Is a Shotbox bad for a forum?

[Venom]

Im thinking of Including a Shout box on my upcoming forum, but have heard they can be bad for activity.

However I was looking to use the shout box with these things in mind:

- Limit Length Of Messages In Shoutbox to a few characters [about 60], So Posts are used.

- Reward Members for Posting, and not Using the shoutbox all of the time.

- 'Charge' A Fee of a Few Points [if using a points mod] to use the shoutbox.

Do you think with these aspects it would still be bad for a forum?.

 

[Gizmo]

I think it's bad unless managed well. Usually if not managed well it will get the entire activity away from the forum.

Chatable has a shoutbox but it's hidden from normal members and guests.

 

[Nebulous]

I think shoutboxes are a positive thing, it allows members another way to interact with each other and that contributes to a close knit community feel.

Also we have our "Recent Posts" section strategically placed above the shoutbox so people can look at new forum posts to reply to while using the shout box.

 

[VirusZero]

This is a post that I've made elsewhere regarding this topic (sure, I could retype my answer to make it look a bit different... but it's not going to change what my thoughts are on chatboxes).

Shoutboxes/chatboxes can certainly affect forum activity.

Sometimes in positive ways. Like on our site we have a chatbox that we use to discuss quick ideas, thoughts and random stuff (typically related to the site) that might not need a whole topic for. Or even just to shoot ideas back and forth to each other in real time. And this allows us to chat on the site without having to hand out instant messenger IDs.
Othertimes we use it sort of like a status update option. We leave messages there sharing things like interesting videos we've found or whenever we update one of our threads, etc...

And the chatbox I use has a few other perks like personal message system (so if something was stated and I wanted to talk to another user about that specific comment. Like say we were discussing plot ideas and I felt I had a great idea that I didn't want to make public yet, but I still wanted to ask them real quick about it? I could do that fairly easily.)

Othertimes they do negatively affect the forums. But in those cases, I've found that if you remove the chatbox those who weren't posting still won't post on the site. And that's because it was an issue with that individual user who valued the chatbox more than the site and nothing you could do would change their mind. In many cases, those who only value the chatbox won't post much on site to begin with so they aren't really contributing much to the site. (So if they leave, they tend not to be a real loss.)

While chatboxes can be a terrible place for drama on sites to break out. But even then simply removing the chatbox doesn't sort out the root issue, it just treats one outbreak of the symptoms. (Until you actually find out who's causing the drama and tell them to stop, or if it comes to it... remove them, drama is still going to be an issue. It's just going to be happening in PMs or in threads.)

And of course there are some annoyances with chatboxes that allow guests to post too. You'll often get clueless guests wandering in asking: "Is this site active?" when a mere glance at the index would tell them at least 11 new posts have been made in the last hour.
But even with those few clueless guests most times it's better to leave the chatbox guest friendly since I've seen several times guests dropping by to ask questions about the site before actually joining. (On another site I ran, they'd ask things like: "What kind of characters do you accept?" or "I have an idea for <x> type character is that ok?" or "I want to run <r> plot can I do that?")

Ultimately having (or not having) a chatbox will come down to that site's admin and how they feel about it. And there really is no wrong answer here whether that admin decides to have one or not.

 

[death180]

I think chatboxes have a negative impact on forums, it pulls activity away from the main forum. But if you are going to use one put it below the forums not at the top, make your users scroll to get to it.

 

[tippie]

I think it varies, if you have a strong member base who also does it's posting job then it's fine to keep them in a shoutbox else they will make a tinychat or skype group anyway and then you "lost control".
At crazy coderz for example we have a shoutbox where it says when a new post is created and instantly people click on it and reply.
You can make good things out of bad things and vice versa 😉

 

[Programming Forums]

I have a chat, and for my small forum, it can make things easier to discuss with users that are online. I am in favor of chat, especially AJAX Chat, which I use on my forum, and I am extremely impressed with.

 

[Justin]

I dont personally like it. Leave the chatter to a off topic forum post? My personal views. I dont enjoy them in the way, takes the page longer to load and causes too many problems imo.

 

[Migi]

I'm not sure about the technical problem like making a page loads slower or not... But based on my experience, chatbox is not really something that troublesome. It helps to bring members together in a way. When I had a chatbox for the forum, we did have general discussions more at the chatbox instead of the forum, but then again it was only general discussions. Posts regarding the main topic of the forum were still on-going, and everyone was happy. I don't really care about forum statistics, although it does make a forum looks good.

I think limiting the characters and give more rewards for posting are lovely ideas, but charging to use chatbox doesn't really feel good on my ears. It should be something fun and free.

 

[remonray]

The only problem I see due to chatbox is it can be members battlefield if not managed well. Otherwise, chatbox are always good to communicate with members and I don't think people will discuss about any topic in chatbox instead of forums.

 

[mav3n]

Ahh, this is an ever going debate. Here is my take on it:

I used to have a public chatbox, however, then later removed it because people were abusing it and it started fights, flames and other unwanted content. Then, I only had it where staff members could use it. After I did that, I then found myself seeing my staff members posting less and less in the actual forums and instead posting in the shoutbox. After that, I just removed it in general.

I think it could work, but in general, people are more worried about what is happening in the shoutbox and not what is going on in the threads. It is a hit and miss point here, and it is up to the forum administrator to see if their forum should have one.

 

[Venom]

Another Idea:

Charecter limit, And if It Is exceeded a Button pops up and says 'Post Insted?.' or asks to shorten message.

 

[Black Angel]

I think it can be a good or a bad thing, it depends on how well you use it.

I have a shoutbox on my forum, but it is only for chatting with the members in a real-time, 'human' manner, and for drawing attention to topics as well..

Here is an example:

Black Angel -- i JUST saw the A team van!
Demon_skeith -- pics or it didn't happen!
Black Angel -- the portal is your friend.. http://twilightcafe.org/?act=ST&f=49&t= ... etlastpost
Gruffi -- The portal and I haven't run into each other in ages, BA. That's why we have you. You're a walking, breathing super computer...
Gruffi -- Oh, and please tell me that you pulled up along side it and said hi to B.A. and Murdock.
Aeon -- Guess who's back!
Black Angel -- oh sh-- wassup aeon hows it going man!
Black Angel -- couldnt say hi.. as you can see from the pic he had murdered windows.. could've been gibbs from NCIS for all i knew..
Aeon -- Not much. Been living all over the eastern seaboard of the US for the last few years.
Black Angel -- thats cool, I am really surprised that you back here.. lol

While yes, we could've discussed this in a topic, instead of a shoutbox, but it wouldn't have been as human, and if this were in a regular topic, then I might have missed it since there are other active topics on the forum, and I would've also missed the fact that one of my veteran members had returned.

I am ok with having a shoutbox, and quite frankly, to limit this to a topic, would mean that I am more concerned about posts and stats rather than talking to the people who make them..

I think that if you are too restrictive regarding the shoutbox, then people may not want to post on the forum either.

 

[Mr.Panos]

It depends on the forum and its activity. If a forum is huge, everyone will send messages via shout box and it will be confusing. If a forum is smaller, it will increase the activity. Of course, there are some advantages and some disadvantages. The shout box keeps away the members from posting.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

It really depends on the niche from my experience. I run a couple weather-related forums where a shoutbox is popular. My cycling forum has a shoutbox. My admin forum though, I see no value in adding a shoutbox to it. A general forum would probably be the best place to add one since the general niche is more of a chat niche anyways.

 

[OiLerz284]

I think shoutboxes are a positive thing, it allows members another way to interact with each other and that contributes to a close knit community feel.

Also we have our "Recent Posts" section strategically placed above the shoutbox so people can look at new forum posts to reply to while using the shout box.

Have to agree completely with this post. From past experience as well it really helps the community become closer and placing a "latest posts" or threads box around it definitely minimises any activity loss.


It's all about how you manage it. However that fee idea is interesting. How would you go about that? I'm thinking through a special usergroup?

 

[statt]

there goood if you have somone monitoring it