No interest in chats?

George Ricker · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject: No interest in chats?

We have had four organized chats since the end of December. Two were held in Thursday evenings and two at noon on Sundays.

The first chat, on Dec. 27th at 8 p.m., attracted from eight to ten people. The second, at noon on Jan. 13th, drew five participants. Our weeknight chat at 9 p.m. on Jan. 24th had three people involved, as did the most recent chat at noon on Feb. 10th.

This suggests to me that there is little or no interest on the part of most of the people who participate in BookTalk in holding regular chat sessions. I have tried to elicit suggestions about a better time for the chats, and to be honest, these efforts have been met with almost total indifference.

It's too bad. I thought a conscious effort to follow up and hold the chats on a regular basis would result in an increase in interest. Instead, the result has been quite the opposite.

I realize two months may be too short a time for this experiment, but I really have no interest in pleading with people to join in an activity for which they seemingly have no enthusiasm.

So I will no longer be attempting to organize the chats. If someone else wants to pick up the baton, feel free. If chats are held, I'll try to be on hand for them. I've always found them worthwhile. Apparently, I am in a very, very tiny minority.

George Cool

Frank 013 · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:22 pm Post subject:

I used to get involved in the chats, but now I work nights. When you guys are chatting I am getting ready for work.

That’s life I guess.

Later

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:31 am Post subject:

Also, I have not been able to help advertise them lately. I'm hoping this will change soon. One solution might be to simply schedule a regular monthly chat on the 3rd Thursday of each month at 9:00 pm EST. By having the chat scheduled automatically people can mark their calendars long in advance. And I will try to do an email to the entire community on the day of our chats as a reminder too.

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject:

Frank wrote:

Saffron · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 7:16 pm Post subject:

Chris,
I am very new at chat rooms and posting on forums, so I'm not really sure if what I am going to ask is even possible. I was wondering if there was anyway to invite people to the chat room in real time. Often I will notice that someone I like reading in online at the same time that I am, but right now there is no way to get that person's attention to say, "come in the chat room." Is that feature possible?

Saffron

Biomachine · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:22 pm Post subject:

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:08 pm Post subject:

I agree that there really needs to be some sort of blinking announcement that makes it abundantly clear when people are in the chat room. But as of right now we don't have that feature and I'm not sure how to implement it.

Yes, this forum uses "pop-ups" so it is definitely possible to send people PM's (private messages) and force a pop-up to appear on thier screen. Please give this method a shot and see if it helps. The only problem with this technique is that it is a bit intrusive. A member might be logged into BookTalk wanting to make some posts to a particular forum of interest. They may not want to chat with anyone in real time. When they get the pop-up they are put on the spot and are forced to pretend they didn't get the pop-up or flat out say, "Sorry, not interested in a live chat right now."

The ideal solution would be to find a means of really making it obvious when someone is in the chat room. I will think about this for a bit. The problem is that I'm not a programmer and I can only use features already created by programmers for this phpBB2 forum.

Biomachine · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:19 pm Post subject:

It would be obvious if someone was in the chatroom right now.

1 user in 1 room.

* BookTalk Chatroom (1)
o Biomachine

It's a matter of getting people to pay more attention to the 5th box on the left-side of the screen.

Ophelia · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:51 am Post subject:

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:04 am Post subject:

A few posts up I answered that point.


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