The Future of Chat: PM Feature?

[les]

thank you Indy
My lips are sealed on this subject
For the duration of this.
In all areas of Milovana.
the attached zip is password protected.


Password is
hurst


................................................. Les

[janmb]

A clear yes.


I don't see a single drawback with letting people chat 1:1 in the form of private messages as part of the chat. Why would anyone possibly have anything against that?

If two people wanna chat without others listening in, why on earth would it be my business to oppose that?

Whether or not milovana chat should have such features is just a discussion about convenience anyway, and not whether or not people should be able to at all - because if people want to chat privately there is about a trillion ways to do so off site. Which is in no way an argument toward there not being a need here on milovana.

Any chat (and forum) should offer one on one channels too - and from the nature of this site, the need here is probably greater than anywhere else.

[Philze]

full acc to janmb.
PM is necessary.

[txraider19]

I don't think there is anything wrong with it...if you can somehow enable a feature to let people decide whether they can accept pms or not....that would be best (but the way I read your post...sounds like you can't)

It's as easy as saying no pms please in the main chat if someone does....it doesn't single anyone out and it lets your feeling be known.

That's my take on it

[tennisbuff]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Why wouldn't we want a PM feature on chat? The vote was overwhelmingly in favor. Don't let one or two complaints ruin it for everybody.

And once you start screwing around with the the chat room stiuff, you can screw up the whole thing. I couldn't even get into the chat room tonight.It said access denied. Leave well enough alone.

[seraph0x]

Chat should be back now.

[les]

Okay, clearly the members want a PM option.

PM's are re-enabled, and are going to be a pop-up window. **ANY MEMBER WHO DOES NOT WISH TO RECEIVE PM MESSAGES IN CHAT CAN DISABLE THEM BY GOING TO OPTIONS, IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF THE CHAT WINDOW.** This is the best I can do folks, it's gonna have to work.

Regarding chat history. I will not enable a public history to be kept, however, I have enabled for a private message history to be kept. That way, if you're in a PM session with someone, and wish to store that log, you may do so.

PM's are encrypted by default.

I have re-enabled the "wiggling pencil" option in chat. I believe it makes the chat look more productive to members who just enter the room.

There is a two line "history" in the chat window enabled for users who just login. Again, I believe it makes the chat look busier.

That's it folks. If anybody has suggestions, please feel free to PM me with them. However, I feel it's important to mention this:

Milovana in general, and the chat software, is a privately owned website. There are no shareholders. That means that the site administrator is the final say in what happens on here. As Milovana Team, we have been asked to assist him in managing the daily functions of the site. Chat is my responsibility. To that end, the chat configuration is not open to debate, any more than Microsoft, or Google would be. Changes to the configuration to accomodate a minority request will not be honored. Now, if there's a flaw in the chat somewhere, or there is a legitimate, member supported request to change a feature, that will be taken into account.

Thanks, and Happy Chatting!

Indy

the zip password is



hurst




................................................. Les

[Elizabeth]

As irritating as it is sometimes when others insistently PM me, it's not something that cannot be managed easily enough and I do find it much more useful than whipsering when I want to have a serious chat. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks, for me at least, so I vote to keep it.

Elizabeth x.

[janmb]

Okay, clearly the members want a PM option.

PM's are re-enabled, and are going to be a pop-up window. **ANY MEMBER WHO DOES NOT WISH TO RECEIVE PM MESSAGES IN CHAT CAN DISABLE THEM BY GOING TO OPTIONS, IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF THE CHAT WINDOW.** This is the best I can do folks, it's gonna have to work.

What more could anyone ask for when it comes to PMs? This sounds very good to me.

Pity about the lack of public chat logs, but so be it. What was the rationale there anyway? Not challenging the decision, just have no idea what the background for resistance to chats being stored might be.

And in any case the lack of such is just a minor inconvenience. Those needing to store chat logs can do so with 3rd party software or even pen and paper if needed, so really no show stopper there.

[Nezhul]

And how long is the chat history? I meen when you are online, and chatting. Everything go up, but you can scroll through it, right?
I meen if it's long enough everyone interested may just copy/paste the conversation they want to save for the future reference.

If it's rather short now, maybe consider making it bigger? Like 1000+ lines or so. That should satisfy all. Server doesn't hold history, but your chat window does while you are online. You may copy what you want, yet noone'd have acess to history.

As for me, tho, privacy is a strange thing to worry in a chat. Noone would share private details in open chat, and then think "oh, someone might read it"... And even if they did, they still share it with users online. So they AGREE it to become public. Noone deletes posting on the forum to maintain privacy. I don't really see how chat is different.
That's just my opinion tho.

[Nezhul]

It's your decision. I'v just said what I thought was right. I believe it's up to Milovana team to decide the rules of the chat, forums and whatever.

There's a lot of complaining on that matter tho. On the other side I have a feeling that there are 1 or 2 people really complaining, and the rest doesn't give much attention to that. I believe majority would not care much if it's turned on or off.
But while I see people who would like history option, I don't see any who's against it (I can't clain I'v read whole topics tho). So as there's no objections, maybe you should consider adding a vote or something, if it's not some matter of site-importance decision? To decide this too. Just an advice tho, personally I don't give a damn about chat, it's just that the last week I keep reading only about this matter. Seems like all forum talks about chat and not much else.

[Nezhul]

I guess he has reasons then.
I was just sharing my opinion

[Incubo]

If it makes you feel any better Nez, I do know a few people that are opposed to keeping a chat history because of a few incidents in the past. I won't rehash all that drama, but there are reasons for their opinion. I can't say it's a majority of users because I certainly don't talk to everyone here, but then I doubt anyone does. If Seraph0x has decided a chat history is a bad idea, then I'd wager, he's heard from more people than I have on the subject. He's not prone to making decisions on a whim. Well, at least not decisions about features anyway.

[les]

the zipped file says

All I want is an intro comment.
No changes to the software.

................................................. Les

[janmb]

It's a matter of privacy. Yeah, its a public chat, but logs don't need to be kept. Admins, nor any other user needs to see what's happening in chat, beyond when there's a problem, and usually there's enough people around to get a decent idea of what happened, if there was a problem.

My argument was and is that such privacy is an illusion in any case, since anyone present in the chat at the time may very well store what is being said even if milovana does not provide such a feature...

Which is why it is all the more important to INFORM users that they should in fact not at any time consider the chat private beyond the trust they might have in the others currently present.


Which in turn means it would probably be better to have a logging feature available, for all to see, simply to increase awareness.

This is really not a discussion about what should be possible and not - because that is out of our control (and it's important to understand that!). It is a discussion about how one should relate to that fact.

I don't really care if there is an embedded feature or not for storing chats. All I'm working for here is to promote the awareness that storing chat is perfectly possible no matter what, and that users ought to be better informed about this fact.