[Sticky] Chat Center

@anerosit, I would like to see the Chat room back but with certain guidelines as to appropriate use, no flaming, harassment, 'hookup' invitations or salacious discussions at least in a general chat room, perhaps a secondary chat room for provocative discussions could be set up. Periodic moderation would be a good idea with offenders admonished to tone their input down or face temporary banning, repeat offenders subject to permanent banning.

The Discord server can certainly handle the traffic of some of those who wish to engage in audio/video 'riding' parties whilst the Aneros Chat should be more oriented to providing education, information and coaching guidance.

Perhaps some of the veteran Aneros users would be willing to host occasional chat hours around particular topics if those topics were given advance notification. Maybe like once a month on a Saturday, 12 noon CST, that way people could plan on attending, this could be similar to Jack Johnston's KSMO chat discussions.

Good Vibes to You!

@rumel

Posted by: @rumel

Perhaps some of the veteran Aneros users would be willing to host occasional chat hours around particular topics if those topics were given advance notification. Maybe like once a month on a Saturday, 12 noon CST, that way people could plan on attending, this could be similar to Jack Johnston's KSMO chat discussions.

This is a great idea!

It would be very beneficial if these chat sessions could then be cleaned up and archived somewhere. Otherwise, it's "be there or be square" and those unable to attend will miss out on good info. 

Posted by: @rumel

Perhaps some of the veteran Aneros users would be willing to host occasional chat hours around particular topics if those topics were given advance notification.

Yes!  But the timezone differences for this international crowd might not be so easy to coordinate lives around.  If it could be done, that would be nice!  One can dream of maybe several recurring events, to account for most of the continents?  Wonderful thought there, to have both an Aneros Chat plus the Discord.

When I had visited Aneros Chat, I recall a long-timer(s) saying how there used to be several (dozens?) on simultaneously.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Any platform, it is hard to keep going if new visitors encounter crickets when they incidentally log in for the first time.  It becomes a downward spiral for them and more established visitors alike.  The converse would also apply for a platform to thrive.  "Together we stand, divided we fall."

It may have a damping effect on even longtime users if their Chat service is abruptly dropped- I hope notice was posted before the recent site update.  It would encourage (or at least not discourage) them from signing on a new system were they given notice.  And your longterm users are going to form a sort of bedrock for the chat platform.  I heard an anecdotal observation from a longtime user on Aneros Chat, that in the past when Chat platforms had changed, a chunk of users did not seem to find their way back.  That leads back to the "together we stand, divided we fall" principle of any chat service's rise or fall.

There was no option for Aneros Chat and Discord, so I picked the one I felt a little more strongly about.  Could there also be generational gravitation towards one platform or the other, with Discord favored by younger?  Maybe that points to having both platforms as well, for the widest word-spreading.

As I observed here, in Aneros reddit back up! , being able to count on a platform is also important.  Is Discord here to stay, or if not Discord overall, can it be predicted that an Aneros server would not find itself shutting down for one reason or another?

I think it can be hard to find info. on Discord, owing to the inherently conversational nature of the platform.  What you see before you, upon logging into Discord, can almost seem like the universe of what has been discussed.  While the Aneros Forum isn't "perfect" (whatever that is), it is reasonable to be able to locate information so it's not lost to time.  That almost leans us toward Aneros Chat over Discord.  I wouldn't want people to wrongly conclude Discord's the main repository for discoverable info.  Aneros chat would provide the immediacy of interaction, whereas the Aneros Forum and Blogs are for persistence and discovery of valuable threads.  It is not to say Discord wouldn't be useful: the right tool for the right job.

I may be rambling a bit today and I'm playing fast & loose with my self-editing.  I'm excited by some of these thoughts, and hope some make sense.

Posted by: @zentai

It would be very beneficial if these chat sessions could then be cleaned up and archived somewhere. Otherwise, it's "be there or be square" and those unable to attend will miss out on good info. 

When the first Chat application was initiated more than 15 years ago there was notification of special chat events and those were/are preserved in The Archives sub-forum (please see Aneros Chat Event #1 - Transcript, Aneros Chat Event #2 Transcript & Aneros Chat Event #3 Transcript for a few of them). I don't think there is any reason why that precedent could not be reinstated with a new Chat program.

@helical, Yes, time zone differences are problematical but the time I suggested would be make-able for most people in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which is where most of the membership reside.

Good Vibes to You!

@helical 

I find that both Reddit and Discord just move too quickly, maybe because the incentive to scroll back a bit to see if your question has already been answered is not really there. Plus, when conversations split, good luck keeping up to date. A Forum format is much better as a repository of knowledge and for getting to know people, in my opinion. It also allows everyone to answer when it's more convenient to them. Plus, other formats are not very good for longer pieces or "articles". That's why I stick to this place.   

Maybe we can get around the time zone thing by having people send questions in advance, depending on how these chat sessions are planned and what form they take? I don't see exactly how such sessions would work, but being "live", a lot of ground can be covered in a short while vs. what can be done in a forum thread, which makes the idea quite interesting.  

@zentai, I agree heartily about your observations on formats, in your post immediately above's first paragraph.

@rumel, in my initial post, I had overlooked that your suggested time is an good compromise across several countries in the readership.  Thanks for explaining.  By the way, I would be willing to host a scheduled chat hour, as an experienced user.

Posted by: @anerosit

We have a new version of it ready to go, and it's hooked into your Community (forum/blogs) login.

Excellent!

Posted by: @helical

By the way, I would be willing to host a scheduled chat hour, as an experienced user.

Excellent! That's great, I would as well, I'm hoping maybe @zentai, @helghast, @gnawdol & others might wish to step up and be hosts as well.

Good Vibes to You!

Just out of curiousity and ignorance, does either heading imply a different objective? 

Whats the purpose of the chat? Hosting would be difficult,it’s usually night where you are and day where I am. 

Posted by: @helghast

Whats the purpose of the chat?

IMHO, Chat should be more oriented to providing education, information and coaching guidance, although most any incidental conversations could take place as well. As I see it Chat just enables more immediate response than can be had through forum postings.

Posted by: @helghast

Hosting would be difficult,it’s usually night where you are and day where I am.

I don't know where you live but I think with a CST zone of (GMT-5) and set that at 12 noon then the range of acceptable times would be Germany (GMT+2) 7pm to Hawaii (GMT-10) 7am which I think is a tolerable range for most of our users.

Good Vibes to You!

Posted by: @rumel

Excellent! That's great, I would as well, I'm hoping maybe @zentai, @helghast, @gnawdol & others might wish to step up and be hosts as well.

I might give it a whirl, depending on format. I'm curious to see how this will shape up. 

Posted by: @gnawdol

@rumel I would love to host a thread or moderate.

That's great to hear, I know that you are a good communicator and I'm sure you hosting a Chat Session would draw many interested members. I can think of a few other members whom I'd like to see if they would be interested like @darwin, @BigGlansDC, @Unfug, @SOwithoutAneros, @The_Bishop, @divine_oblivion, @clenchy & @techpump to name a few.

Good Vibes to You!

A follow up question then to everyone is whether the Chat Center should be used only for dedicated events?  Or open all the time?  Or both?

Posted by: @anerosit

Or open all the time? 

I was the first to vote on this survey and I'm the guilty one (and the only one) who voted to not proceed with re-initiating the chat center; I should've explained why.

My reasoning was that when the chat center was in use, I felt it was under-utilized just like the blog section.  From my career days, I know how much resources has to be commited on behalf of the host to manage a chats room and, to me, unless this service is to be used to its fullest, it's not worth pulling resources away from the main section of the site.  We seem to have a more refined and stable community platform and I would hate to see it compromised.

In reading the other's responses, I can see that maybe, I shouldn't worry about that.

Yes, it should be open all the time mostly due to the numerous time zones involved in such a popular world-wide site.  Just my opinion.

Posted by: @anerosit

... whether the Chat Center should be used only for dedicated events?  Or open all the time?  Or both?

Personally, I'd like to see both, themed, hosted events would be nice but they are likely (by necessity) to be sporadic depending on the volunteer hosts willingness to offer and schedule their time. In between events 'radio silence'??? but on the other hand when several members are online some interesting conversations can be had. Perhaps an alerting mechanism of some kind could be established where a member could request others to meet and chat at certain times, but not necessarily about a specific topic.

Good Vibes to You!

@ggringo we hope to get the blogs back on track with potentially a complete redesign - let's see where it goes.  Any features you would like to see?

@anerosit thank you for chiming in, I appreciate your response and the invitation for suggestions re your blog section development.

For starters, it would be nice to have the blog section accessible while being logged-in the forum without having to fill out another screen of user name and password.

In addition to the traditional blog entries, it would also be nice to have a 'private button' option where a blog entry would not be visible to others.  This feature could be used to maintain a sort of diary containing details of self development or progress in our journey.

I'll continue to think about other suggestions. 

Based on the feedback in the comments it looks like there is an appetite to bring back the chat center in some form.  With the help of the community we can refine what the structure/setup will be.  We will work on the final prep can should be able to introduce it soon.

Posted by: @anerosit

Any features you would like to see?

Make the Blog easier to peruse. Yet the problem with my second paragraph is there is no mechanism in it to see which blogs have a recent entry.  It would almost "penalize" historic blogs from being viewed, even if updated more recently, because they'd appear at the tail end of this list.

@gnawdol absolutely, we will be looking to you all for input and support

Hi Everyone,

The chat center is accessible at https://community.aneros.com/chat - you just need to be logged in to access it.  Please let us know what you think before we add to our menus.  The plan for now is to just have it up and see how it goes through self management.

Aneros Support

@anerosit at first glance, it looks great! I like the 'Event' feature.  I might turn into a Chat kind-of-a-guy.

Good job.

Wow guys, I've been away for a few months and it seems that there's been a whole lot going on in that time!  I will endeavor to hang out here when I'm around.

Hello I’m new with this I hope it’s as good as you all talk about it.  I’m not new to ass insertion but this toy looks fun.  I’ll give an update 

@anerosit based on my experience on other sites it would be helpful to have a private chat capability to facilitate one on one conversations on occasion

Posted by: @newtoy

↑

this toy looks fun.

Don‘t name these tools a toy, everything else are only toys. 😉

@orgasmic totally agree! IN internal to Aneros would be great! No one is ever on community chat!  Very frustrating!

Yes, would like to see chat center with certain restrictions in place.