Shoutbox

[Sam1]

What do you think of them on a forum? Yes or No and Why?

 

[YanOri]

No, there's no point in the forum if all the members start discussing there. Its a forum killer.
I've seen forums that have disabled their shoutbox permanently fearing their forum would fail.

Its only nice when the members act responsible and only use shoutbox for chatting, but it won't happen all the time and we can't expect everyone to obey it.

 

[Creaky]

No, they tend to take topics away from the actual forum in my experience.

 

[Sam1]

Mmm that's the other thing- the shout box can become quite unruly and unmoderated...

And I agree Creaky- they do tend to not help topic conversations on the actual forum..

 

[xpl0iter]

shoutbox can be appealing to a gaming community where people can talk about various stuffs. And people will be online most of the time. But on a webmaster community shoutbox could be a forum killer as you guys said. People come to forums based on webmaster/admin niche once or twice in a day and if they get what they want through shoutbox they will never create a topic or a reply.

 

[shadowslight]

What do you think of them on a forum? Yes or No and Why?

I thought it was a good idea. As such, i gave it a try and I integrated it onto my forum. Its visible to members only. But it don't get abused. in fact i've been considering taking it down because its not really that active so its one less thing on my index page

 

[hissae2]

I have a shoutbox on my board. It doesn't take away from activity at all. Members use it for general chatting and spam posts that may not be allowed in regular threads. I see no reason to remove it.

 

[YanOri]

I have a shoutbox on my board. It doesn't take away from activity at all. Members use it for general chatting and spam posts that may not be allowed in regular threads. I see no reason to remove it.

That's great to hear, how long have your forum been active mate?

 

[razelia]

Going to say no for this one, too. Like the others said, it takes away posters from the threads and makes people discuss everything in the shoutbox. It can also be home to some spam posts, should they ever breach the security.

 

[Shortie]

My answer up until a few days ago would have been a yes but depending on what kind of forum. I recently had one on mine that was being used quite frequently but we was finding that it was slowing the forum down alot so decided to get rid of it. I also feel that sometimes having a shoutbox on a forum can aid in you losing posts, for every shout that is posted in a shoutbox that could have been a post on the forum.

 

[Southern Comfort]

I choose not to use them as it takes away from the whole foruming experience. Gaming forums sure it is nice, but for something like a general chat board it takes away almost all discussion if not moderated carefully. People will just come there for the cool looking shoutbox and then ignore the rest of the forums.