[Oni]

I gave a shoutbox a try last night. If I can fix the visible bugs, we can use it.

I would vote against both an IRC and a shout box. They decrease the post count making the forum look dead, and stops other people joining. For example, instead of someone creating a thread asking a question, they ask in the IRC/Shoutbox, it gets answered and you miss out on a thread with good information and then someone else looking for the exact same thing won't find a thread and probably won't ask in the IRC and just leave the forums.

I'd say you're right, except I'm not sure about that. I've ran the forum 3 years and I've found that chats/shoutboxes only improve the community. The biggest issue, instead, lies with the security/efficiency of shoutboxes. Generally shoutbox plugins are wonky and I find myself wasting a lot of time just fixing issues. We've had a Skype chat for at least 2 years and it's normally about as active as the site.

The stuff discussed in the chat is normally too LQ for a thead anyways:

Spoiler:

[3:07:35 AM] Ayumi: I forgot about that
[3:07:37 AM] Ayumi: yeah
[3:20:20 AM] Ayumi: any reason they're not showing up here?
[3:20:21 AM] Ayumi: http://a.pomf.cat/btlntx.png
[5:13:01 AM] Ayumi: link me mouses
[12:14:52 PM] Master: Grand Final ESL CSGO - Frantic vs ENVY - http://live.esl-one.com/
[12:25:19 PM] Master: LIVE
[12:26:18 PM] Gray: AT WHAT AMOUNT OF FUCKS DO YOU HAVE GIVE TO POST THIS
[12:26:28 PM] Gray: AND WHY ARE WE TYPING LIKE THIS
[12:26:52 PM] Nice: BECAUSE WE CAN
[12:27:18 PM] Nice: THAT IS ALL THE REASON WE NEED
[2:47:09 PM] ๖ۣۜSaikou: niggers are not even human
[3:17:18 PM] ๖ۣۜSaikou: http://puu.sh/jLW2p/342a6a86b3.png