Young Writers Society

That's right. YWS now has a brand new chatroom. Or rather, an old chatroom depending on how you look at it.

Given the recent high activity and the particularly high usage of the chatroom as of late, YWS is returning to the 123flashchat. It's highly stable, accessible by any mobile device, and has a wealth of features. Instant messaging works very well, the user interface is simple, and it won't kick you out randomly.

You can also even download mobile apps for the chatroom on your phone or tablet (links are provided on the chatroom page, or download 123flashchat from the app store). If you do so, the mobile app chat id is 971. You'll be asked to enter the chat id after you download the mobile app. So again, it's 971.

However, a couple features are no more -- namely, the /attack and /hug commands. These commands were very popular, so if you prefer the old chat, let me know. If enough people want to bring back the old chat, then this change will be reversed.

At any rate, a few may remember that the reason we've used 123flashchat so inconsistently in the past is due to the high price tag that it carries. Plus, they were double billing YWS for it in the past. Both of these continue to be concerns, but activity on the site has increased enough that the former shouldn't be a problem. On the latter, I've set up a payment process to ensure they only bill YWS once a month.

So, please enjoy the new/old chat

I can't get on it Dx It's not supported on my kindle...*cries*

When you go to the chat page, there's a link to a mobile version at the top that should work.

I do like old chat better.
It has a more open feeling, this one makes me feel crowded...

That's my opinion.

Give it a chance. This is a far superior program in terms of stability, customization, and overall usability

I like it. 'Tis all shiny and whatnot.

It doesn't support my phone as well as the other one, but I think I really like how there are numerous rooms... Plus, the app may be updated ^-^

Oh the memories!

Hmm. I tested it out now on a wider range of systems, and I slightly miss the older Chat... And no one really uses the other rooms... And whoever scripted the mobile version online/of the app really needs some coding lessons ^-^ So far it seems to be a little worse, although with a slightly better theme ^-^

I like it.

But we need planet backgrounds. Like the Moon, or Mars.

I like the old chat better. I've tried accessing this new chat, and clicked the 'mobile version', but unfortunately, the screen only showed the logo for FlashChat. I'll try again, but so far, it isn't working. >.<

Well I personally, love having this one back! So much easier to navigate!

The mobile version of this chat is definitely easier than the last one, it's great!

Every chatroom has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, and it's tough balancing those two. For example, the chatroll that YWS had for most of 2012 was great for stability, very cheap initially, had neat unique features like url preview, but lacked instant messaging and extra chat rooms (which many members find useful). Despite the last two negatives, I would've stuck with it, but when they increased the cost from $10/month to $20/month, that extra cost just wasn't worth it. Paying that much for a chat that can't handle instant messaging & has only limited moderating features is outrageous.

So then I switched YWS to the blue flashchat, which is terrific for instant messaging, has extra chat rooms, had FRED, and was, most importantly, free. But, it greatly impacts site performance and suffers from tremendous lag when more than 10 people are chatting. It also never worked on any mobile device.

Then I went to the phpfreechat, which allowed for some really cool stuff like custom IRC-like commands (eg., /attack or /dice) and the ability for users to add any chat rooms. Instant messaging wasn't great but it worked, and the rest of it was pretty good. It also had some funny quirks like different colors for usernames that differed for everyone. But, the moderating features were poor, and stability was awful. Users were randomly kicked out, and it could lag quite a bit. It was also a headache for me to maintain.

The current 123flashchat has great stability, great instant messaging, extra chat rooms, great moderating features, and even mobile apps that I've found to work very well on at least my Android phone. For me, the only downside is that it costs $30/month, but it's worth it just for the reduced maintenance. Plus, since it's remotely hosted, the chatroom stays open even when I need to reset the web server (something I did three times yesterday alone) and even when YWS is slow/inaccessible (as it was a couple days ago when our CDN provider suffered a network outage right where the YWS sever is located).

Now of course, that's not true for everyone. These days, people access the web from a seemingly infinite variety of devices. In the past, the only thing I had to worry about was, "Does it work in Internet Explorer?". Fortunately, that's no longer an issue, but now I need to worry about, "Does it work on the Motorola Droid X2? Samsung Galaxy Nexus? Ice cream sandwich? Gingerbread? iOS 5? iOS 6? iPhone 4? iPod Touch? Kindle Fire?". Just because something works on one phone is no guarantee it'll work on another phone.

However, that's what people expect, and they don't like being told, "Well, you're accessing the website through a mobile device, and it's impossible to guarantee it'll work 100%." They also don't like being told that some features are necessarily disabled on mobile devices -- even tablets that are often more powerful than the average desktop but have insanely weird quirks since tablet != PC.

So that means webmasters, web programmers, and server administrators are expending a great deal of time and effort in creating a web that works perfectly no matter how you access it. And if you don't expend that effort, the users of your website will simply go somewhere else. This is understandable, but it still sucks for people like myself and websites like YWS that have only one dedicated person that functions as the server admin + programmer + debugger + webmaster. Simply put, people like me just don't have the time to handle all usage scenarios, and so we must manage our time in a way that benefits the biggest number of people. What's happening as a result is that the web of yesteryear that was dominated by niche-specific sites is quickly disappearing and is being replaced by monolithic entities geared toward mass consumption, such as Tumblr, Facebook, and even Reddit, which has mostly become an image-sharing service for Imgur.

Moving the chat to 123flashchat helps me in a very big way by reducing the time that I expend toward ensuring a functioning website. I no longer have to worry about maintaining a chatroom, and it works on mobile pretty well most of the time. Is it perfect? No. But if you're trying to use it from a mobile device, you've got to realize that you're doing something that people almost never did even just two years ago. You've also got to realize that there is tremendous fragmentation in the mobile area right now, meaning that it's impossible to handle all usage scenarios without a significant investment of man hours.

tldr; At the end of the day, 123flashchat saves me time, it works great for most people, and it comes with a great wealth of features. That's quite worth it.


Addendum

I didn't mean for this to be so long, or even to be a rant about mobile. To be clear, letting me know something doesn't work on X device is tremendously helpful to me. But please be understanding that I may never be able to do anything about it, and that I must go about doing things in such a way that my energies are focused on helping the largest number of web users possible. I already spent several hours the other day trying to fix an issue with the chat on iPad, but my efforts failed and that several hours was completely wasted. I simply can't afford to spend my time chasing down every issue that happens on a mobile device.

Never mind, it's working great now.