Taming the Wild Blab (Chat Software Change Log)

[ColorlessGreen]

Spoiler for Quote pyramid stuff:

IRC was there one month after my birth, before I made a channel on ext3, and will still be there in 10 years. As will our channel on the network that I made. I've taken nothing, but I did create one thing and introduced many to a wonderful protocol.

It was an easy choice to switch back considering how many users we lost by moving to IRC. Forum traffic is very important and it should come as no surprise that most users aren't very tech-savvy or just don't want to deal with learning a new chat protocol.

When we switched from the old chat to the new I thought it was a bad thing. But several months later I've gotten used to the new chat and I can see the benefits of the new chat and personally I think benefits over shine the disadvantages.

Benefits with new caht compared to the old
1: YOu can ping
2: Pm's open in new tabs at the same page instead opening a new window
3: Easier to read( minor benefit )
4: You can see when people log on and of

Benfits with the old chat
1: You can change your color
2: The layout is looking much better
3: You can see how many posts the persons made in chat + if they got a title.
4: You can pm in chat log.
5: You can mute people
6: You can post pics.

Both benefit and disadvantage
You can change your name

I don't say we should switch back to the new chat, I just think it's worth having this in mind.

Additional benefit to blab: It's hosted by us and not reliant on the IRC protocol, so it can be updated to include more or less whatever we feel like, including everything you listed as a benefit of IRC over this.

If you're right, CG, then all the beneficial aspects of IRC should be programmed in to the blab chat.  Who is it that needs the forum-Inbox input for making this happen?


(That solution seems win-win to me...  Or maybe win-win-win?)  /TheOfficeisawesome

As we've moved back to Blab, features are still being fixed and added. Feel free to suggest stuff here.

That'd be this very thread, good sir.

edit: To the best of my knowledge, antiaverage is the one who is more or less actively doing updates.

[Higurashi]

The old Blab chat is back up! Our IRC channel will remain, but unmoderated as we can't afford to divide our main chat.

IRC was there one month after my birth, before I made a channel on ext3, and will still be there in 10 years. As will our channel on the network that I made. I've taken nothing, but I did create one thing and introduced many to a wonderful protocol.

So, the thing we were using is still there, but we don't care about it anymore and are officially ignoring it.  For all practical purposes, it no longer exists, because all official announcements will happen in the new place.  But we didn't take away anything.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I'm not ignoring it, but it would indeed hurt activity to divide what the forum would regard as our main chat. I'm not sure who "we" are, but practically speaking it certainly exists. "Exist" really isn't the word you'd wanna be using if you want to make some kind of argument here, but I'm further unsure as to what that argument is.

No, I didn't take away anything. I created something, and it's still there. I also coached dozens of users on the use of IRC in an effort to make it easier to use for people, AND for the joy of introducing a protocol that has been with me for many, many years.
If prioritizing forum traffic when this forum runs on ad money doesn't make sense to you... then I get the feeling it's not the reason that's not making sense.

[CuCN]

If prioritizing forum traffic when this forum runs on ad money doesn't make sense to you... then I get the feeling it's not the reason that's not making sense.

I'm not seeing any ads on the forum, and I don't have any ad blocking software installed. Should I be seeing ads?

[Pella]

Spoiler for Hidden:

The old Blab chat is back up! Our IRC channel will remain, but unmoderated as we can't afford to divide our main chat.

IRC was there one month after my birth, before I made a channel on ext3, and will still be there in 10 years. As will our channel on the network that I made. I've taken nothing, but I did create one thing and introduced many to a wonderful protocol.

So, the thing we were using is still there, but we don't care about it anymore and are officially ignoring it.  For all practical purposes, it no longer exists, because all official announcements will happen in the new place.  But we didn't take away anything.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I'm not ignoring it, but it would indeed hurt activity to divide what the forum would regard as our main chat. I'm not sure who "we" are, but practically speaking it certainly exists. "Exist" really isn't the word you'd wanna be using if you want to make some kind of argument here, but I'm further unsure as to what that argument is.

No, I didn't take away anything. I created something, and it's still there. I also coached dozens of users on the use of IRC in an effort to make it easier to use for people, AND for the joy of introducing a protocol that has been with me for many, many years.
If prioritizing forum traffic when this forum runs on ad money doesn't make sense to you... then I get the feeling it's not the reason that's not making sense.

I'm the one who's not making sense.  I have no idea what I'm talking about.  Ignore everything I wrote on the subject, and pretend it never happened.

[ColorlessGreen]

Last time we had a blab (iirc) people could log on as guests without needing to sign up for a forum account. I get that the forum is rad and we want people to sign up for forum accounts, but rather than having chat redirect to a forum login page when someone without an account tries to access it, could we please resume allowing guests? Most of the time when people hit that login screen (with no explanation of anything on it, btw) they're just gonna close out of it rather than going through a whole signup process. There is an in-game link to this chat - we shouldn't force people to sign up for the forums in order to ask a quick question or to get a look at the fact that there's a community for this game. If the community makes a good enough impression of the guests, they'll make an account and join the community then.

[TribalTrouble]

Last time we had a blab (iirc) people could log on as guests without needing to sign up for a forum account. I get that the forum is rad and we want people to sign up for forum accounts, but rather than having chat redirect to a forum login page when someone without an account tries to access it, could we please resume allowing guests? Most of the time when people hit that login screen (with no explanation of anything on it, btw) they're just gonna close out of it rather than going through a whole signup process. There is an in-game link to this chat - we shouldn't force people to sign up for the forums in order to ask a quick question or to get a look at the fact that there's a community for this game. If the community makes a good enough impression of the guests, they'll make an account and join the community then.

Agreed. Disallowing guests just goes against the very thing Higurashi just argued for, more trafficing to the forum. I see no reason to disallow guests if we have a good moderation system, and if we don't have a good enough moderation system for it then it is the moderation that requires improvement.

[BeefSupreme]

Last time we had a blab (iirc) people could log on as guests without needing to sign up for a forum account. I get that the forum is rad and we want people to sign up for forum accounts, but rather than having chat redirect to a forum login page when someone without an account tries to access it, could we please resume allowing guests? Most of the time when people hit that login screen (with no explanation of anything on it, btw) they're just gonna close out of it rather than going through a whole signup process. There is an in-game link to this chat - we shouldn't force people to sign up for the forums in order to ask a quick question or to get a look at the fact that there's a community for this game. If the community makes a good enough impression of the guests, they'll make an account and join the community then.

Agreed. Disallowing guests just goes against the very thing Higurashi just argued for, more trafficing to the forum. I see no reason to disallow guests if we have a good moderation system, and if we don't have a good enough moderation system for it then it is the moderation that requires improvement.

+1
And, in addition to this, it's my understanding that anyone with a prominent staff position on the forums is also a chat moderator, with the exception of a few groups of people. I say we allow guests, and if security isn't tight enough, we can easily get more moderators

[Higurashi]

Nope, only Chatmods are Chatmods.

Guest access was enabled long ago. No need to keep quoting the same suggestion.

[ColorlessGreen]

Toggleable settings for disabling image preview (or possibly just for disabling gif animation in thumbnails)?

Spoiler for Hidden:

nao plz kthxbai

Spoiler for Hidden:

<3

[ColorlessGreen]

Guest access was enabled long ago. No need to keep quoting the same suggestion.

Guest access is not currently enabled. Going to chat while not logged in redirects to a forum login/create-an-account page, still with no explanation.

[antiaverage]

Guest access is not currently enabled. Going to chat while not logged in redirects to a forum login/create-an-account page, still with no explanation.

The problem is that guests are still redirected to the forum login. When I change it to the Blab login, it allows guests to set their nick and impersonate other users. Not sure what to do about that, so haven't fixed that redirect.

[ddevans96]

Open chat from any source, while not logged in to forums, and it redirects you to the forum login page. Thus, regardless of whether guest access is allowed or not, guests cannot enter chat.

EDIT: aa is an edit ninja.