Is there a chat facility in AWN...?

I'd love to see one ,though :rolleyes:

no, but god knows there should be

There are tons of chat sites online, and even places to create free ones or just individual rooms. I'm not sure it has a place here. With the server load it takes, you have to wonder if it's worth it. Do you honestly believe a chat room at this site would be filled with productive conversation? I think it would take down the image at AWN and make it less professional.

Nonetheless it might be a good time to make this a poll thread and get the global consensus. Might have some sway in getting it done.

On the old board Larry used hold chats from time to time, I made a couple of them they were fun. And they weren't all just fluff, there was a lot of information exchanged.

I believe it could be useful if we were to discuss a certain topic at a scheduled time, perhaps. Sort of brainstorm and exchange info.

Eva

Back when AWN was smaller you may have had the luxury of more useful, intimate conversations. My only holdup would be how many people going "mrmrmrmrmrmmerhoehroi...im bord" or just being a regular 24/7 chat without any animation in it that just happens to be hosted under the AWN banner, etc.

If it were structured, like the last two posts here suggest, basically forcing it to be restrained and topical, I would most certainly attend.

Incidentally, phacker, what was the reason behind getting rid of them in the first place?

The chat feature was built into the old board. And actually I don't think the topic has come up since the board was hacked. There is forum for problems and suggestions, someone should bring this up there.

And actually the board wasn't that small back then. There were a lot of us, but with Larry's oversight things always kind of went on track and no one really got into the "chat" funnies type of thing. It did become light hearted from time to time, like things do when you are chatting with friends, but mostly we talked animation and animation school type stuff.

i think it would be quite productive if a chat room was installed especially if it was divided quite rightly into something like creative, technical, business, 3d.
although im not sure what resources it takes to employ something like that so i might just be talking out of my hat or my a**

If I get around to it this weekend I'll put one up we can use until this gets brought to a vote or decision.

In the meantime, Skwigly UK (the online magazine that often posts here) is supposed to have an animation-centric chat.

I quiet agree wit skinnylizard, windchimes and echogoesblue, im sure phacker agrees to, we should definitely have one. Eva has a very welcoming idea. faster communication , everything really helps. and ScatteredLogical idea is also pretty good, a chat room with a particular topic like the main ones here at the fourm will surely help people who are specific about something .

call in a vote , this is good !

Someone should contact Dan, he's the one that can make things happen. But they tried an open chat thing over at Flashkit it didn't work that well, most of the time there was only one or two people there. I think scheduling chats is more reasonable.

Temporary Chatroom

I don't have a chatroom at Student of Animation, but I set up an old-school temporary one hosted on that server to appease the other thread readers until we get word from Dan. Of course, there's only a handful of people reading or posting here, so it will likely be empty when you go into it, but that's where scheduling comes in. Feel free to make public or private arrangements as needed. You can create other channels at will; I am very fortunately free from bandwidth restrictions. It interests me that this far into the age of the Internet anyone still uses chatrooms. Perhaps I'll considering writing one myself, maybe in Flash, when site launch time comes around. It's certainly working well for AnimationMentor.

hey heres an idea, why not everybody get on irc?
Irc.freenode.net
join #AWNforums
freenode is like the default chat server on most clients anyway, so just grab a free irc client, type in irc.freenode.net/6667 for your server then type /join #AWNforums to join the channel, boom, you got chat, im gonna keep this channel open, hopefully we can eventually get some members to sleep in this room so anyone who comes across it will recognise it as being an active chat room (sleep means to stay logged for those who have their irc clients constantly open)

Anyway, give it a go, ill stay on it whenever im on the irc.
Also, i think freenode has its own web based client too which you can try using also.
eventually maybe we can even get it implemented into a page on the site, a web based irc, that way theres no way spam or damage the site through the irc chat, since its not hosted on the site like some flash or ajax chats.