This is a pretty common truism in the forum admin community: Chat boxes destroy forum activity. Do you believe this? Is this always true, sometimes true, usually true, or never true?
The reason people typically say this is true is because it draws activity away from the forum itself. A counter-argument to this would be that a chat box strengthens the community as a whole, which means more activity for the forum itself, because people are more engaged.
What do you think? Have you ever seen a chat box help or kill a forum?
They do not destroy forums, but they do take a little bit of interactivity between the users away from the forum. The majority of the time people don't use the chatbox for full on conversation, but rather for small, spam-like conversation. This doesn't remove all activity from the boards themselves, but it does distract users a little bit.
I would have to agree with forum source, I don't think that they destroy forums but they certainly take away activity from the board, however if the staff are creating topics on what is talked about in the chat box, that might be away to gather interest in posting, and the chat box could be a content creator for the staff and members.
I have a status update feed on my main forum page and people seem to use it like a chat box. I notice some cross talk and joking around between members. I would personally just remove it as clutter but have left it there because it seems some members like using it. It does not seem to slow down the forums at all.
I like members to use my site and all the features they find interesting. If a member would like to just read threads or PM instead of being active on in threads that is an option and I would not want to turn away an interested member. I do feel I have a nice community forming and they do a good job at keeping fresh content posted and keeping the board active. I do my best to promote the site and keep it fresh with new features, rewards and content as well.
I think they do. They really decrease posting I have noticed. It makes the forum less active with new content. If a member needs to say something private etc., they should use the PM system.
I do not think they "destroy" forums. They without a doubt bring down the forum. It's a focus thing. If your members are focused on the chat box, they won't be focused on the forum. The obvious solution is just not to install one.
