Chat Room Status
As you can see, the link to the chat room is off the front page but remains on the blog. The chat room has been an interesting experiment for us, a technological marvel that permits Misesians from around the world an opportunity to meet and talk. In its several weeks of existence, it has hosted some very interesting discussions and assisted people with references and ideas.
There are three main complaints about the idea of a Mises.org chat room:
1. Chatting is a waste of time. It would be easy to dismiss this complaint with the observation that what is and isn't waste is subjective. Another way to put this is that productivity is a dynamic concept that involves a wide range of activities. Mises.org offers many ways to engage Austro-libertarianism, from massive treatises to video and audio to decades of journals to forums to working papers to editorials to blogs and blog comments to chant. These all work together to create a full-service online community. There is no need to see a kind of conflict between these venues. The parallel in life is that you might be reading a treatise, stand up to flip through a magazine and then visit with a friend or colleague while sipping coffee. If while you were doing the latter someone blasted you for "wasting time," you would think the person was being rather silly. So it is with online chat: talking with like-minded people is a fine way to use low-opportunity cost time, i.e. time that that would otherwise not be used writing robust articles on theory or reading the literature. No, it doesn't result in obvious glories for the world. But it can be a helpful venue to casual engagement of issues, for those who like it. From my own perspective, I find the venue to be very compelling indeed!
2. It is disorganized, dominated by oddballs, riddled with trolls, and unmonitored. In these complaints there is more substance, but given that we opened this chat room as a free-for-all, there is reason to be impressed at the degree of order apparent in the results. The disorderliness of it is clear relative to static copy and yet order has been the dominant rule. Yes, there are oddballs in the chat room but there are oddballs in life too; not all people and things need referees. As for the trolls, we've done our best to exclude them based on IP banning--a disproportionate number of IPs having been traced to inside the Beltway. On the monitoring issue, we are getting there too.
3. The software is too limited. This is a complaint that is wholly valid. It is a wonderful room but the technology is still in Beta. The designers are going to roll out a new version in a matter of weeks that will have separate rooms, password protected user names, better banning ability, and more features overall. We are excited about this, and plan to make it live the minute it is released. (Please don't write suggesting other clients; we are pretty confident that this client will do nicely once it is developed further.) At this point, we will put the chat room back on the front page. We hope that at this point, we will be able to offer the chat room to groups around the world that need a meeting place, and to individuals who just want to discuss economics with others. Again, give us a few weeks on this and we'll be ready to go.
Comments (10)
Stephen W. Carson
In regards to the "waste of time" complaint, I would only add to Jeff's comments that different people have different styles of learning. Some people are going to be much more engaged by lively dialogue than by sitting down with a thick tome... In fact the best way to get them to sit down with a thick tome may be to engage them in lively dialogue until they realize they like the tidbits they are getting in conversation and want to go to the source.
Published: March 18, 2006 8:25 AM
todd
I think you might be better off running a real irc server and using one of the many java or php front ends on your website.
Theres a gazillion tools for policing irc channels out there that are very simple and easy to use, after all, irc is the original chat medium and still going strong.
Just my 2 cents, and maybe there already is a server, but I don't see a url anywere.
Published: March 18, 2006 8:49 AM
Manuel Lora
On the IRC idea, yes, I think offers better technology, but the idea here is to make it simple. IRC clients are often times not very intuitive.
The current chat system is transparent to the user. We'll see how much further they develop it to make it closer to what IRC feels like (rooms, nick registration, etc.). Once that functionality is added, it will be easy to keep an eye on trolls better, as well as offer rooms with specific topics.
Published: March 18, 2006 8:52 AM
todd
Well, thats why you also offer the web based client, it just ties into the chat room, or the main one, so people can use that.
Then also you can have all the functionality of irc, while maintaining the ease of use for n00bs, and perhaps introducing them to a whole new medium, if they want.
I def think IRC is the way to go. Why reinvent the the wheel, or rely on iffy looking software, when you have a whole system already developed and in place that does everything you need?
There are a few easy to set up irc servers. I doubt you need much more than name registering as far as services go.
Or you could join an already existing network, and just stake out a claim.
Published: March 18, 2006 10:24 AM
Jim Estill
Regardless of the challenges and shortfalls, I applaud the effort. As for waste of time, let people choose.
Published: March 18, 2006 12:46 PM
The Crawling Chaos
May I direct you to a law of social economics:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
That said... I say keep it anyway. And having it off the front page and on the blog is probably a good idea - 'layers of professionalism' - it's there if you're into it, but it's not the first impression (not having the blog not of the front page is probably a good idea too even though the blog is quite respectable).
Also, I'd prefer oddballs and trolls over heavy handed admins, but that's just my personal preference.
As for IRC, I find the currency interface actually quite nice, running the backend on a private irc server couldn't in any way make it worse, but I think using one of the public irc networks would be a _huge_ mistake.
Published: March 18, 2006 4:38 PM
Peter
Of course, the main advantage of IRC is that people aren't forced to use the mises-provided browser-based interface, but can use any client they like. The browser-based interface needn't change in the slightest, if you actually like that thing.
Published: March 18, 2006 6:37 PM
TJV
"...a disproportionate number of IPs having been traced to inside the Beltway."
No, really?
Who'd'a thunk it?!
Published: March 22, 2006 7:07 PM
chat withdrawal
I take it the chat room died.
Published: May 8, 2006 12:22 AM
jeffrey
The software designers did not come out with their upgrade in time, and so we are moving to a new software. The new one will be much better.
Published: May 8, 2006 5:38 AM