h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And I don't see how it benefit our h2g2 community. Of course that is only my opinion!

I'm afraid I agree.

This is my biased, probably completely inaccurate opinion, but I think that the people who use h2g2 now, feel duty-bound to chat about serious entries and in Peer Review threads, I think that the introduction of Chat would remove this psychological-obligation (well it would for me anyway).

There are several other reasons why I'm dead against it. For example, researchers who would use it in preference to forums would be less likely to chat to similar researchers from different time zones.

In my experience in a mixed forum/chatroom community, there was certainly a slight grouping based on time zones, but that didn't cause any real splitting up in the forums. Kind of like realtime parties don't have a massive splitting effect on h2g2...

I'm not really up for it. I spend enough time chatting via the forums as it is!

It strikes me as being a bit odd to be building a community here with the message board system, and then to suddenly have to move off to the main BBCi chat rooms for a bit of a natter. I see it as a distraction to the main site and hence I am against it.

I'm also against it because paying for the moderation of that chat room would mean that there is less to spend on checking the pre-Rupert backlog. And its the retrieval of this hootoo history that I really want to see happen.

don't need it - forums do the job

Yep, I'm inclined to agree. If Researchers want to have a r/t chinwag, there's nothing stopping them MSN'ing or whatever of their own violition.

Possibly might be worthwhile for members of the same H2G2 Society, but again forums do well as it is and members can always meet outside H2G2 if they want. Then there's all the timezones etc...

I agree that we don't need it! Imagine if you will the L*** episode in a chat format. The Guide is too important to trivialize as just another chat room. The forum system works fine.
Rod

No from this corner also. The "Who's Online" button almost serves the same purpose. Nix to 'chat roms.' Never been in one, never plan to. There are lots of avenues for chats outside h2g2 as has been so aptly noted.


MJM ACE

Me too. Put me in the 'No' corner. I agree with what has been said above.

I'm not a great fan of chat rooms either, which is why I like the format here so much better! I've been able to make friends with people from different time zones that I'd never meet were it a chat format, and those I wish to chat with, I do with IM, anyway.

I'd hate to see energy taken away from h2g2 to be used in a chat room.

Put me down in the "Nooooo..." corner: most of the people I talk to on here are on at a different time anyway

Hear, hear! Or is it 'Here, here!'?
I *HATE* chatrooms but I love these here forums. Chat rooms aren't moderated as well and they get very annoying! Besides, we already have a brilliant form of communication with this site.
That's a 'No!' from me.

I don't think chat would be good either. I've noticed that the BBCi chatrooms only tend to work during gmt, and I think that'd detract from the international dimension of this part of bbci. Chat applets tend to be inclined to crash browsers, (unlike things like msn and icq) and also there's the thing of when. If you had a chat session, I'd want to be there, and would feel really badly if I couldn't come. However, with the current non time limited system, you know you can always have your say, even over a year after anyone else made a comment.

Ayiii! Frankly, I think this is a horrendous idea. My reasons:

A: All those newbies looking for chat rooms would be right. Many Newbies come onto site, realise that this isn't a place where people just try to cyber, and leave. If there were a chat room, I doubt they would leave, making there be reason

B: There would be tons of sex. Could you possibly moderate a chat room? If we had a chat room, it would be in need of moderation more than the rest of the site put together.

C: Not everything said on site would be permenant. I think one of the majoy advantages for h2g2 is that everything ever said (post BBC) is still on site. That's pretty cool.

These are just my opinions. I could be completely wrong.

I'm having flashes of the recent "Ok / What if?" uk tv advert, reading this conversation. Why have chatrooms, when forums are ok? Well, it amused me, anyway...

One thing I find hard to understand is that many of the arguments against this one-off chat session could be used against the real life meetups: they use money and italic time, they have (*much* worse) timezone/location issues , they aren't archived , you feel bad if you miss them, and there's tons of sex! Why do real life meetups have such broad support, while a one-off chat session is greeted with such horror?

It'd be trivial to ensure that logs of the chat session were kept and posted as an h2g2 entry. Lots of people have said how they'd like to have an archive, so that's one thing that should definately happen.

Strider - do you not feel you're being a little elitist? You're arguing against a proposed development because some newbies will stay on the site as a result. Do we not want people to come to h2g2, and stay, and love it? Are people who 'cyber' somehow incapable of contributing to the Guide?

Heck, why will there be 'tons of sex' - most of the people in the one-off will probably be established h2g2ers - are we really so incapable of controlling ourselves that without the restrictions of forums we'll degenerate into sex crazed maniacs?

On second thoughts, don't answer that question...
-X

The thing is, I think you gain more from meeting people face to face (despite all the drawbacks that there are about not being able to go etc) relative to posting on fora than one does from livechat relative to fora.
Live chat doesn't make people more real, doesn't bring home the fact that we are all people and not fora posting machines... And I think its pretty hard to have a conversation with loads of people at once

So the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Fair point.

Still need another 'No' oppinion? Well, here's mine, the reasons can be found above.


HELL

I'm another 'No'. Why bother? What's wrong with forums?

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