Chat boxes slow down you site and lose posting but you can you them without slowing down you site and keep posting the same is that the user will gain access to the chat box if they reach a certain amount of posts and/or they donate.
Other than doing that they are bad but if all your users cant get access to the chat box then you winning.
Thats how Im gonna run it on my forum just need to buy a server im stuck between shared or vps but if I go to VPS it will take me longer as i will have to set it up.
One of my favorite general chat forums had a chat box that was only open to a special user group. Before gaining acceptance to this elevated usergroup, I was a regular poster on the forum and loved contributing to discussions. Once the chat room was open, I put most of my words there and wasn't really in the mood to get out onto the forum and post more. So all those words gone to waste. After awhile, I lost interest in the forum completely and left. That's just my experience with chat boxes. :/
I love chatrooms personally, but I think that if the goal is to build a successful forum, they are better off avoided in most cases. I personally have a very simple shoutbox on my forum, and the shoutbox doesn't seem to harm activity at all, so I think it depends on the forum as well. Of course my forum is still small as it is a new forum, so that factors in as well.
Of course they aren't always bad. Most traditional forum websites tend to be harmed by chat rooms, but for some websites, the center of the community was never really intended to be the forum to begin with. I think it depends largely on the specific goals of each community.
I have a mobile chatbox on my forum and it does seem to be draining activity. I'm going to do an experiment and disable it one day 😛 A shoutbox is better though.
ya I'm not a big fan of chatboxes. They take away from activity on the forum and it just gets everyone lazy like all of you are saying. I would rather have more posts then chatbox comments..even if they're just short posts atleast they drive up the post count.
I have a mobile chatbox on my forum and it does seem to be draining activity. I'm going to do an experiment and disable it one day 😛 A shoutbox is better though.
Of course, a chatbox is nice for chit-chat or general comment, such as 'going for lunch' or 'how are you all?' but it's sometimes used in place of forum posting. Do what works best for your own forum. Your own forum community might really want a chat box. If so, then go with that.
