Cooperating With Another Chat

[AuntieSocial]

Yaw, the server address is irc.everywherechat.com, port 6667

[Arutha]

Yaw said:

Another clarification -- everywherechat IS an IRC server, and hence is accessible through mIRC or other IRC clients, instead of the chatspace applet. I'm not exactly sure how yet, but I'll find out. At any rate, this means that we're comparing two servers with their respective communities, NOT the features of the applet with IRC.

And all of us would like to hear more from the board members about this. Please, feel free to try out both options and comment. The whole point of this thread is to be able to choose what is best for this community, and it is hard to do that without input.

I personally see it as being an aspect, One of the issues when changing to use us was the applet i would have thought, from the number of users still using the applet that it still is an issue, The community is a big issue however.

[Maverick]

I can confirm that there were a number of chatters who used the applet on our chat page when we made the switch to HomelessIRC.

Also, BaalShemRa made the following comment in her welcome thread:

BaalShemRa

Maverick,

Yes, I do have a suggestion: Have one chatroom only, if you don't have a critical mass of chatters, chatrooms die because people think "there's never anyone to chat with there" and since many people think that way, not many people go, so there are even fewer people.

On the other hand, if it gets to the point where text zips across the screen like it does in some game chatrooms, that gets confusing, posts get lost, pace is too fast to take a rest. I don't think we'll have that problem though. [added in later]If it does get to that point, two chatrooms might make sense.[/added in later]

If we do pull the plug on the chatroom of this forum, a URL link which is as direct as possible should be easily accessible on the front page of the forum.

Make it simple to use, if a password is required, make sure it can be memorised by the computer.

I don't know if this is possible, but I think there should be private rooms within public rooms where more than two people can talk. Multi-private talk, if you will. That way, some groups that want to discuss subjects others don't want to see ( sex ) can do it while less prurient interests are discussed in the public area.

Oh, and finally, anyone whose name rhymes with 'eesa' is to be banned.

[AuntieSocial]

BaalShemRa

I don't know if this is possible, but I think there should be private rooms within public rooms where more than two people can talk. Multi-private talk, if you will. That way, some groups that want to discuss subjects others don't want to see ( sex ) can do it while less prurient interests are discussed in the public area.

Private messages and seperate rooms are possible on all IRC networks. I'm not sure how the applets function, but with mIRC (or other IRC clients), all one has to do to start a private conversation is double click on the user's name. There are other methods, but this is the easiest.

As for a seperate room, simply join a room name and PM the others to join. For example, I want to chat with 5 or 6 people, I would create a room by typeing /join #roomname. This will create the room with me as the room admin/operator. I can then tell the others about the room & they will join also.

I'm not sure that you can keep it from appearing on the room list though. This partly depends on the network's set-up and the user's knowledge of the mode switches. Some networks don't list rooms that have fewer than 3 (for example) chatters.

The channel modes are set within the programming of the network. Some modes are the same from network to network, others may be different. Usually double clicking on the chat area of the channel (or room) will bring up a box where you can change or set modes.

Some of the options available are "invite only", "private" and "secret". Using these modes is still dependant on whether the network allows these modes to be used.

"Invite Only"
This setting prevents users from joining the channel unless someone on the channel has specifically invited them using the /invite command, eg.
/invite {nickname} #channelname

"Private"
This prevents a channel from being seen in a /whois unless the person issuing the /whois request is on the same channel. A channel that is +p will still show up in the channels list though. i.e. people on the outside won't know who is in the channel

"Secret"
This prevents a channel from being listed in the channels list retrieved by the List Channels dialogue

You can also set a 'key' (password) for a room, or set the limit of chatters in that room.

[Arutha]

/mode #roomname +s will stopit appearing in the channel list
/mode #roomname +i is invite

All irc commands are supported by the eIRC applet, hence why i chose it, it may have a longer load time but allows full control for those who know how to, want to learn, they can control their room fully from that.

They should be fairly common modes across all ircd's however some do vary but i believe there is a rfc to try to control this.

I agree however there needs to be one chat room if there is a merger, either way one will not survive, as a majority of chatters would prefer to be on only one

[AuntieSocial]

I have visited the Everywherechat room a couple of times now. It appears that they select a nightly topic (a question) and that is the general topic for the room each night. They have other conversations happening as well.

They are also a friendly group, and both times I was there, the room was active. The first night, they had a theist in there as well.

I would encourage people to go and check out the Everywherechat room and report back your feelings.

I'm still undecided. Firstly, I'm more of a voice chat/debate type of person, and I see advantages (from an administrative point of view) to staying at HomelessIRC. However, I can't say that we won't have similar advantages at EverywhereChat.

I also haven't used the applet (and probably won't), so I can't comment on the ease of use, etc. I do know that at least one person who used to chat at HomelessIRC using the eIRC applet is on the other network using their applet. I am guessing that they found no substantial deficencies in the experience.

I would really like to hear some more feedback from others ... Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? (A hug & kiss to anyone who is actually old enough to know that reference!)

[Maverick]

Though I haven't logged into Everywherechat recently, I did log in a couple of times just after I was told about it. When I logged in, I noticed that some of the chatters who were also logged in once chatted here at A/Anon. For some reason, these users quit consistently chatting here at A/Anon.

My question is this: Are the current Everywherechat users dedicated to building the atheist channel there? Based on past results here, I'm not sure that is the case.

Building an active chat takes the consistent effort of its users. For a while, we had users who would consistently log into the room but now that number has decreased. Constantly changing chat rooms does not help sustain any chat activity either (and A/Anon has changed several times in the past before we arrived at HomelessIRC).

Since the atheist chat community on Everywherechat is relatively new, I have no way of knowing how long it will sustain itself. I imagine that it will do well for a while but, if activity in that room reflects activity here, that initial interest is bound to drop off after a while. If we were to make the move and interest dropped off, we would find ourselves in the same situation we are currently in right now.

This leaves me unconvinced that a move to Everywherechat would benefit us right now. Also, I agree that cross-advertising chat rooms would ultimately cause one chat to suffer.

Since A/Anon currently has an existing relationship with HomelessIRC, I am leaning towards pursuing option number two. Under option two, we could accomodate JohnGalt's chatters into our existing atheist channel. It would also benefit both groups by allowing us to pool the resources of both groups. I could grant OP status to current mods from Everywherechat, which would involve more people in building an active chat on our atheist channel on HomelessIRC.

How does everyone feel about this option? Does anyone think there are other, better alternatives?

[AuntieSocial]

Maverick said:

Though I haven't logged into Everywherechat recently, I did log in a couple of times just after I was told about it. When I logged in, I noticed that some of the chatters who were also logged in once chatted here at A/Anon. For some reason, these users quit consistently chatting here at A/Anon.

I saw one chatter who used to chat frequently at A/Anon when I was in the room also.

My question is this: Are the current Everywherechat users dedicated to building the atheist channel there? Based on past results here, I'm not sure that is the case.

Building an active chat takes the consistent effort of its users. For a while, we had users who would consistently log into the room but now that number has decreased. Constantly changing chat rooms does not help sustain any chat activity either (and A/Anon has changed several times in the past before we arrived at HomelessIRC).

Since the atheist chat community on Everywherechat is relatively new, I have no way of knowing how long it will sustain itself. I imagine that it will do well for a while but, if activity in that room reflects activity here, that initial interest is bound to drop off after a while. If we were to make the move and interest dropped off, we would find ourselves in the same situation we are currently in right now.

This leaves me unconvinced that a move to Everywherechat would benefit us right now. Also, I agree that cross-advertising chat rooms would ultimately cause one chat to suffer.

I can attest to this from my experience in trying to build a network. I'm sure Arutha also can attest to the difficulties involved in building consistent involvement.

Since A/Anon currently has an existing relationship with HomelessIRC, I am leaning towards pursuing option number two. Under option two, we could accomodate JohnGalt's chatters into our existing atheist channel. It would also benefit both groups by allowing us to pool the resources of both groups. I could grant OP status to current mods from Everywherechat, which would involve more people in building an active chat on our atheist channel on HomelessIRC.

Maybe this is the best solution, since the EverywhereChat group just recently started their channel. I guess JohnGalt would be the best source to consult about the attitude of their group moving again, after their recent move.

How does everyone feel about this option? Does anyone think there are other, better alternatives?

I did enjoy my visits to the other group (as brief as they were), but I do think that the best (first) course of action is to invite them to join us. In particular, we have a very supportive member who is an admin on an upstart network. Pulling out of HomelessIRC could also have negative effects on that network. (Call me sentimental, but I do think we have a level of obligation to supporting our members in their endeavours as well). The admins at HomelessIRC have been very supportive of our channel, and I, for one, am very appreciative of their efforts (even if I haven't been in the chatroom a lot lately).

[Yaw]

I think one of the issues is server size. The more rooms and people a server has, the better it seems to be able to stay popular -- both because it can rely on some traffic passing through the server for new people, and because it gives chatters of your channel other things to do on the server if they get tired of the conversation. This should be a consideration.

At any rate, we still haven't heard many opinions. What's going on that nobody's interested in this?

[Arutha]

I would disagree with that, Atheist Anonymous has a large draw that many do not know of, in the time i have been monitoring the rooms, you have gained a number of chatters who havent stayed because of inactivity, with chatters coming back it would continue to grow but that draw only lasts while the chatters. a number of new forum members, one of who posted for the first time today have been drawn here because of the chat room, (i frequently ask if they have looked at the forum). If you are to build a chat the present chat base does help but it also depends on who is going to be in the chat, how often, and where you are linked from

[Maverick]

Though I understand your point Yaw, I am still not convinced that moving to larger server would alleviate the problem. Losing chatters to other chat rooms is a problem we already suffer from. The only difference on Everywherechat is that the atheist channel is more likely than HomelessIRC to lose chatters to other channels on the same network.

But regardless of where the atheist channel is, we will still need to maintain a level of activity in the atheist channel to keep our chat room alive. And I can't help but wonder why we would pass up an opportunity to pool the resources of these two atheist channels together on HomelessIRC where we already have an existing relationship with an IRCop and where we have appointed moderators.

Another thing to note about HomelessIRC is that, due to its size, it has kept trolls away. I think sticking with HomelessIRC would definitely help us continue to keep abusive users from logging in and disrupting our channel.

Though I am glad that the forum mods and chat OPs have kept discussing this issue (and I hope you will continue to), I'd really like to see some more input from our other members. How does everyone else feel about this issue?

[nonny]

I agree mav. Plus we(atleast i) have a realationship with the owners of the servers(klos, trin, hard, arutha). Plus as I said before it is more friendly. PLus we are starting to get more poeple checking it out I have greeted atleast 7 poeple in the last couple of weeks.

I think moveing would be a bad idea. I have been to the other chat, it wasn't very "homey" it seemed kind of distant. Atleast that is the feeling i got.

[Arutha]

That being said though non i will point out that most those users, if not all have found you via the website, which with details changed and applet changed would do the same thing. just pointing to another source

[Maverick]

I added a link to the atheist channel on Everywherechat on our Chat and Links pages. This isn't meant to indicate that we will be changing chat rooms. But, JohnGalt has been kind enough to link to our website from their chatroom's web page.

I will revive this conversation about our chatroom very shortly when I have a little more time available.