Hi, I was wondering if it's against the rules to arrange chat times. That is, "advertise" a day and time when those with more or less similar situations might join the chat. e.g. Day 1 / one time = trans younger set Day 2 / one time = trans adults Day 3 / one time = gay/bi younger set Day 4 / one time = lesbian/bi younger set Day 5 / one time = gay/bi adults Day 6 / one time = lesbian/bi adults I know there are more permutations but maybe ask people to find a group which most closely matches their age/gender/orientation. Not to exclude anybody at these times but just to give people a fixed time when they are more likely to find others of similar circumstance. Obviously it's difficult with the time zones but maybe find a time that is morning for some and evening for others one week and then shift it the next week to get another set of time zones. Switching every other week? Or, if people want to spontaneously announce a specific "get-together"? Just a thought.
I'm not speaking on behalf of the staff; we haven't discussed this thread yet. I think this is a nice idea, and definitely something that could, and honestly should, be explored in the future. However, it's a bit tricky because this suggestion revolves around the Chat room, which only Full Members have access to. It's tricky because we want there to be as little difference as possible between the support available to Full Members and Regular Members, and offering specific times that Full Members could receive support via the Chat room seems unfair to Regular members. Like I said - this is an idea that certainly could be explored in the future; perhaps there's a way to include everybody in a way that doesn't compromise our security concerns, however I don't know of one. Good suggestion. I'm curious as to what others think.
Thanks TJ, I wasn't thinking it would be a support situation specifically although I guess peer support could be an aspect. I just thought guys getting together to talk about guy stuff or the weather or movies and girls getting together to talk about girl stuff or motorcycles or children. Just anything really. You know, adults with adults, teenagers with teenagers... I guess you're right about the Full Membership status, though. I guess there's no way to broadcast the info just to Full members or open the fixed times up to all? Would it be against the rules, if amongst ourselves, we chose a time to login to the chat? Person A tells her friends B, C, & D, they tell their friends E, F & G...?
I'm also speaking only for myself, and not for the staff, but I can't see any reason why there would be any problem with arranging times with friends to all be in the chat room.
This is a very nice idea which, like TJ and Chip said, should be explored in the future. It could create good friendships and support groups which would help some more than others tremendously.
While I think it could possibly be a good idea for the support chat, I'm not sure I'd be so happy with it becoming the custom in the chatroom in general. Many if not most of the full members I interact with are adults and many are women, trans, genderqueer or otherwise not the same as me in sexuality, gender and the like. I feel it'd be rather limiting and would make me feel less comfortable if it were to be encouraged and made official that the adults speak to adults and the teens speak to teens. And, speaking as an Australian, I'd have pretty big qualms about there being a schedule. Assuming that it'd go along the line this site generally takes, that would mean that it'd be pretty convenient for Americans and perhaps with a thought for Western Europe (namely Britain), but the rest of the members might find it hard to find a decent opportunity were it to be organised along those times. That would be particularly bad if members who might have a more loose schedule around when they go into the chat felt compelled to go into the chat during certain times and leave even less flexibility for discussion for others. I think it'd be great to have friends organise times and for full members to have ad-hoc sessions for particular subjects or groups if they felt it necessary but, more broadly, I think it'd be pretty restrictive and wouldn't be the greatest thing to have. I'd also worry that it might further divert resources of the staff to full members and away from the regular membership of EC, as TJ mentioned. In some ways, I think it's a good idea. In others, I think it'd be either impractical, exclusive or would simply flop.
It seems impractical due to different timezones, the full membership imbalance, and a few other reasons that have already been brought up. I feel like it would just make chat more exclusive by limiting participation to specific types of members while currently it's a place where anyone is free to talk about anything. Not to mention theres also the support/advice room as well as the option to create your own room (people dont do this much) in order to discuss a specific topic. I think chat is an effective support/advice tool as it is and doing this wouldnt really change much.
If it were to happen, the idea would be to have the specific chats in separate rooms, not the main room. I've considered facilitating groups of some kind in chat, and the staff has discussed other such possibilities. I don't see that there would be any disruption to what is currently happening to have som slightly more organized activities. ...and Aussie is totally right about the time zone issue. At one point we had two admins from Australia and trying to schedule meetings among the admins was a nightmare. Somebody always had to show up at 3am.
It is a confusion of mine... Why do we have the need to separate who can login to chat when? Why not add more chat rooms, with specific natures? Couldn't it be more simple to just add more specific chat rooms inside the chat based on these things? Login, click who you are (Hello, I am a 20 something year old gay male, bring me to the right chat), and go from there?
I don't think it's a horrible idea, but I think as one poster had mentioned, maybe having several different rooms. That being said, I like the randomness of speaking with people from different backgrounds from across the world. I'm not here looking for someone to date, I'm here to make friends and I don't care if you're 18 or 50, male, female or trans. The other thing to consider is how busy chat is. If there are 8 people in chat, but now we break them up into 5 different chat rooms, how many people are really chatting?
One factor that hasn't been considered in the discussion is just how utterly useless and volatile the chat room software is. I suspect if there was a co-ordinated effort to get x number of people in at any one time, the janky piece of crap would have a technological meltdown and stop working. As you might have guessed, I don't like the Chat Room's current software.
Sometimes Martin just tells it like it is. The chatroom software is close to 10 years old and has never been upgraded. It also runs on Flash, which isn't supported on most phones (at least, not without extra effort), is inherently unstable, and basically just crap. Most of the current generation of quality chat software is either expensive, has monthly fees associated with it, or both. Until very recently, EC had no income and didn't accept donations. That's changing now, and when we switch over to the new software platform for the main forums and articles section, a completely new chat application will be part of that arrangement. At that point, we will have a lot more options.
