Forum:Wiki Chat

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On literally all other wikis that have the Chat system enabled, it is used heavily, however I never see it being used on here. I've sometimes seen it being more effective then the forum when resolving arguments, and overall it creates bonds within the community. Why isn't it used very much? --User:Ghastly9090/sig 13:13, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

I've participated in chat sessions and used it occasionally.
For a lot of our significant discussions we need a record of it, usually because it has policy/page implications.
We've also got the Howling for discussions of the spoilery/forum style debate.
The real time nature of the chat is somewhat its disadvantage, given that many of the frequent editors here are in different time zones.
In what way would you like the chat system to be used?
When I've used the chat, I've found it somewhat distracting, that I can't really do any serious editing because I need keep one eye on the chat window whilst editing other pages. So I find the talk pages/forum pages more useful because I can post/answer and then go off an edit. I keep the Special:RecentChanges open and usually refresh that while I'm editing here and that lets me see if there's been any changes while I'm here. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:11, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

Well on some wiki that chat is used very informally, but I often find it a much easier way to communicate quickly and privately with others. In ways it could be used...well, for example, when Series 7 starts, there is liekly to be a lot of traffic. If someone has details that they are unable to add to the page, thay could find a MoS in chat and tell them.

PM (Private Message) is very useful. No one can see your conversation, and it is snappy and fast. You don't have to wait for someone to add their views to the forum; literally you get the message in a second. --User:Ghastly9090/sig 17:58, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but that's rather the point, Ghastly. Chat isn't really to be used to bypass the forums, as is spelled out at tardis:chat policy. It's purely a social thing.
I think a lot of the reason that it's gone quiet around here is that it had an extremely annoying flaw when it was rolled out. It would continuously log you out and back in, which make communication hard, and sometimes impossible. So a lot of people abandoned it. I think, too, that it would be massively more helpful if somehow it could alert you to a new chat message on whatever page of the wiki you were viewing. I find that I very quickly bury the window, and when I return to the chat window, I discover people have been trying to talk to me.
As things stand, you kind of have to make a choice between editing the wiki and talking in chat, and most of our frequent editors would rather be editing the wiki.
czechout<staff />   13:15: Tue 24 Jul 2012 

Yeah, thanks Czech. It's annoying about that glitch, I haven't encountered it anyhwere before. One thing you cna do is hack the chat and enable Ping, which makes your PC make a noise when your name is mentioned!User:Ghastly9090/sig 19:02, July 24, 2012 (UTC)

i agree that the chat feature is very, how should i put this, unuseful. i once tried it, forgot it was open while going through my regular computer-ish things an opened and closed my computer several times, which logged me in and out and annoyed the other people enough that i got banned. now, i'm not complaining about the ban, but a feature that is so easy to forget about (mostly due to the lack of a noise when new posts are added) and therefore so easy to get banned from really isn't a very useful feature. also the timezones thing. Imamadmad 08:10, July 25, 2012 (UTC)