History lesson first for those who will read it: NA used to have a chat link on the forum, easy to click and hang out with NA members. 

It was fun, lots of friendships were made, got to know people better than could happen on the forum. 

It became cliquey, some members were always there and the vibe became unwelcoming. 

***Chat cannot be moderated*** DON'T BRING IT TO THE FORUM!!!

Knowing that if you go into chat there is a good chance you can be sexually harassed, bullied, pooped on, yo mamma'd, anything else that could offence your sensiblities, would you still go? IE, it's at your own risk?

I know the staffs opinion, I've asked...that's why it's not back.  

Personally, I miss it.  I made some great friends, had some good conversations...and some people pissed me off.  

What say you??  I welcome all opinions. 


 

I probably wouldn't go because of how busy I am with work and life. Forum busy and chat busy are different beasts. I'm not opposed to one being created as I got my start on chat rooms. It can be good or detrimental to communities as stated... But that's up to the individuals. I say, have fun! If implemented.

How about a Slack? I know funds are tight, but it'd be sick if the NA login scheme could be tied to a dedicated Slack account. That way, guarantees of who you're actually chatting with could be met. That was a problem with one of the unofficial TinyChat solutions, whereas the ban hammer was in place constantly, because of trolls.

I don't know that video feeds are directly supported, but it's my first thought. I use slack at work and I think NA is such a chatty community that it'd prove a great set of channels.

Granted, this wouldn't give you video feeds like TinyChat would, but I think it would be great.

im there man

i sat in gum!

Don't know why you could not have an IRC with a few mods just in case of issues...

Wait what ?!?!   I thought your were a horrible person! Go away you horrible
person! We don't want you here 🤣
 

Okay,I have no idea what IRC is. You guys are missing the point, we will not moderate 24 hours of real time/

I say yes. If things get out of hand, then it is not the responsibility of NA. We are all adults here and we should be able to act like so. That being said, if someone starts being racist or something in the chat, then the punishment should roll over to NA (that's just one example obviously).

I think chat in general brings out more of what is negative about the internet. I think there are reasons chat has failed more than once on NA. I probably wouldn't do chat even if there was an official channel.

We currently have a Discord server going. Free to use and it is text/voice chat. This was made to assist anyone wanting to better communicate when setting up games on the Switch. It is also meant to alleviate any forum clutter concerning the games.

Here is the invite link if anyone chooses to use it. https://discord.gg/jEEcv3e......

 

I've thought about this and Discord before because it's so easy to use.

There have been various iterations of NA chat over the years - official and unofficial, and I think there are good things and bad things about it. Sometimes I do think it would cool to just have some casual discussion and actually 'talk' on a more real-time basis than the forum.

Maybe the compromise, is that we just don't get too hung up on the official vs. unofficial status. I wouldn't mind to start a Discord for example, and just leave it open for people to chat and hangout. It can be separate from NA, meaning, punishments and actions don't necessarily transfer, but if someone is being racist or hateful in the chat, whoever manages the chat should just ban them. So it isn't necessarily that the NA mods need to moderate the chat, but whoever has the 'power' in the chat system could ban people for being horrible.

I think the practical crossover issues could occur because people would get upset and/or form opinions of people and that resentment or tension would likely carry over to the forums occasionally and manifest negatively at times. And I suppose the issue from a staff/moderation standpoint here, is that if that becomes a trend that we have to deal with, it could be some extra work. So despite the technical presentation being it is separate, if arguments are brought here it could be negative.

I guess I'm kinda rambling a bit as I tend to do sometimes, but I do see the appeal of chat, and I would like to think people can be somewhat 'not-super-hateful' on there. Some people just like to troll wherever they are, so it is hard to manage sometimes.

The chat room was a great place to get together with NA friends...Had so much fun back in the day in Bum's Dumpster, then the tinychat, I think it's definitely worth having one, not to say whether it should be official or not, doesn't really matter.

Maybe do a subscriber chat room? It could help motivate people to sub/donate and it could also help keep the chat clean. I would think people would be less likely to shit post/harass if they were paying to be in it.

Just a thought.

I also thought chat was great at one time. Once the chats broke off into clicks on tiny chat it became more effort to follow along, and the group was moving from room to room every night on tinychat. I have occassionally longed onto airwalk tiny chat but it seems dead, even when I say hello and leave the window open for a couple hours no one chats  .
IMO the best place on the web for socializing IRT is Twitch, you can meet lots of great folks there, and channels that stream/contain rasism/bullying/pornographic imagery (cant play panesians) are reported by the community and taken down.

 

I like the idea, I never took advantage of it originally, but I can see the detrimental part to it too what with the internet being the wild west and all and it is easier to incite drama. I would say if it isn't a ton of work to give it a go. If people are babies about it and just drama llama then shut it down and leave it buried.

IRC is internet relay chat and it has been around for a looooooong time. I remember using the heck out of it back in the day, but there are some better systems / interfaces out there now.

I mean we can give it a shot, worst case we just stop doing it.

Shouldn't be a problem, although there's always someone that will whine about it. I will guarantee some schmuck will page the mods because someone in the unofficial chat insulted them.

MODS! Empire called me a schmuck!
 

Actually, I take back what I said. A chat would help work fly by. Let's do this!

Sorry for playing a lot of games in chat. It wont happen again.  

EDIT:  Looks like MegaTank and Quaze already had a discord

Here is a link to a discord where some people from NA hangout sometimes:

https://discord.gg/5tuxaqD...

 

COME JOIN US!