Young Writers Society

Short Version

YWS will be switching to the old chat from sometime this Wednesday through the weekend. If the site doesn't slow down while using it, we're going to switch back to it.


Long Version

Currently, the Young Writers Society chat-room is managed by a company called TopCCM and the program itself is called 123 Flashchat. It has a lot of benefits, and I know a lot of people like it. Unfortunately, it also costs $30 a month. Thus over the course of a year, the 123 Flashchat costs YWS $360. Are the benefits worth that much? Maybe.

Before 123 Flashchat, YWS used another chat program called Flashchat and managed by Tufat. To avoid confusion, I'm just going to call the current chat "current chat" and the old chat "old chat". In any case, YWS used the old chat for about two years. It's biggest strength? It was free.

If you weren't around for the old chat, you may be asking yourself, "Why did YWS switch from something that was free to something that costs $30 a month?". It's a good question and the reason is simple: lag. The current chat is remotely hosted. This means it never lags and never causes the site to slow down.

The old chat, though, was hosted on the YWS server. Worse, it was badly designed so it didn't use system resources effectively. This meant that it lagged whenever 15+ people were in the room. If 20+ people were in the room, the entire site slowed down. If 25+ people were in the room, the site effectively shut down. That obviously was a problem and why we switched to a chat that costs $30 a month.

However, the makers of the old chat (Tufat) have released a new version that supposedly makes better use of system resources. This means it shouldn't lag as much. We'll see if that's true or not.

Starting sometime on Wednesday, the current chat will be replaced with the old chat (albeit a newer version of the old chat). This will last through the weekend if everything goes well. If the site does not slow down while the old chat is running, we'll switch back to it. If however the site does slow down, then we'll stick with the current chat.

Just to sum up, I know a number of you may be unhappy about all this. But you have to think, do the benefits add up to $360 a year?

The chat is dead. Long live the chat.

O Captain my Captain.

Chat is chat however you look at it.

I'm happy to switch back to the old chat. I haven't used the new chat very much so it's still the most familiar of the two XD

I can has gag!

I have actually been having problems getting on the new chat. I'd be happy switching back to the old one.

Sounds like a good plan, Nate!

I wouldn't mind switching back to the old Chat. My only question is about logs. As in, how easy would it be to get them?

As in, how easy would it be to get them?

^^ Exactly the same. I love the idea of switching back to the old chat as much as I love the current chat, meaning I'm happy either way. The only hang up is in the availability of logs, especially concerning events that occurred/started prior to entrance.

Old chat! Hurray!

The logs weren't publicly available with the old chat because the administrative interface and the logs were inseparable; meaning that in order to have access to one, you had to have access to the other.

However, the good thing about the old chat is that if there's something we don't like, I actually have the ability to do something about it. Looking over it, it'd be very easy to create something that would make the chat logs publicly available.

But before I do, I have to ask: how often does anyone even use the chat logs? I'm kind of suspicious that very few (if any) do because the current chat has been archiving the chat logs in a very non-user-friendly way for a while now. If when you say "chat log" you're just referring to the public log available via one button in chat, then there's nothing to worry about. Unlike the current chat, the old chat keeps all messages viewable from the moment you enter chat.

So while it is easy to fix, I'd prefer not to do it unless necessary.

I think the use of the logs is specifically for the chat mods, when a situation arises.
I know I used them before they were a pain to look through.

Sounds good to me.

Right. Forgotten that the old chat stores all messages. That answers my question, then.

Two things:

#1: Chat is not working for me. (Is it because I have a Macbook?)

#2: The link on the front page is the wrong link.