Do the members what to chat?

[joecnc2006]

Any new data on this?

i think an irc chat is the way to go.

[CNCadmin]

The chat we have now is what I have to offer. I have been improving the chat and will continue.

[joecnc2006]

yea there is nothing wrong with the chat you have, if we can get people in there. also i have heard it does not work well with firefox and a few other browsers, but maybe its better now since you have worked on it.

I'm on other sites unrelated to CNC, But being able to go into chat and get a quick awnser to a questions is valuable... Like being in the middle of doing things and have to stop and search for solution in forum, or post and just wait a day or days for an anwser.

Joe

[CNCadmin]

I hear ya, I'm working on a solution.

[murphy625]

The problem with chat rooms is that when there is no one there, no one logs on. And when its full, or busy, to many different conversations are being run and it gets to confusing.
What I like about this forum the way it is:
Questions are usually answered within 30 minutes.
You can ask a question, review your post to see if you asked the right question, and you can make changes if you find that you called the resolver and encoder or if you called the potato a tomato. (you get the idea).

The whole idea behind the chat room, as I see it, is to instantly be able to tap into the knowledge the users of this forum have.

So lets take a better look at it..
From my humble take, there are a dozen or so users (maybe 2 dozen) who provide 90% of the knowledge available in this forum. There maybe others who have the knowledge, but they don't readily disclose it as reliably or as quickly (30 minutes) as the dozen or so "stars". (Yes, you guys know who you are)
Personally, I would rather ask a question, and let the smart guys think about the answer and take their time answering back to me at their own pace as opposed to forcing them to answer a question immediately because I can pop open an alert to them or something.
I don't want to turn them off because they feel trapped in some chat room.

Also, I find myself reading over the "answers" many times... I find myself reading other peoples questions and the answers they get.

I would not want to loose that to a chat room that has no "record" of the knowledge.

But then I'm just a chip sweeper... LOL

Murphy

[skippy]

murphy625's answer says exactly how I feel.

Skippy

[ynneb]

Murphy, I see your points and agree 100%.
HOWEVER, over time you will come across a situation where you need to have a real time conversation with an individual. In these cases you can suggest for that person to go to the chat room. I use Messneger for conversations all the time, unfortunately not every one has the same type of instant messaging program. This is where the chat room gives a common sharing resource.
Its not as an alternative to thread chat, but an additional tool for occasional use.
I would hate to lose it, Not that I use it often.

[Aksess]

Feel free to use my irc channel I have allready set up for users. I own the server so security is not an issue. you can join either 2 ways. go to http://www.uicn.net
then at the top right click chat when connected type this /join #cnczone with / and pound sign I am the only one set to moderate the channel but if One of the moderaters here would like to have it I will gladly turn the channel over to them to use at their discression. 2'nd way is to have an irc client like scoop script etc then join earthquake.uicn.net
I am having shoulder surgery this afternoon so I probibly wont be on there this evening. But I am usually there every evening around 7pm est Feel free to join me there if you like.

[ESjaavik]

@Murphy625:
You may be a chip sweeper, but you certainly made a good point!

Those who have the answers do not sit there waiting for questions to pop up on the screen! And introducing yet another feature that may even be intrusive will naot attract them.

My suggestion is to remove some features so it is possible to dive in, check the topics, pick topics that seems interesting or well founded questions, and then be done.

I think CncZone is getting into feature overload already. If chat is mandatory, I'll say goodbye!

[CNCadmin]

Originally Posted by ESjaavik @Murphy625: You may be a chip sweeper, but you certainly made a good point! Those who have the answers do not sit there waiting for questions to pop up on the screen! And introducing yet another feature that may even be intrusive will naot attract them. My suggestion is to remove some features so it is possible to dive in, check the topics, pick topics that seems interesting or well founded questions, and then be done. I think CncZone is getting into feature overload already. If chat is mandatory, I'll say goodbye!

What features would you want to see removed?

[ESjaavik]

1. Those that increase load times. (Most important)
2. Those that use screen space. (Less important)

It seems to me that elements that could be static are made dynamic, and thus not cached locally. I'm not a webpage expert, but do some net stats here from time to
time. And the zone peaks them. I am not worried about bothering the electrons in
my net cables, it just tells me why speed suffers. With the variety of users here I would think someone could analyze it and suggest where to put the grinder to "tune the engine".

Example: This front page loads in 2 seconds here: http://5128.rapidforum.com/
Hitting "Letzte Themen" (New topics) loads 50 topics in less than 1 second!!
Picking a topic, it is immediately there. Less than 1 second.

Frontpage here loads in 25sec. from first item + 5 sec. before that.
Last topics is 30seconds. (Usually somewhat faster, but I think there's a server problem today.)
Picking a topic, it loads in 5-15 seconds.

Not a lot of time some may say? But when competing for time it is. And when looking
for qualified advice, you want to attract people that most of the time are quite busy.

And why do I whine? Because the point when I wanted answers to simple questions are a thing of the past. I've seen *very* qualified people dropping in here and giving highly qualified advice for a week or two, then they're gone. I should also mention that there are some few that are still here, not mentioning names, you know who they are.

Peter's CNC Ecke have many professionals that use a few minutes each day to contribute to the forum. As it takes less than a minute to do so, I suspect they do it during coffe breaks. Pop in..answer a question..pop out.

I don't write this to pick on you. You've done a great work, and asking before introducing a new feature shows you care for the user. What disappoints me is that only 27 users bothered to vote so far, and even fewer bothered to write.

[CNCadmin]

I hear what you saying but I disagree, with the this site being slow. I belong to many on-line forums and comparing other in terms of speed this one is the fastest. I'm on this site ALL day and never tell myself man this is slow. I have a friend who as a site with many servers, load balancers and over 180,000 members. With all that I can stand how slow his site loads be despite all that he still get 1,000s of posts a day and well over 200 new members a day. CNCzone has been breaking records with daily posts, sign-ups. The site you mentioned, loads fast but how many people are on it at one time more than 100? I have not added any new features, unless you count the review section and the classifieds. So I understand your point, and speed is on the top of the list that's why I bought a dedicated server.