Young Writers Society

I remember how over the summer chat was this black hole that kept you from writing, reviewing, and well, life. I barely go to chat anymore, and when I do, I usually have a reason, like I need help with writing, or I can't figure out the name of the holder of arrows (which happens to be a quiver, I learned.)

It wouldn't be the end of the world, of course. But in some ways, it would ruin that YWS family feel. With chat, we YWSers have the ability to talk to each other practically faster than they could in real lives since everything is typed. Before June invited me to chat, I barely knew any of the YWSers personally, and it was after I was welcomed to chat that I felt like a real member of the YWS.

And let's say chat is only open on the weekends starting November. November is NaNoWriMo. Usually, people get their writers block and need help while they're writing. When I have writing trouble, my first resource is chat because I can get a response really quickly. And if you have an idea brewing in your head you're trying to expand and there's no one to help you right away, you might lose the idea.

Then there's the personal part of chat. Of course there are blogs for anything personal, but when YWSers need to vent because their lives are a load, they come to chat, right?

It's really hard to decide whether or not to take out chat since everyone's in a different timezone and you can't really set a timer for chat. But there are a few things that are certain:

-Removing chat won't increase the number of posts in the forums.
-Chat is both good and bad for YWSers, depending on how you look at it.

It's also possible that removing chat would drive people away from YWS, and not just those who joined for the chatroom. Some YWSers don't have time to write and review and be active in the forums like they used to, so they occasionally pop into the forum for some sort of writing discussion. In the chatroom some people develop some of their best writing ideas since there are YWSers representing every corner of the globe in chat.

I thought about another option, though. Maybe on top of either having chat open on the weeekends, or having it open when a mod opens it, we could have chat open on an additional day, a weekday, for writing lessons or discussions, like the other day there was a review class or something.

I know a lot of new people showed up to chat for that review lesson. Maybe you could encourage more members to join chat if you're worried about cliques. Personally, I like Kamas' idea about putting the chat entrance on the homepage. I usually only enter chat because it stares at me in the face and I can see who's in it.

-Shina

And let's say chat is only open on the weekends starting November. November is NaNoWriMo. Usually, people get their writers block and need help while they're writing. When I have writing trouble, my first resource is chat because I can get a response really quickly. And if you have an idea brewing in your head you're trying to expand and there's no one to help you right away, you might lose the idea.

I have this sneaking suspicion that chat will be open rather often during NaNoWriMo anyway with a number of mods (assuming they're given the ability to open chat) doing nano themselves. Word Wars are very common amongst us YWSers/NaNoers, and therefore chatrooms will be taken up anyway (or so the plan is).

And then again, no one can predict the future, ja? Who knows who's right about what.

It's really hard to decide whether or not to take out chat since everyone's in a different timezone and you can't really set a timer for chat. But there are a few things that are certain:

-Removing chat won't increase the number of posts in the forums.
-Chat is both good and bad for YWSers, depending on how you look at it.

- I'm not sure I can completely agree, at least basing my opinion on personal experience. I know for a fact that when chat was down, I must admit that my activity increased rather dramatically on a personal level. I reviewed more often and remembered the old-school feel of YWS before I had had the guts to enter chat. Granted, other members probably won't have the same feeling as me. Of course, we also have that handy dandy alert that comes up on the front page if there's so many posts with 0 or 1 review(s).
- It's true, hence this discussion thread, ja? We all have different viewpoints on what should happen, so a happy medium is being sought out.

It's also possible that removing chat would drive people away from YWS, and not just those who joined for the chatroom. Some YWSers don't have time to write and review and be active in the forums like they used to, so they occasionally pop into the forum for some sort of writing discussion. In the chatroom some people develop some of their best writing ideas since there are YWSers representing every corner of the globe in chat.

Excellent point! Some people want an instant-message discussion, and with people on either MSN or Yahoo or AOL or whatever other IM program, it's difficult to get that together, and chat's rather handy for those times.

I thought about another option, though. Maybe on top of either having chat open on the weeekends, or having it open when a mod opens it, we could have chat open on an additional day, a weekday, for writing lessons or discussions, like the other day there was a review class or something.

Activities are being discussed as we're discussing this! But said lessons or discussions are usually scheduled around the host's or hosts' schedules. We could dedicate a day since we have enough Greeters, Instructors, and Mods, but that'd be like holding a YWS birthday once a week. It would get pretty chaotic. (In my opinion, anyway.)

Bolt wrote:Yeah, ever since it opened full time I haven't written as much. When I come on to write I always lie to myself, saying I will go to chat so I can ask questions as I write, though ending up closing word and throwing virtual pies.

This.

On the subject of mods making a schedule, it's kinda been done the first time. Granted, the mods hardly ever filled it out, but it was there.

In addition, there was a rule last time that anyone who asked the mods to open chat were banned from chat for 24 hours or some such time.

Keep in mind that things could change this time, assuming this takes action.

This is because of me, isn't it. xD

Honestly, I can't speak for other people but I can bet that some people are the same, closing the chat wouldn't affect anything for me. I'd still be heavily slacking on reviewing and posting and such, I'd just spend my free time playing games and stuff instead. I mean, I'll probably get my butt in gear and start posting and reviewing again at some point, but it's not going to have anything to do with chat being open or not.

Frankly, I find that many people have become more well known and liked on YWS thanks to the chat, as it's a one set place where people can just talk. In the forums, if someone doesn't see your post, they don't know you better from that one post they could've seen. Posting is much more important than the chatroom, but not only does the chatroom help make newbies feel more welcome and popular before they have to post even 20 times, it allows the newbie-ish and oldies to associate much easier.

I agree with Aet.
If you close the chat, I still won't spend much time reviewing.
Surely, keeping the chat room open is easier, because if you don't everyone will PM each other and fill up the server??

Please do not close the chat.

Thank you Nate.
Merci Nate.
Grazie Nate.
Gracias Nate.
Danke Nate.

I do think that chat is a good way for people to get to know a lot of people on the site. However, it does distract people and while closing it might not make people review more, it'll definitely make them more productive.
So having it opened by a mod has my support!

~Amy

I would just like to put my full-fledged support behind chat only being opened by a mod. The mods are relatively active on chat anyway, and I think this measure would be only positive to the chat environment.

Well I just discovered Chat with the new YWS. I avoided it on the old one. So I was on it frequently for a few weeks, but now I've stopped. I get obssesed with something for a time then I grow out of it and basically go cold turkey. So at this point I support it being only oponed by mods.

I agree: I support the Mod-chat idea as well. I've rarely ventured into chat because I know if I get too interested in it, I'll never leave. I think that having it only opened for limited times would help to force procrastinators around the world into actually writing. There are enough online distractions, eh? ;) Who needs an extra.

AquaMarine wrote:I do think that chat is a good way for people to get to know a lot of people on the site. However, it does distract people and while closing it might not make people review more, it'll definitely make them more productive.
So having it opened by a mod has my support!

~Amy

This. I am very new but I have to admit the chat does distract me a lot!

I think the mods idea is good, however maybe also open-able by instructors?
As there is not always a mod, but an instructor is, for instance at the moment.

Pgsgirl7 wrote:I think the mods idea is good, however maybe also open-able by instructors?
As there is not always a mod, but an instructor is, for instance at the moment.

If anything, the mods-only rule will most likely stay in place, but chat mods may be allowed to open it. Chat mods are not all moderators on the site, and I'm pretty sure that with the amount of chat mods we have, there's no reason to give that permission to instructors.

We have quite a few chat mods who are also instructors anyway. But June's right. There are 40-something people in the chat mod group, counting the forum moderators. Actually, only a few of those in the chat mod group aren't green on the site, so even if the permissions aren't extended to the 'just chat mods' there are still a lot of people available to open the chat.

Those who would be able to open the chat consist of all the Distinguished Members, the Junior Mods, the Mods, and all three admins. That's not counting the 10 or so people who aren't any of the above but are still chat mods.

Besides, extending it to the instructors would mean adding 66 more people as chat mods, bring the total number of chat mods up to around a hundred. Do we really need that many people? Admit it, you guys would go nuts. ;)

To be honest, extending the power of opening chat to the instructors as well would pretty much make the whole thing pointless! There's not usually a time when an Intstructor, a JM, a Mod or an Admin isn't on chat!