Ongoing Skype Chat!

[Ilias Nytrau]

Okay, so this thought occurred to me sometime in the past week, but I haven't gotten on it until now.

I know we've used AIM since time immemorial, and I don't want to abandon that, but more recent members and some older ones are Skype users these days; it would be good to have a presence there, so I was thinking I'd start up a group chat for us on that platform to integrate members into the social community surrounding this site from where they're at.

This cool? Gimme your thoughts. :)

[Zereth Lancer]

I've done a permanent skype chatroom for previous boards I've written on. It's the hip young thing to do :-P I'm all for it. I've suggested it in the past but we've never really had a reason to divert from the AIM room since it serves essentially the same purpose with the only real difference being the programs used. I don't think there is a real advantage to either, but I definitely prefer Skype. Ultimately I don't think it super matters. It's more about remembering to include people and get them into the chatroom so they can participate.

[Captain Untouchable]

Definitely in favour of being more inclusive and accessible... but having two chats on the go at once might be a headache. On the plus side, I will be able to use the same lame-ass jokes twice as often with only a limited number of people noticing :mischief... on the downside, people are still going to be missing out on stuff if they aren't actively part of both.

Are there any functional differences between AIM and Skype? If there's little or no difference, picking one or the other and keeping our shenanigans in the same place might be the optimum inclusiveness option.

[Zereth Lancer]

That would definitely be the necessity, Jace. We would need one and one only, that way we don't have one person over here in this chat and one over there in that chat. I guess that doesn't stop some unofficial chat being run on whichever platform is different if there are people who decide they just straight up don't want to use AIM/Skype.

I doubt there's much difference between the two. For me, I like using Skype because I already use it for voice calls when playing games with my friends (Although we did recently start using a program called Discord in some cases. It has permanent voice chatrooms). For the most part it's most likely just personal preference.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Have one or both, or neither, whatever people like! We don't currently link to the AIM chat here so I don't consider it an official chat forum - the forum itself is the chat IMO.

Anyway, whatever off-site chat we have, it will me mostly active when I'm asleep, so doesn't bother me much where the chatting happens!

[Captain Untouchable]

Aye, that's exactly what I was getting at. Kaman mentioned not wanting to abandon AIM, is all - hence asking for clarification. :)

I find Skype pretty convenient as far as skimming over what happened while I was away (it stores the chat automatically, you don't need to leave yourself logged in 24/7 the way you do with AIM), and it's something I already have open all the time, so one less program would be nice. Is there a way to mute specific text conversations in Skype so they don't explode your phone with notifications, though? If my pocket is going to be buzzing every few minutes, or I'm going to wake up to 5,723 notifications every morning... that might not be so convenient. :uhoh

[Miranda Tarkin]

Whatever works for the community is all good. Just peeps like me, unfortunately, won't be able to get there :p

[Charley]

I'm okay with changing venues to Skype if that's whats cool with the young hip generation. I would keep aim around just in case, but I'd much rather it be easy for people to chat who want to.

[Dasquian Belargic]

For info, you can turn off notifications for a conversation on Skype.

[Captain Untouchable]

Can you turn them off for a specific conversation, or is it a matter of just turning off text notifications for Skype entirely?

Old person mode: I have been trying to work out how to mute a Skype convo for over a week, and I haven't found how to do it yet. ^_^;

[Dasquian Belargic]

You can mute individual conversations. At lest you can on the iOS app, not sure about others!

On the iOS app, you open the convo and tap the name of the person you're chatting with, at the top of the window. That should open a menu for the chat. I assume it works the same if you're chatting with multiple people?

[Razielle Alastor]

I prefer the Skype, to be honest. :) But I'm available on either.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I think setting up a Skype chat is fine and someone should do that, yes. People who use Skype can use that chat. People who use AIM can use AIM ...people who don't use instant messengers can use forums PM or start a thread. The only official chat room is the one actually on the forum.

Would the skype chat be a video chat? I've only used Skype for video chat.

[Zereth Lancer]

No, it'd be a text chat. It'd be, more or less, exactly like the AIM chat.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Kids these days and using video chat programs to text message. :shakefist

[Captain Untouchable]

The AIM chat may not have an official rubber stamp, but it's used by most of the admins and a lot of the players on a daily basis, and it is - to some extent - taking the place of certain forums, especially as far as current affairs / thread feedback / back-patting type chit-chat goes. It's definitely an important part of the community these days whether it's official or not... and if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, isn't saying it's not a duck kinda splitting hairs at this point?

I don't see the harm in acknowledging that it exists. If anything, it's probably a good thing if we do: it ensures that people know we have a lively active community, even if that community doesn't necessarily have much of an on-forum OOC presence.

[Morgan Evanar]

I really think we should drop AIM at this point, it's kind of an awful service. There have to be better solutions for this.

[Dasquian Belargic]

We've got a chat-box here on the boards. From a community spirit perspective, I'd love if we could make more use of that - and the OOC forums as a whole - because that is what is going to make the community appear lively to newcomers, if that's what we're trying to do.

[Anauri Rabeak]

If Skype wasn't such a massive memory-hog, and prone to crashing, I'd be all for Skype. But when I can run AIM stably on any of my devices with hardly any form of impact to performance, I'm very much in the AIM camp.

[Captain Untouchable]

Sure, we have the chat box, but Skype/AIM is something very different. You can't have the same kinds of real time conversations in a tiny chat box, and there are dome things when a cadual chat room is just more comfortable/convenient than starting a thread to say something. I don't see the harm in regarding the AIM/Skype as official (another string to our bow in addition to the others) - if most of us are using it, surely it's better to publicise it so that no one misses out?

As far as encouraging more OOC posting... the character plotters are a great start, maybe we could implement something for groups/factions too? Having a Jovan Station plotter / Cloud City plotter / Alliance Senate plotter / etc would not only give new players an obvious place to go with questions, and a place for people to say "hey, I want to do something, help!", we could also encourage people to post up links/summaries of threads so that people know what's going on, etc. Similar to what we do in the OOC anyway, but a bit more user friendly and newbie accessible?

[Droo]

I agree with Jace: the chat box simply could not replace an AIM chat in its current format. Personally, I found AIM invaluable and never experienced any real issues with it. When roleplaying, I relied on chat logs a lot to keep tabs on plans I'd discussed with others, and the benefits of being able to make those plans in real time with one or numerous people are self-explanatory. As for the software itself, I can't comment because I've used Trillian for years, and I'd recommend that to anyone.

Edit: Having said that, removing an external chat from the picture may well give the OOC areas the same kind of constant buzz they used to have. If growing the community is the goal, then I'd say that would be a step in the right direction.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Okay, if someone wants to make a thread called 'places you can find posters to chat' e.g. how to get into AIM or Skype convos that are taking place - we can sticky it in this forum. I'm not sure that there are going to be many new people crying out because they can't find these conversations already, when most of our user-base is recruited by existing users, but if we want to cover the scenario that someone might turn up and want to chat and not know how - a sticky thread can happen.

As for the plotters that are non-character specific, I'd see that as something that the RP Discussion forum should already be doing. If people want to post that kind of thing, have at it.

[Ilias Nytrau]

Well, I've gone and created it, anyway.

Click here (https://join.skype.com/z5R21kPeZUXz). That's a join link, guys and gals, that'll always give you the Skype chat. It should take you to web skype, with a pop-up giving the option to open the link in the desktop application. :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Well, I've gone and created it, anyway.

Click here (https://join.skype.com/z5R21kPeZUXz).

Good. :)

[Captain Untouchable]

Well, I've gone and created it, anyway.

Click here (https://join.skype.com/z5R21kPeZUXz). That's a join link, guys and gals, that'll always give you the Skype chat. It should take you to web skype, with a pop-up giving the option to open the link in the desktop application. :)

^ This is another big advantage of a skype chat: you can actually hyperlink to it, rather than needing to get an existing person to invite you. Makes it super accessible for everyone. :dance