Sixen and I have been discussing implementing a chat system to enable people on DFans to communicate in real-time while they are on the site to facilitiate a more convenient discussion medium that will hopefully render increased overall site activity.
As the software is being written by me personally you may also suggest features and such.
Lol, this seems like something that should have been kept under wraps.
Anywho, I'd definitely be down with such a system, I'd like to suggest a "party line", in which all forum members can connect into one massive conversation and just bullshit.
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Sixen and I have been discussing implementing a chat system to enable people on DFans to communicate in real-time while they are on the site to facilitiate a more convenient discussion medium that will hopefully render increased overall site activity.
As the software is being written by me personally you may also suggest features and such.
In what language are you writing it in? as long as its not java i'm fine with it, to be honest if you write in java i might kill myself, everyone using java these days... its too slow.
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Working with adobe and/or java is like pushing a paper clip against a building and expecting it to move...
Could you make two chat rooms so us adults can have our own 18+ chat room, allowing freedom of speech and such?
Alright I'll see what I can do.
In what language are you writing it in? as long as its not java i'm fine with it, to be honest if you write in java i might kill myself, everyone using java these days... its too slow.
I've heard drowning is peaceful; unfortuantely it's the only viable method due to server dependencies and the desire to be as least intrusive as possible with the site (the backend is written in C)
A poll is kinda pointless because no one here has a reason to be against a chat system, but I vote yes nonehteless. It's up to the site devs...
There were concerns such a feature may draw attention away from the forums themself.
I completely agree with that, though of course flaming n' such would have to be prohibited.
Definitely have a second chat room with a prompt that asks users if they are 18 or some shit.
And what about 17, I mean come on I've been here for what 2 years now? There should be some wiggle room in that department. (If of course this chat thing comes together)
In regards to the age restrictions I agree it's quite impractical due the aforementioned circumvention (I'm not sure why this wasn't obvious to me immediately) but more to the point I really do not believe that age is an indicator of maturity; more of an ad hoc generalization. Regardless, a possibility [depending on the precise design] users can be assigned to their age group chat by default while requiring explicit expression to join the "adult" discussion.
I do like the idea, but I wonder how it is best implemented. Should there be a global chat channel or would it be flooded to the point when it becomes unreadable? If not, how should it work? Do you invite people (might be problematic if the chat doesn't follow you when you navigate)? Are there premade channels, like one for cascual talk, one for Diablo talk, etc. Should it be accessible from anywhere on the forum, or only on a specific page? If the former, does it have to reload when you move around (if so, how long does it take, does it increase page load time)? If the latter, it would sort of distract people from the actual threads and be quite inconvenent (i think most people would have a tab open for it).
A general good idea though is to have a fairly short character limit, to prevent text walls.
The current design plan entails a global channel which is accessible to anyone on any forum page (placed under the forum path (e.g, [..] DiabloFans.com > Diablofans General > Off-Topic Forum) and will retain state across reloads (which is, frankly, a pain in the ass to provide on the technical side). The reasoning behind this design choice (as opposed to multiple independent chats) is to avoid situations where users, particularly those who are new, preemptively dismiss usage of the chat due to a lack of visible activity when others are gathered in the non-default.
You bring up a good point about chat congestion and have considered it myself; the only real solution, again, is to segregate the chat and possibly to assign users to home channels in a round-robin fashion. In any instance of a multiple-channel design the capability to join and enumerate a list of available channels will be facilitated.
The load-time overhead associated with using this system (which will be a Java applet) is negligible; the software itself is cached and operates asynchronously within the page and thus will not affect overall rendering time. The applet (of which is fetched by the client) along with the server software will both be hosted by myself to alleviate the burden on the DFans server [as I have unmetered upload and a system uptime of 99.98%, it is of no consequence to me]
P.S., ofcourse another option in the multiple-channel design is to enable the viewing of multiple channels (most likely via tabbed display)
Heh... Just give us a vent and we'll be good to go I do like the idea though.
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If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Heh... Just give us a vent and we'll be good to go I do like the idea though.
A vent. Oh lawdy.
But yeah, multi-channels would be a good idea, it's something I thought of myself. Perhaps giving the ability would be good, but for now default everyone to one single home DFans channel.
www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Yes but if you want lot's of peoples opinions you would make a post on the forum. There would still be many reasons to keep on posting.
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Hey I was thinking about the chat system we are (hopefully) going to implement and I thought that we could maybe put some sort of 1 on 1 instant messaging feature, similar to what Facebook has. What do you guys think?
Because then the main focus of this forum would then shift to that.
Don't fool yourself, if there was a way to instantly message you would much rather take it than post and wait some thirty minutes for a reply.
I think people would still want threads for intense conversations that are more organized and require more time to respond to. Plus, people do like increasing their post count.
Aside, kind of like what they were talking about before- could we just be able to make channels? Could it be able to interact with our member list to restrict certain members from entering certain channels? Like, keeping everyone but managers out. That would be useful for meetings and we would not longer have to use off-site IM programs.
As the software is being written by me personally you may also suggest features and such.
Anywho, I'd definitely be down with such a system, I'd like to suggest a "party line", in which all forum members can connect into one massive conversation and just bullshit.
Definitely have a second chat room with a prompt that asks users if they are 18 or some shit.
In what language are you writing it in? as long as its not java i'm fine with it, to be honest if you write in java i might kill myself, everyone using java these days... its too slow.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I've heard drowning is peaceful; unfortuantely it's the only viable method due to server dependencies and the desire to be as least intrusive as possible with the site (the backend is written in C)
There were concerns such a feature may draw attention away from the forums themself.
The current design plan entails a global channel which is accessible to anyone on any forum page (placed under the forum path (e.g, [..] DiabloFans.com > Diablofans General > Off-Topic Forum) and will retain state across reloads (which is, frankly, a pain in the ass to provide on the technical side). The reasoning behind this design choice (as opposed to multiple independent chats) is to avoid situations where users, particularly those who are new, preemptively dismiss usage of the chat due to a lack of visible activity when others are gathered in the non-default.
You bring up a good point about chat congestion and have considered it myself; the only real solution, again, is to segregate the chat and possibly to assign users to home channels in a round-robin fashion. In any instance of a multiple-channel design the capability to join and enumerate a list of available channels will be facilitated.
The load-time overhead associated with using this system (which will be a Java applet) is negligible; the software itself is cached and operates asynchronously within the page and thus will not affect overall rendering time. The applet (of which is fetched by the client) along with the server software will both be hosted by myself to alleviate the burden on the DFans server [as I have unmetered upload and a system uptime of 99.98%, it is of no consequence to me]
P.S., ofcourse another option in the multiple-channel design is to enable the viewing of multiple channels (most likely via tabbed display)
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
But yeah, multi-channels would be a good idea, it's something I thought of myself. Perhaps giving the ability would be good, but for now default everyone to one single home DFans channel.
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Who the hell voted no?
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
I think people would still want threads for intense conversations that are more organized and require more time to respond to. Plus, people do like increasing their post count.
Aside, kind of like what they were talking about before- could we just be able to make channels? Could it be able to interact with our member list to restrict certain members from entering certain channels? Like, keeping everyone but managers out. That would be useful for meetings and we would not longer have to use off-site IM programs.
Or just have a password option.