The Great Fluther War”, or why isn’t there a link to the chatrooms at the top and bottom of each question. That would get the former into a catergory away from the actual questions and get the chatrooms busy again (hopefully:P).

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