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

I seem to recall that when we had live chat at that yahoo site during Rupert, it was rarely used...

Though it was fun in the beginning.

Perhaps a one-off kind of thing now and then would keep it from getting old?

I'm not in favour of it at all (see other thread)

When you consider how much effort will go into making it if it ends up being approved, it would definitely be a waste of time if it was only switched on occasionally

But the presence of that live chat, rarely used, didn't destroy the Rupert community. We've got more researchers now than we had during Rupert - I'd say it could be sustained. But it'd be certainly worth having a couple of hours on a chat room as a special event, and see how it goes. No point leaping into something without trying it out first

No arguments from me Lucinda!

Having a live chat at 5am my time (10am in London) might be fun - at least I'd have an excuse for being groggy.

I'd only be able to do 10am-4pm on Saturdays...

Hi,

Well those two suggestions for times at least fit together. We could maybe do from 10am on a Saturday?

Does anyone else have any preferences?

Given the normal tpoic drift in the forums, would a chat actually work? I mean, you'd look away for a couple of seconds and next thing you know you wouldn't have a clue as to what people are talking about. It could get very hard to follow the thread as it were.

Then you've got the different time zones involved. I gather that the majority of registered users are still based in England, but even so not everyone has the same free time. Saturday morning at 10am, great, except that I myself work until at least that time, then there are all of the researchers who have weekend jobs and also wouldn't be around at that time.

How many people can a chat room take comfortably anyway? At the time of writing this there are 87 people online in h2g2. A forum thread can get confusing if there are more than a couple of dozen participants, imagine what it would be like with near on 90 there. Would the beeb servers be able to cope, considering how slow h2g2 gets occasionally? I've always found 10am on a Saturday to be slow in general, deities know what it would be like with a chat room opened up here aswell.

Then you got to think about the different typing rates people have. Some researchers are two finger typists and concentrate on the ketboard, others are 50-60 word per minute touch typists. By the time some people have got a reply ready, they'd find that the subject has moved on and the reply is irrelevant.

When we had the yahoo chat at Rupert, people soon moved on after trying it and not particularly liking it. I remember it as a complete muddle with everyone trying to talk at once, and nobody listiening. Also there were distinct groups of friends having seperate conversations intermingled with others.

Rather than havng a general chat open, might it be worth considering having specialised topics? I know during the other beeb chats they are centred on one thing, like the tv show they're linked to, or one of the guests. h2g2 is a bit more varied than that and as such it would be hard to limit conversation topic to the readable. I reckon though that having a chat available for the community talking points, like the current weird animals or debt subjects might be a good idea though.

In general I personally find that the forum structure available within the Guide works fine for most, if not all, things.

Any hoo, that's my tenpenneth

Yep - sounds fine. I won't be able to join in - and as long as it doesn't get h2g2 blocked by SonicWall

I can only join in when I'm @ home - in July...

Whoami?

Still, we must be sure not to let chat get in the way of more permanent discussion - like conversations...

Whoami?

Personaly I agree with Pastey...

Although I haven't "yet" figured out what benefits it would have....

That's a very good point. One of the mainstays as I see it about the Guide is that it's all there to look through. To achieve similar with a chat you'd have to archive the dialogue. But even then it'd be fixed. You can carry on a forum for years, a chat would merely be for a short peoriod of time. Would there then be a forum attached to the chat dialogue? If so, why not just stick with the forum?

In another thread, Lucinda makes the point that chatrooms help bond a community, which I kind of agree with. But having seen how many of the other communities work, I'm afraid i don't feel it would be suitable for h2g2.

True, people become bonded in the community, but it's often the strongest personalities that get the most exposure - or, as is just as likely, the loudmouthed trollers who pick fights with people over hurried spelling and then claim they're being victimised, that kind of thing. As a consequence, the quieter, shy members get sidelined and ignored.

h2g2 is a wonderful equal opportunities concept where everyone gets to contribute, whether you're a degree-standard expert or just an amateur enthusiast with an opinion. I don't see how a chatroom would really fit in with that profile. We'd (hopefully) all be so bursting with ideas that it'd be as if everyone is shouting at once, making a cacophony instead of harmonious (*cough*) threads like we have at the moment.

Additionally, as the BBC chatrooms for this kind of thing *tend* to run weekeday evenings, 6-8pm or 8-10pm, there's the issue of h2g2 being a Global, rather than UK-based project. Currently, although all the BBC chatrooms are open to everyone, only the Dr Who one makes any concession to fans across the world by opening as late as it can to catch the American fans.

But the biggest reason for not doing it as far as I can see is that one of us would have to stay in work after hours or on a weekend - when the PUBS are open. And that's just not in the spirit of Douglas Adams, I'm afraid

Jims

Well, I doubt all 87 would go to the chatroom all at once! Given the number of people who've poured cold water on the idea, I wonder if there'll be as many as twenty... But I've used chat rooms with as many as a hundred people without seeing massive server lag: they just seem better able to cope with that volume of traffic. Besides, in this case we'd be borrowing somebody else's server to chat on, so it shouldn't slow down the h2g2 servers.

I don't know how advanced the BBC chat servers are. Some chat servers have the idea of rooms and private conversations, which could reduce the muddle. I guess I should go find out. Would also be interesting to know if we can get the BBC to keep logs of the chat, so they can then be posted to h2g2 as an entry - that'd help with the desired nostalgia...

Good point about the specific topics! Some kind of organised games might be fun - like the quizes we have at live events, for example. Maybe one of the 'whose line is it anyway' games? I dunno...

Can I just comment that if we're talking about having a chat room with private rooms, why not just use instant messengers? The main body of the chat always seems to go dead as everyone's off having private conversations.

Archiving the chat logs to an entry makes more sense if it's a one-off event - I agree it'd be a bit weird if chat was integrated tightly with h2g2. In the worst case scenario, when the next person after Arch-Blump comes along and asks for chatrooms, everyone can explain what a disaster it was last time, and give hir a pointer to the logs so sie can see exactly why...

I've now got a huge temptation to try to dominate this thread in a loud-mouthed way, and pick holes in spellings and grammar. Must.... resist.... pedantry....
-Martin

Jims

If you want somewhere to chat then just visit my chatroom which can be found at http://pub49.bravenet.com/chat/show.php?usernum=4164676030&cpv=1

I think that chatroom's are useful for h2g2 when u are doing a cooperative entry with 1 or more people and u all want to meet to discuss what each person does for it, or if u want to talk to someone on h2g2 privately which is something u can't do on h2g2.

Feel free to use my chatroom at any time, and if u'd like I'd be prepared to do a special one just for h2g2.

Using bbc chatroom's at just specific times isn't good and it doesn't allow people to go on when they like or can.

spook

Couldn't agree more with Jimster on this topic. If you look at the forums, there's so much drift off-topic you'd have to ask yourself why the h2g2 chat room would exist in the first place. How would it be differentiated from other chat rooms, if it wasn't merely a mouthpiece for fully-paid-up members of the Awkward Squad to sound off? What could people talk about that they couldn't talk about in the forums?

One of the defining characteristics of h2g2 (for me) is the fact that one can actually *take one's time* before contributing anything, 'engaging brain before operating mouth' to the end of making it a more substantial and appealing contribution. The same deliberative spirit prevails throughout the entire enterprise: Scouts, Aces, Sub-eds and Researchers all playing their part at various stages.

The end product is a unique resource where contributions are judged by criteria other than how loud, repetetive, off-the-wall or generally obnoxious a 'contributor's' voice is. The voice of h2g2 itself has a distinctive tone which I can't see prevailing in a chat room.

the FM

I agree, one of the reasons I like h2g2 so much is because it isn't a chat room. I can't get on with instant messengers - I'm on yahoo but it drives me nuts!

I do enjoy chatting on h2g2, but I don't really think that a proper chat room would be within the spirit of the site. Although I would be interested in a one off trial!

What sort of times and days would be good for you for the one-off, Jonny?