live chat

[GSKTech]

Re: live chat

Most of the information & questions new users have,
have already been answered and are easily searchable.

Chat rooms have no archival properties.
Chat rooms would take moderators attention away from these forums
and therefore the forums would go downhill (speculation on my part)

There are already enough chat rooms around.


Therefore I vote No.


However, it would be nice to see video's of Meguiar's classes or evening events. (wink wink)
Not neccesarily live feeds, it could be recorded ...

my 2 cents

[Ross Conradi]

Re: live chat

Hi all, I just wanted to toss in a few things since I have extensive experience in chat situations on chat rooms, instant messaging groups, team speak/ventrilo and in online games.

Conversations in text only chat rooms can and should be logged at all times, the logs would be available for review, posting in the forum etc. Logging video or voice chat is problematic making video/voice chat, in my opinion, not worthwhile for MOL.

Live chat is definitely much more challenging to moderate, and it would require members of the community to step-up (even more than now) to aid in moderating and "policing" live chat or it could become a mire of ugly flaming and worse.

Chat rooms (especially video/voice chat) require substantial bandwidth on the server side. Before Meguiar's would be able to create live chat for MOL, quality hosting for the service(s) would have to be secured and budget found to pay for it.

So this isn't something we will "dive" into quickly, but will have to do a lot of research and planning to do should the decision ever come to introduce live chat to MOL.

It's great hearing from you all on this, it's a very intriguing topic.

**Your friendly neighborhood Webmaster -- Ross**

[mattaleca]

Re: live chat

I think chat rooms are a mistake. It just makes everything more confusing. "If it ain't broke why fix it!"

[Andy M.]

Re: live chat

I have to vote NO on the chatroom idea also.

Andy
101impala

[cv_soccer]

Re: live chat

Also not a big fan of 'simple' chat rooms but a live web cam of your Saturday ‘Detailing Class Schedule’ would be great!

[Brents Classic Custom Detail]

Re: live chat

About chatrooms...
Good idea to me, it's got my vote but mabye a screening process? Making sure members can "clean out" any "DIRTY PARTICLES"???

[gtomike7635]

Re: live chat

I think a chat room would be great. There comes times when you may need just a guick question and answer to something. Just keep it moderated with the same general rules that apply to the forum. Bad conduct and you are banned and that's it!

Mike

[Kevin Brown]

Re: live chat

Hate to mess up the best wax forum out there...
Sounds like too much work for the Moderators.

Is there a way to do a 'controlled' chatroom?

What I mean is-
Suppose one week Mike Phillips & Tim aka 2hotford do the equivalent of an online interview, with Joe of Superior Shine as the guest.

The duo asks question, Joe responds, and this goes on and on (as does a standard interview).

Afterwards, could you open the interview for a Q&A session for MOL members?
Could you pick and choose who you'd like to chime in?

Maybe it would be a chat-session one night per week, couple hours-worth.
Perhaps other responsible MOL guys could moderate?
To aid in sharing the workload for Tim & Mike...

[yalerd]

Re: live chat

Hate to mess up the best wax forum out there...
Sounds like too much work for the Moderators.

Is there a way to do a 'controlled' chatroom?

What I mean is-
Suppose one week Mike Phillips & Tim aka 2hotford do the equivalent of an online interview, with Joe of Superior Shine as the guest.

The duo asks question, Joe responds, and this goes on and on (as does a standard interview).

Afterwards, could you open the interview for a Q&A session for MOL members?
Could you pick and choose who you'd like to chime in?

Maybe it would be a chat-session one night per week, couple hours-worth.
Perhaps other responsible MOL guys could moderate?
To aid in sharing the workload for Tim & Mike...

Sounds like a good idea to me!

[TxRado]

Re: live chat

Video chats would be outstanding! I watched all the videos on youtube of the meguiars workshops and would love to interact with Mike and the rest of the group since I don't live in cali.

[christian6984]

Re: live chat

we have one over on detailing world, but have never used it (probably good if u need a question answered superfast)

[Ryan L.]

Re: live chat

Sorry to bring this back, but in my opinion it wouldn't be all that bad. Here's my thoughts on the subject. I know that Autopia has one, so I think one could be implemented easily onto MOL.

I think that if we had one as kind of a "emergency quesitons" forum, that would help people with immediate questions or even new comers. I think a lot of people would know how to use a chat box rather than post a new thread in the correct forum. So if maybe there was a new member on the forum wanting to find where to post something, somebody could chime in and point them in the right direction. How many times have you seen Mike, Mark, Andy and previously Tim, post on a introduction thread "moved to the proper forum." I think it would greatly reduce the need for that and possibly some other things such as posting pictures, speed settings, etc.

I know when I first started out, I always had that quick question about what speed to use so and so product on. If somebody would just want to know that answer real quick instead of trying to use the hit and miss search fuction on this forum, they could just type it in and somebody would respond.

About moderation, I know Ross said that the text in the chat box can be saved incase there ever was a issue, but I think as long as you are a registared member of the forum, there shouldn't be too many issues. If there are, just take the chat box down. You never know untill you try right?

Ryan

[Markus Kleis]

Re: live chat

The biggest downside i can see to a forum or chat room is that the discussions are temporary, and then lost. With the forum you get to save the information so people can find the information with searches later with some sort of valid sorting taking place.

I do think a form of "hosted discussion" or interviews, much like Barry Meguiar does on his Car Crazy show would be quite fun and interesting.

[Andy M.]

Re: live chat

Sorry to bring this back, but in my opinion it wouldn't be all that bad. Here's my thoughts on the subject. I know that Autopia has one, so I think one could be implemented easily onto MOL.

I think that if we had one as kind of a "emergency quesitons" forum, that would help people with immediate questions or even new comers. I think a lot of people would know how to use a chat box rather than post a new thread in the correct forum. So if maybe there was a new member on the forum wanting to find where to post something, somebody could chime in and point them in the right direction. How many times have you seen Mike, Mark, Andy and previously Tim, post on a introduction thread "moved to the proper forum." I think it would greatly reduce the need for that and possibly some other things such as posting pictures, speed settings, etc.

I know when I first started out, I always had that quick question about what speed to use so and so product on. If somebody would just want to know that answer real quick instead of trying to use the hit and miss search fuction on this forum, they could just type it in and somebody would respond.

About moderation, I know Ross said that the text in the chat box can be saved incase there ever was a issue, but I think as long as you are a registared member of the forum, there shouldn't be too many issues. If there are, just take the chat box down. You never know untill you try right?

Ryan

I like the idea of an emergency forum where newer members or someone who has a "wax emergency" could go and ask a quick question and get an answer right away. The problem still remains that someone, a mod, would have to be in the chat room at all times to make sure things didn't go awry.

Not that I am opposed to it, it would just be difficult to watch all the time with everything else that we do behind the scenes checking and reading posts, answering questions, etc.

Andy

[ClearlyCoated]

Re: live chat

The biggest downside i can see to a forum or chat room is that the discussions are temporary, and then lost. With the forum you get to save the information so people can find the information with searches later with some sort of valid sorting taking place.

I do think a form of "hosted discussion" or interviews, much like Barry Meguiar does on his Car Crazy show would be quite fun and interesting.

Good point and one that I hadn't considered when I voted. I have saved so many URL's of threads from MOL and e-mailed them to myself, I had to create a separate folder for them my hotmail account.