Well, I'm relatively new on this forum. I want to get to know members so I can RP and such, and I usually do that via some sort of forum-wide chatbox. However, while this forum does have a Cbox, it has the pesky issue of redirecting me to the top of the page whenever I say something. And, judging from the general lack of conversation and not just "Hellos!", I think I'm not the only one with this problem. If I am... Awh.

Anyways, I would just like to suggest this type of chat-mechanism. It runs faster, refreshes itself automatically, and one has the option to customize their name (though this option can be disabled by the administrator. See: Registering).


So yeah, that's it. ^^

I dunno, I've seen a lot of different types of shoutbox on RP websites and I like this style the best... yeah, the redirecting is a little annoying, but other boxes have the problem of having certain limitations on how long you can use them for, how many shouts can be posted a day, etc... and with this one, you can always just have another window open with the shoutbox topic in and just post in that if it's easier. Plus, it fits the design of the forum better.

Just my opinion on the matter :)

I'm on another forum and there's a chatbox at the bottom of the page that almost all the online members hang out in. It's pretty much like normal chat.

The problem with that is that I don't think there's any way to archive posts from it; here at WR, the old shoutbox logs are archived (that's why your post count goes up if you use the shoutbox), just in case the administrative team needs to look something up.

The other potential problem I've seen with that kind of chat is that it is harder to monitor. This might be due to the people on this other forum, but there have been instances where they start talking about some pretty provocative (and somewhat inappropriate) stuff. One of very non-confrontational mods ended up snapping and banning people because of that.

You kind of need to have an admin or mod around to keep things a little more under control. Granted, I guess the prefects and Elite members could also help moderate, in addition to the staff team.

If we have that sort of chatbox, I'd like to see an organised system of claiming names. Like people could chat under the names of their characters and maybe their OOC name (like I could use "Eli" or Tycho Brynhild could use "Jax").

But the final call would be up to Sue and the rest of the staff team on that.

My post count hasn't been going up... wasn't that stopped a while back?

Hmm... maybe Sue turned it off, then. That's a good thing; it was starting to really annoy me. <_<

Yeah - the upping in the post count was turned off awhile ago. The overall board post count, however, goes up.

The thing with the Chatbox is that special features like unlimited chatting and anything else that might be useful - i.e. reserved names, banning filter, etc. - costs extra. With the one we have now, only members can post, and if anything inappropriate is said, it's monitored like Ai mentioned. The member can then be confronted and the problem stopped.

With the Chatbox, guests can posts, I believe, unless there's a new feature that disables it. But then anyone can post in and say inappropriate things, or spam it up with advertisements for their site, or advertisements for other sites.

Personally, I like the one we have right now.

Personal post count is off in the shoutbox, it's true. Board count still goes up though.

I heart our shoutbox. Sure the redirecting thing is a little off, but it has so many great advantages. You know who everyone is, you don't get people pretending to be other people (I've seen it happen), you don't get meanie guests saying rude or uncouth things, you can log it, etc.

The chatboxes used on most sites have their advantages too, and of course this would be up to the entire staff, mainly Sue. But all in all I would say I like the system we have now.

Well this site I'm on has a chatbox that only members can access and it lets you log in and out of the chatbox and it uses your username. Also the staff could also make chatbox moderators like the Elites and Prefects. Cause everytime I log on, I see a Prefect or Elite, so they could watch the box anytime.

The problem with getting a normal cbox is, once again, being able to monitor it. This cbox redirects you because it's actually a separate forum. I used it on another one of my sites, and I loved it. It was easy to archive posts and go back through and check something if anyone had a problem. With a cbox, it only archives to so far. Also, it's through a third party site, meaning that it's not entirely private and, if given the right tools, just about anyone could hack it and get into it. I used to use cbox as well, but our site account was hacked on a previous board I admined at years back. They hacked the actual cbox account and terrorized the whole thing. It was a big mess to clean up.

This chatbox is a forum in the actual board, meaning that only we have access to it. Even more so, only the admins have access to it and are able to reset it. It registers as actually making a post, so that's why the redirect occurs. It's a much more private and safe one to have. And, it's quite difficult to monitor a cbox, whether or not you have people assigned. To delete posts from a cbox, every single prefect, admin and SMOOSH would have to have the password and username to the account, whcich decreases safety and creates issues. For someone to be on 24/7 to monitor a cbox is a little ridiculous and unnecessary. Redirecting is a small price to pay for the security and overall ease of use of the chatbox we have now.

On the other hand, since I used the script before on my own site, I can look into it and experiment and see if there is a way to turn off the redirecting, then relay that information to Sue and the admins. :)

My page doesn't redirect me to the top of the Forum whenever I post. It just appears there. I personally like our chatbox, becuase it's not just another chat. It's a feature that WR has, and is one of the only forums I've seen that does it that way. =3

Oh, the shoutbox here redirects if you use Mozilla, I believe? But if you use IE, it doesn't, for some reason. I like to use Mozilla myself, but I do make exceptions. :] And also, it does clear up confusion about names. Especially if there's more than one person with the same nickname on a board.

About other cboxes... The staff has tryed a lot of cboxes in the past, and this one just seemed to work the best... We had banned members posting slurs in the cbox and stuff... so the Admins switched to this one... *shrug*

Ok, I'm going to close this now. I think everyone has stated that this is the shoutbox we've settled on after much trial and error, so that's the way it shall remain. Thanks :)