Do you use a shoutbox on your site or forum? Why or why not?
There is one on a forum which I recently purchased but it was there before I purchased it. While I think shoutboxes are okay, I think they can also sometimes take away from the activity within the actual boards of the forum.
As I have personally grown older and been on the internet a bit longer. I personally find them quite useless and distract users from the purpose of what forums are.
If you want instant communication we have Skype, Steam, etc. Forums are meant for just what they are forums not instant communication platforms.
I'm on a free hosting environment, so I can't have a shoutbox on my site. Even if that were allowed, I still wouldn't add one because it seems like a shoutbox takes away too much activity that could be used in the main forums instead.
I've seen shoutboxes kill communities. I think it can be useful for staff / or maybe a special reward for a group. It's a nice add on that can be used but I personally don't use them.
They may have a different use like on RP forums I could imagine people could have their OOC Chat there (Out of character) which could tell people when they can RP or not and etc.
There are different uses based on the genre of the forum. 🙂 If it is just a general forum, I find it silly because you'd be having all the same discussions in a topic or two without the shoutbox anyways.
I do have a shoutbox on my forums, can't say if that is good or bad since the forum itself never really was active...
In general though I like them as an option for the small talk, getting to know your fellow members.
Can't say I really seen a decrease on forum activity on any of the ones I been admin or moderator at as a direct result from having the shoutbox there. Suppose that depends largely on why the forum is there.
For the "general discussions" forum I'd say the risk of forum activity decreasing is greater though then for forums with a more niched subject.
I can't see myself putting up a shoutbox on my forum. I just don't think it would be a good addition or helpful to the site, and would just be super distracting.
I have played around with an IRC channel or something for Mods or Admins, but honestly I would just make a Google Hangout or some other chatroom alternative.
I don't have one on my site; but I don't think it has anything to do with affecting activity. When my forum did have one it was mostly for small chit-chat or people saying hello/goodbye.
I have a super active user that keeps asking me to add a shoutbox - but I explained that I'm still too small - we never have more than 1 user online at a time, and so they'd still have to wait for replies anyways. I still may add one, but I wouldn't put it on the front/home page. I'd make it a separate link in the navigation OR place it at the bottom of the page so they'd have to scroll through the regular forums first to get to it.. I also worry that people would just use the shoutbox instead of posting in the forums, but I guess as an admin, as long as they're visiting my site and using the site, I shouldn't try to "force" them to use it in a "certain way" - It seems especially that younger visitors prefer shoutbox over forum communication.
One thing that is pretty cool is that you can actually link shoutboxes to a thread. It requires some customization (unless there's addons for this), but is pretty nifty. Every time someone submits to the shoutbox, they're technically submitting to a designated thread (a General Thread for example).
The posts show up in the thread as normal, and in the shoutbox like they would in a regular shoutbox. It's nice because even though people are most likely using the shoutbox instead of the actual designated thread, the content remains visible forever in the designated thread.
I personally think shoutboxes are great. There's one website I have been a part of for over 10 years. It's extremely dead and there's probably only a few posts per week (if that). One thing that keeps us all coming back though is the shoutbox. It's a major reason old members come back now, and was always a major reason we came in the first place.
Shoutboxes may not boost your post stats (unless you use the trick I mentioned above), but they DO boost your user engagement as a whole and help members develop online relationships with your other members much faster than threads do.
