miSxh_hUsXtLah wrote to me to say:

no chatbox here...

and I assume we will get asked about that again, so I thought I'd start a discussion here where we can talk about the pros and cons of different ways to handle chat.

Fist, let me say that in the past we did have chat as a prominent feature of the site. The problem was, our traffic isn't really enough to support it, so its usually empty. That created kind of a pathetic first impression of the site. I'm willing to experiment with it again, but we need some tambay here to keep it going ok? LOL

So, the first question is what style to use and where to place it.

• If i put it on every page, say in the sidebar, more people will use it, but it really slows down the page loads.
• On a bar at the bottom of the page... then less people will be likely to use it, and it creates a kind of jump in the page loading. not ideal either. There is a nice system for making 1-1 chat that way though, like the chat in facebook.
• If I put a chat on its own page, or in a popup, almost no one will ever use it, but we can have video chat etc.

So heres what I think, maybe we will experiment with the first option for a week, then try the second option. then I'll get peoples opinions and observations here of what they like better.