I think it would be help if there was a chat feature. Many forums have this and it allows more people to interact with each other, it's an alternative to posting on the forums. There would be new people who will become members just to use the chat feature. I have helpful advice on some of the topics here, but I don't want to write a huge post about it.
I like the idea but I'm not crazy about it. If we get a chatbox we probably won't post as much as we regularly do and spend most of our time there and not really on the forums. BUT, if it's used, say, to share a link to a hot deal topic you created, then that'd be great. There are so many new posts everyday that you can easily miss the really great ones. You got my vote
I agree with addicted buyer. Chatboxes are great. But ONLY for gigantic sites. When this places grows more, then it'll be ok to have. But right now, in the growing phase not so much. Because it'll be exactly as addicted said. People will post much less and opt for direct chatting.
This sounds more like a bulletin board or "pin board" feature which would work just the same. Hot topics can be "pinned" electronically to the board and when we sign in we can see the features of the day going on. Great idea addicted_buyer!
That sounds like a great idea but it would require a lot more work, and wouldn't work as good as something that doesn't work automatically. But you're right, anything that could make good deals noticeable would work!
A chat box in the bottom of the page like Facebook would work pretty well. I think a box at the top of the board index would be nice as well. Whichever is easier for the admin to add is fine because both of them would work just fine. A pin-board idea also would be nice as well.
Where I like the feature of a chat box, at the same time I would not want it to take away from the posts on the boards. Plus with posting information on the boards where every one is able to read it, keeps everyone alert to the deals. I really like the idea of the pin-board. I feel that feature may be more beneficial to this website. And I only say that because again I fear a chat box would decrease the amount of posts written by users.
Well, you can implement the chat box if you want at the index of your site. But go take a good look at almost every site that has done that in the past. Go take a look at how "busy" their forums are.
I agree that forum activity will decrease if a chat box will be introduced, so I would prefer not to have one for this forum until it becomes very active with a large number of users posting everyday. If there's a chat box, then people will just tend to post "hi's" and "hello's" in there instead of making new threads and replying to existing threads.
