It is undecided whether we will keep this or not, but I was playing around with adding a small, simple real-time chat room for Gold Members.

Moderation plan:

- No active moderation. Gold members only.

- Messages are logged, so complaints could be easily verified by an editor or administrator. All rooms are public, with no assumptions of privacy.

- Users found to be disruptive or profane would lose chat room privileges.

Gold Members can test it here:

http://www.funtrivia.com/chat.cfm

Is this the sort of thing that anyone has any interest in whatsoever?

So far it's a lot of fun!

I like it.

It might be nice to add a timestamp to messages (or make it somehow available by clicking/hovering over the message if automatically displaying it would be too messy). This could be a great way to build community.

It was fun! Then I got locked in the garden, printed 2 messages which didn't print. couldn't get out and when I did lost the use of f/t...that could have been on my side. Have got the message it came up with.

Also, if you want to encourage people to respond, have an incoming private message or public message with a callout (@Terry) increment an "unread alert". Then change the title of the browser window of the target user to indicate the number of unread alerts, which gets cleared when the user foregrounds the chatroom window. Then people can leave the browser tab open to the chatroom and come when they're "called".

I also recommended this early on. Currently, the callout links to Twitter. :s

Note that this chat room is hosted elsewhere. I have zero control over the features of it.

Why do my comments and avatar appear on the right hand side of the page? Is that for easy reference when scrolling back?

I do like the idea of a real life chat room.

Will there be - as in the old MSN or NSM rooms:

1. A list of current occupants in any room, which will be added to when new members come in and their name disappearing when they're not there?

2. A rough idea of when they put in any particular entry? No, scrap that. If their names weren't on the list of people chatting, that wouldn't be necessary

Oh this is going to be great!

Those old chat rooms were super addictive (I used to be a host). Do you think it'll take away from quiz playing etc?

Sorry, can't wait for an answer. Going back to the chat room

Nobody is there at present though

Super great idea for FT. I should imagine, once the word gets out, membership will shoot through the roof

I don't think many people know about this yet. I've just put a message in our Team room about it.

Ohhh and you've even added wonderful little icons we can use to express moods and everything. I feel like I've entered technology heaven. Whomever is designing these chat rooms is just BRILLIANT! ! !

Creedy, it's so adorable that you're so excited!

I like chat, too. It was in a chat site that a lot of "us" discovered FunTrivia and all migrated here.

I think it's a great idea, and I hope we can keep it. Live chat is fun!

P.S.

I put a post in our Team MB about this chat option, too. I think people will love this.

But since you have no control over the features, I won't tell you something I think would be helpful. (Unless that changes.)

which one were you in before FT, BD? Someone sent me an invite to FT a few years ago from another chat room I used to be in, so I joined. But never did find her again.

There may be a small problem with getting into this one. You have to hit F5 a couple of times - unless it's just slow loading?

I've had several people contacting me by note asking how to get here, so hope they didn't try to get in and couldn't.

I noticed the SpanishLiz has a note under her name in the Chat Rooms that said "Back in two hours". How do we do that to let people we're not there for a while etc?

All these lovely decisions now. Do I play quizzes, do I attempt a challenge, do I try to finish off a quiz that's staring at me reproachfully, do I go to the chat rooms? Decisions, decisions.

These instant chats will be wonderful, if they take off, for lonely people.

FT is just incredible.

I'm going back to play with those icons

They're called emoticons I remembered a while back

I didn't leave that note, at least not intentionally, so I have no idea how to do that.

There's a little problem when clicking on it for the first time in a new day. It doesn't load, unless you click F5.

If people don't know this, they may think it's not working.

It works if you come back in at any other time of the day.

Hmm that hasn't happened to me Creedy...

I haven't found that - clicking the link takes me straight there. Both from this thread (which I used the first time) and from the home page.

That happened to me the very first time, but not since. I just tried today and it loaded a-ok, although it took a bit longer than when I return later in the day. I'm wondering if it had anything to do with clearing your cache and making it start from scratch as it were.