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One of the readers emailed me a few weeks back with a request to return to some form of chat room. He particularly suggested Discord as a chat app that could even be added into the website.
Question: Is there any actual interest in such a chat room? And if so, what time of day (please answer relative to the Eastern Time Zone) would you actually be interested in participating?
Eric Storm
PS: Any other comments concerning the notion are welcome, but the two questions above are what I really need to know.
PPS: To clarify, as it's obvious this needs clarifying: I'm talking about a TEXT-ONLY chat room, not voice, definitely not video.
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I would join a discord channel to talk with our readers. I am online most days from 9-9 lol, so as I am i think an hour behind you that would 10 your time. I think. But I'd love to be able to just talk to people in our community.
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Which half of the clock is that? 10am-10pm, or 10pm-10am?
I have to ask... I have a weird sleep schedule myself, so I can't assume others are awake during daylight...
Eric Storm
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Sorry, not really interested in voice chat. I check into the forums once or twice a day to see if anything interesting has been posted and that is good enough for me. But I'm not opposed to others exercising their voice either.
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Who said ANYTHING about voice chat? Oh, yes, Discord has a voice option, which I'm sure confused you. Let me make clear: I would never opt for a voice chat. I have no desire to make people listen to my voice, nor do I want to accidentally (or worse, intentionally) hear what's going on in someone else's house.
No, it would be exclusively text chat. You want voice chat, turn on the text-to-speech converter on your computer, and get some speech recognition software.
Eric Storm
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Yeah, I meant am to pm, not pm to am lol. I use discord as a chat room most of the time, i only use the voice chat when i need to convey something that is a little harder to write quickly to get the point across.
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I would much rather let Eric and the other writers spend their time writing than taking even more time away to argue the finer points of magic
The current system allows the authors to choose when to respond without feeling like they need to stop everything to have a one on one with their readers. An occasional visit would be fine, but as a regular feature, I think it would detract from quality writing time
my 2 cents (for what its worth)
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Nothing says the authors have to actually be IN the chat room. Generally speaking, people go in chat rooms when they don't have anything else important to do. The chat room would not be in any way a replacement for the forum. It's an additional way for people to socialize. Whereas the forum tends to focus rather specifically on stories and website issues, the chat room would also talk about your cat, what happened at the dentist, that huge rainstorm that hit yesterday, what you have to get done tomorrow... Pretty much anything except politics (and I'm adding in religion, given the upheaval on a recent forum thread...).
As background, The Pub had a chat room for several years. Neither Keeshaba nor I can really remember why we shut it down, but I think it had to do with a lack of interest. Hence the point of my question. I don't want to restart the whole thing just to wind up with a bunch of people sitting around not talking once again.
Please note, I'm not trying to "convince" anybody that it's a good idea. I'm just making sure that there are no misconceptions about the point of it. The chat room would be, in essence, the office water cooler. It's not a place to necessarily have serious discussions of story material (though you might...), it's more a place just to get to know people while you're on your break.
Eric Storm
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Eric, you know me. If there's a chat room for people to worship me in, I'll be there...
If I can figure out what the beep Discord is and How to work it, anyway.
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Does the tutorial need to be in single-syllable words, or in pre-Industrial English?
Eric Storm
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haha Discord is easy. It's an app that can both be viewed from a website standpoint, or downloaded as program that lets you interface with a chat room, which has the ability to have multipul chat rooms with different topics, and also the opition for voice chat.
Really easy to set up and maintain and is free.
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I'd certainly drop in if there was a chatroom. I tend to be online between 9A-2P CST if I'm working. or all night long if I have a day off.
(Yeah I am one of those weird nighttime workers.)
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Wicked Storm wrote:
haha Discord is easy. It's an app that can both be viewed from a website standpoint, or downloaded as program that lets you interface with a chat room, which has the ability to have multipul chat rooms with different topics, and also the opition for voice chat.
Really easy to set up and maintain and is free.
sounds like Irc
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All text chat apps are like IRC, since IRC was the progenitor of all text chat apps. But the thing they have that IRC doesn't is simplicity of setup. While you and I might find IRC not terribly complicated, others find the whole thing quite daunting, and anything that discourages people from using the chat is unwelcome.
Plus, Discord has some administrative plugins, such as bots, that could potentially be quite useful. I tried writing a bot for our IRC chat room. It was a pain in the ass.
Eric Storm
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yes, the bots are pretty cool. ^_^ it also lets people know what games you are playing if that is your thing lol.
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I'm sure that I would stop in at least once... but chat rooms are not for me.
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So what do you think Eric? We opening the popsicle stand or? lol.
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I don't know. The response to this thread has been... less than stellar. I will continue to think on it.
Centaur: I was gonna leave this alone, but you have my curiosity picqued. Why are chat rooms "not for you"? I'm not trying to convince you they're great, I just wonder what your reason for avoiding them is.
Eric Storm
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I wouldn't mind a chat room. Can't really say what time I'm usually awake because my sleep schedule is more non existent at this point. Also what Jefferson said lol?
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Eric Storm wrote:
Centaur: I was gonna leave this alone, but you have my curiosity picqued. Why are chat rooms "not for you"? I'm not trying to convince you they're great, I just wonder what your reason for avoiding them is.
Eric
That was Crusader that said chat rooms were not for him.
i have no problem with chat rooms. i've run IRC chat rooms, eggdrops, windrops and a IRC server. i may poop in once in a while.
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I do apologize... typed the wrong "C" name. That's what I get for not paying closer attention.
Sorry about that.
So, how about it, Crusader? What's the deal with you and chat rooms?
Eric Storm
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I have been coding an online game that I am far from finishing. The forum that I am using has a built in chat room nothing fancy just one room. When I was setting up the forum I did not know if I wanted to turn it on or leave it off. I did turn it on and when I visit my forum I click the chat just to see if anyone is in there. It works ok I have chatted with a few people with it. The forum is coded by (Web Wiz) and it is free, it is coded in ASP and you code PHP but if your server can run both it maybe something to check out.
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Thanks for the idea, but that would unfortunately not fit our needs.
Eric Storm
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Come on people, we need more Thumbs up. I want a DAMN CHAT ROOOM! lol.
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You can spank me all you want, and I might even thank you for it... but I wouldn't use a chat room.
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