The people who are in the chatroom at this very second in time are most likely going to be in there 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours from now. Most of us keep logs and scroll up a bit to see what we missed while we were away. There's also nothing wrong with someone coming into the chatroom asking for help while we are in the middle of a conversation. It's a chatroom, we can pick up where we left off. There are side conversation starting and ending all the time. In a lot of cases users will take a conversation to PM also.Arigatomina wrote: The biggest problem with the chatroom is the fact that it's a chatroom. You don't know who was in there yesterday, you don't know what they talked about yesterday, you know anything you post today will be gone tomorrow. Chatrooms are a "this moment" free for all. You join, you jump into whatever conversation is going on and try to direct it to the reason you joined - your vids. If you post again tomorrow, you'll find yourself interrupting the conversation of a completely different group of people. Unless you get in there when it's empty, you'll always be the outsider butting in on someone else's conversation. A forum is a completely different venue from a chatroom and people who come looking for a forum don't want to be directed to a chatroom instead.
The chatroom is also seperate from the site. It's outside, across the street. People want their websites to have everything, all the little features they use on a dozen different sites rolled into one so they can move in and never step outside again. They want their website to be a mall with a little of everything all under the same roof. Some of these features don't belong here and really are better left to websites that focus primarily on them, or to off-topic chat in the chatroom. But when it comes to a place for editors to share their amv betas with fellow editors, that's completely ontopic and is the sort of thing the org is advertising when it draws them here. That's something they shouldn't have to go across the street from the org in order to find.
In my opinion, having new editors spam their vids in the chatroom is a great way to ensure they never come back. In the forum if they get no responses, then it's a general silence. They'll see other threads with no replies and realize they're not the only ones being ignored. When they're ignored in a chatroom it's done to their face, they see the people talking around them and take it personally. Unless they come back and lurk for days, they'll never know if this is common in that chatroom, if they just posted on a quiet day, or if it's just them getting the cold shoulder from the locals.
I will agree with you about the chatroom being physically separate from the org, but it's still part of the org. As I mentioned before, the chatroom is one step away from meeting and talking to editors at a con except you have the convenience of sitting at home and can also share your videos with just a click of the mouse. I'm not arguing against adding a beta test forum i'm arguing that users should use other resources that are available on the website to get help when one resource isn't working.
The last paragraph is all hypothetical and completely determined by the personality of the person. Yea, sure it's intimidating when you go into the chatroom for the first time and you see people talking and not paying attention to you. It's no different then walking into a coffee shop looking to meet new people. If you want people to notice you, you have to speak up and say something. The chatroom doesn't ignore new people, we are usually pretty observant when someone new comes in... except for Nya because he posted that log of someone who's new but has also been frequenting the chat for a few weeks now, lol. There's also no unspoken rule that says we wont talk to someone unless they've been in the chatroom for x amount of hours, that's stupid. All we expect is that you follow the rules (which means don't just come in and spam your videos).
It's kind of sad that a lot of the negativity towards the chatroom are mostly from people who i've never seen in it before. Is there something we can do that would make the chatroom more appealing and less "OMG IT'S A CHATROOM IT MUST SUCK!"? The org chat over the years, starting in the AIM chat, has been the best place on the org to meet and interact with fellow editors outside of the cons. I've personally been able to take those interactions and form actual friendships with many of those people because of the chatroom. A lot of the popular studios (RDS, CDVV, BSP, PWAXP [now BS Productions]) formed from those interactions. IMO the chatroom has done more for the org as a community and as a place to meet and form bonds with other people that share the same interests then the forum has ever done. Not to say the forum doesn't, but based on my own personal experience and what you guys have been saying. The forum is a place where you can spam your videos and come back later when someone has the answers you're looking for. You'll have to excuse me because I'm much more passionate about the chatroom because of that. So, if there's anything we can do to make the chatroom more appealing to people, share your ideas.