A chatroom?

Discuss technical problems and features here
User avatar
bedtime
Orange Belt
Posts: 101
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:12 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada
Languages: English (N), French (beginner/intermediate), Latin (beginner)
x 226

A chatroom?

Postby bedtime » Sat Dec 07, 2019 11:15 pm

What do you guys think of having a chatroom built into the site? Is it feasible?
0 x

User avatar
eido
Blue Belt
Posts: 841
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:31 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1)
x 3181

Re: A chatroom?

Postby eido » Sun Dec 08, 2019 12:15 am

I don't know the details of the technology involved, but I'd say this is more a question of "should" rather than "can."

Chatrooms take a lot of work to run and maintain. The mods on the forum already work pretty hard keeping the site clean for the rest of the users.

If we added a chat, that would probably require a whole new set of mods, and they'd have to be dedicated to checking the logs quite frequently. I don't envision a chat connected to this site blowing up and becoming the next craze, but if it did get a decent amount of activity, it would still be a lot to keep after.

And the chat would have to abide by some kind of community standards that matched the ones the forum runs on, without contradicting them or adding too many additional rules that made it a hassle to deal with.

I could see the appeal of adding such a feature. Chatting in real-time allows you to solve issues faster and connect easier with people you are interested in pursuing a relationship with because of your shared hobbies and personality quirks. But I think as of right now, the slow, miserly pace of an old-school forum like this works quite well because it allows people time to adequately express their thoughts and do so in an adult manner that most of the time leads to productive, mature discussion.

I've been part of various Discord servers based around various subjects, and I won't condemn their very nature just because of the age group that tends to congregate there (I'm just as old as they are!), but all that young energy and the flexibility and openness of a platform like that can quickly wreak havoc on any intelligent, meaningful discourse. You can go from, "Ah, yes, I do believe that immigrants are being treated unfairly" to "kill yourself" --> "no u" in about five seconds flat. I don't imagine we have too many youngbloods cruising our site, but the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't have much faith in anyone to have grown past the adolescent and young adult predilection to jump on people you don't like and set off a flame argument that goes on for 30 minutes, with 400 messages exchanged about your mom and why she sucks, but also why the guy attacking you's mom is [censored].

That versatility that chats bring is just as much a saving grace as they are the downfall of many a fledgling area to talk deeply about a topic. And I don't think that we necessarily need to improve on our strategies at the moment, because I feel that the type of stuff this forum is all about takes time to digest and shouldn't be thrown at the wall in an Internet chatroom like a fresh--yeah. The set-up would have to be meticulously thought-out.

I do stand to be corrected, though. My experience is just one of many, and I might have a few holes in my reasoning here... so please help me adjust my thinking if need be.
9 x

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10461

Re: A chatroom?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Dec 08, 2019 5:18 pm

Apparently there is already a Discord server (original discussion here). I haven't used it though. Maybe it's active.
3 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

User avatar
bedtime
Orange Belt
Posts: 101
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:12 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada
Languages: English (N), French (beginner/intermediate), Latin (beginner)
x 226

Re: A chatroom?

Postby bedtime » Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:29 pm

eido wrote:I don't know the details of the technology involved, but I'd say this is more a question of "should" rather than "can."

Chatrooms take a lot of work to run and maintain. The mods on the forum already work pretty hard keeping the site clean for the rest of the users.

If we added a chat, that would probably require a whole new set of mods, and they'd have to be dedicated to checking the logs quite frequently. I don't envision a chat connected to this site blowing up and becoming the next craze, but if it did get a decent amount of activity, it would still be a lot to keep after.

And the chat would have to abide by some kind of community standards that matched the ones the forum runs on, without contradicting them or adding too many additional rules that made it a hassle to deal with.

I could see the appeal of adding such a feature. Chatting in real-time allows you to solve issues faster and connect easier with people you are interested in pursuing a relationship with because of your shared hobbies and personality quirks. But I think as of right now, the slow, miserly pace of an old-school forum like this works quite well because it allows people time to adequately express their thoughts and do so in an adult manner that most of the time leads to productive, mature discussion.

I've been part of various Discord servers based around various subjects, and I won't condemn their very nature just because of the age group that tends to congregate there (I'm just as old as they are!), but all that young energy and the flexibility and openness of a platform like that can quickly wreak havoc on any intelligent, meaningful discourse. You can go from, "Ah, yes, I do believe that immigrants are being treated unfairly" to "kill yourself" --> "no u" in about five seconds flat. I don't imagine we have too many youngbloods cruising our site, but the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't have much faith in anyone to have grown past the adolescent and young adult predilection to jump on people you don't like and set off a flame argument that goes on for 30 minutes, with 400 messages exchanged about your mom and why she sucks, but also why the guy attacking you's mom is [censored].

That versatility that chats bring is just as much a saving grace as they are the downfall of many a fledgling area to talk deeply about a topic. And I don't think that we necessarily need to improve on our strategies at the moment, because I feel that the type of stuff this forum is all about takes time to digest and shouldn't be thrown at the wall in an Internet chatroom like a fresh--yeah. The set-up would have to be meticulously thought-out.

I do stand to be corrected, though. My experience is just one of many, and I might have a few holes in my reasoning here... so please help me adjust my thinking if need be.

YouTube live chat is just how you've described; it's horrible. There are no mods, generally, and kids seem to use it. Little or no intelligent conversation happens there. It's a complete waste of time, IMO.

On the other hand, I've been on IRC chat, which I recommend. I can say that IRC doesn't have such problems, and the odd time we do, the mods can IP ban them and they are gone. But kids generally don't use IRC, and it's rare that I meet anyone under 18 on there. There is an IRC room called #English (on freenode) that I often use. None of the problems you've described. YouTube live chat, on the other hand, ANYONE can join if they have a YouTube account, so it's chaos.

The only issue I see is how active the chat would be, and I agree that it might not be active enough to use. And yes, mods and time taken is a big issue too.

As for setting up chat, you could easily use a dependable IRC server (freenode) and put a password on the room so that only the members of this forum could use it. You wouldn't have have to add anything except a link to room; it's all done online by other servers.
2 x

User avatar
Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
x 3589

Re: A chatroom?

Postby Expugnator » Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:33 am

As a matter of fact, the channel ##learnanylanguage on Freenode has long been listed as the IRC branch of the old HTLAL, though affiliation has never actually been carried on for practical purposes. It was probably how I got to know about HTLAL. I'm there on a daily basis.
0 x
Corrections welcome for any language.


Return to “Technical Support and Feature Requests”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests