erolz wrote:All we need to do is agree what sever and room to use and just use IRC. The problem with chat rooms associated with fora is that if there is not enough people around most times so when you enter the chat room it's empty.
On reflection Erolz, I am having second thoughts about the viability of an 'always open' chat room - as you point out, most of the time you'll be on your lonesome. Also, might not a chat room prove counter-productive in terms of the debates we have on here? At least a message-board format allows time for reflection on the ongoing debates, rather than 'off the top of the head' dialogues that tend to take place in chat rooms.
Despite these reservations, I feel it would be useful to have open chat room debates for perhaps a scheduled period of 1-2 hours each week to discuss the issues of the day. If any of you have seen the BBC programme 'Question Time', it might be useful to have set areas of discussion - i.e. if there was a chat forum open next Monday for 2 hours, it would be useful to discuss the results and implications of the TRNC Presidential elections for instance. If there was also a way of recording the dialogue to be posted on this forum, it would mean that those unable to take part would at least be able to see what happened and perhaps it would generate a number of threads of further discussion as a result.
I also think that any chat room would require some sort of moderator to be available and prevent it turning into a free-for-all slagging match, or being hijacked by people just wanting to cause arguments rather than discussion. It depends if anyone has the time or inclination to perform this role.
Anyways, I put this up for discussion as an idea.