Welcome to Fractal Forums

Hi folks.

Would there be much interest If I created a chat room for the forum? Would most likely be on Quakenet (very stable irc server) .. I have done this in the past for other specialised forum with success. I can also create a special web page so folks can join the chat room without having to mess about with irc clients.
From previous experience it is always a compliment to the forum rather then a diversion off the forum. It wont reduce forum activity if anything the opposite.
We could trial it out for a week perhaps, nothing has to be set in stone.

any thoughts?

+1 \o/

I like the idea but doubt that there will be much activity...
But I guess, we'll see :)

Just as an additional crazy idea to make that more fractal, how about some contributory stats that can then be nicely arranged in an animated contribution tree?
Not sure how that works out but it would add the fractal component into the fractal forums chat :D

Me like.

Ok folks, give me a day or two to set things up..
 and yea sure it`ll probably be dead quite, but oh hell i guess its worth a try, ya never know what might come out of it.

Regarding the animated stats... heh well im not entirely sure what you mean there. But im always willing and eager to try out new things :)

ill keep you all posted with this

regards
pan

Piespy ?  ;D

http://www.jibble.org/piespy/

OK have mailed Christian regarding this, just to get the ok there. Dont want to step on anyone's toes here.

Hi ker2x  :)

Interesting, ive seen such things to collect and display stats for IRC activity (even with the relationship map/web graphic), and I suppose it dosent surprise me that there is also something similar for forums. However Im not sure how you would tie both chatroom and forum stats together... That sounds like a tricky task, Im not sure I could do but will at some stage look into.

regards :)

EDIT:  "thanks for that April fools scare fractalforums" ;)  you certainly raised my heart rate and triggered a hot flush of "oh crap ive been hacked into" concern.... if only for a few seconds. :)

When I said, animated graph, I was talking about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hgF0WFPTpc
That was made with Gource, which is specialized in Source-code-representation, but I guess, Piespy will be better for this?

Wow, i must say ive never seen anything quite like that before, stunning.. And also its worth noting how fractal it looks.. goes to show how much fractal type systems permeate into real life, including social habits.

I will most certainly look into this as soon as i have the time.
cheers kram

I know this software, i presented it at work last friday :)
It fun to see it appears here 2 days later  ;D

Although I still want to jazz the page up a bit, I have a full functional Chat page setup.
I still need to organise Chat room services, and some other things, but for now its up and running.

http://www.fractalscapes.net/fractalforums/chat.html
Might be best to use your forum name to avoid confusion.
If the chatbox/text is too small , hold down on your ctrl key and zoom in and out with your mouse wheel.

I shall post any development updates in this thread.
And also, despite my name being online in the chat room, it dose not mean Im at my keyboard 24/7
however I will at keep an eye out if anyone wants to pop in to check it out.

Regards
pan :)

Well ive been busy setting a few things up.
 
Registered the Chatroom with Quakenet
Built a Chatroom services bot with..
   - Room and User Statistics
   - Full Translation Service
   - !seen and !lastspoke service
   - !spell check (word)
   - Chatroom quotes system
   - & more. with more to come.


For those of you who are not familiar with irc. I shall explain the very basics here, but will also make a web page soon with far more detailed information on how to use irc and various options and tricks.
But here are the basics


When you enter the room, you will see a list of nicks (names).
You type your text down the very bottom of the window in the text box, and hit return to send it to the room.
The name Q is a chatroom services bot from quakenet that essentially makes the room official with Quakent and gives the room owner greater control over the chatroom.
The name MandleBot is a bot I have made myself to help with other chat room services, and control... things that Q cannot do.

If you see a @ before anyone's name it means they are an Operator of that chatroom,  this is the equivalent of an administrator or moderator here on this forum. They can kick, ban, and do many other channel control functions.

If you see a + before anyone's name it means they are "voiced".. This option is not necessary but can help to control the channel in some circumstances.
For example, at the moment I have everyone that enters the room to automaticly get a + (voice)...  if they do not talk for 15 mins they will get de-voiced, which means they will have nothing before their name.  If they talk they will automaticly gain a + again.. and so on.. This is not to punish people for not talking, but is so people coming into the room can see who has been recently active.  Other chatrooms use the + mode in other ways, for example in some chatrooms the + means regular user or trusted user. But in context to the #FractalForums chatroom it means nothing other then to display recent active names.

If you want to private message someone type /msg (name) .. without the ( ).. a new private window will open to that person, you can switch between windows by clicking the tabs right at the top of the web chat client.

The chatroom services  I have made right now are minimum, but if the room becomes popular I will add new things on. Chatroom servcies are usually started by typing a command, most of the commands I have made with a ! at the start. so for example if you where looking for someone who wasn't in the room at that time, and you wanted to know when last the person was there you would type !seen (name)

so here is a quick list of the main services i have up and running now

!seen (name)  = as explained above
!lastspoke (name) = says when that person last spoke
!lastline (name) = says the last line that person said
!pingme = checks your lag (lag is rarly an issue on quakenet)
!top10 = shows the top10 overall chatters (by word) long term
!todaytop10 = same as above but shows only todays stats
@trans = this will show you more help on how to use the translator ( I will write more detailed help for this)
!forecast (country, city) = weather updates (oh hell why not heh)

(please note I have all the services set to auto ignore a user if they attempt to use too many commands too fast.)


There are more options running now, but as soon as I get the time I will write more details regarding how to use irc, and the room services.
i have a big to-do list for more options, but only if I feel is there is sufficient interest in the chat room
I shall also make the webchat design better if there is interest in the chatroom.


well that's it today

ill keep you all updated as to any developments on this

regards
pan

I am sorry ive i missed any joiners.. i did see Simon join just there .. and missed you by  8mins 35secs :P
sorry bout that.  oh and by the way, you got scattered clouds with high chance of rain, 7mph winds. tomorrow.
it works by finding the fractal formula of weather in your local area ;)

EDIT.. also the chat room services commands as i stated above, anywhere you see ( ) .. it means im emphasising that something must go here..  but you never use the ( )
for example for the forecast you go !forecast Dublin, Ireland .. or something like that
not !forecast (Dublin, ireland) .. same goes with all the ! commands

I just joined - if only to reserve the user name.

Can't have imitation Hippy Scientist Pervert Philosopher Artists running around   O0

 Never really even used a chat room before.

yea let a day go by without much activity, then go away from keyboard to get ready for bed..and ppl start joining.. lol  argh.. sorry i missed the last few.. I shall stay awake for another hour if anyone else decides to have a look.
By the way I should have said im on GMT hours, so you can probably work out from that when im most likey to be asleep. I guess some people will be joining from other timezones, so Im sorry if im not there (awake or at my keyboard) to welcome you.

To the ones that joined, thanks, and please do try again some other time.. its only the first day, perhaps things might pickup with some regular joiners..etc

Anyhoo, later.

Just another update. (sorry to keep bumping, tho its not my intention to bump, rather inform folks of any developments)

I Have added a significant amount of information under the Chat box to help newcomers to the chatroom understand whats what. I have also greatly expanded on the services available, what they do and how to use them.

There are some aspects I still need to write a little bit of text on but for now its enough information for most people.

I will constantly update the information there as I develop things

regards

EDIT
Update for 7th April:
Just a small update. have added automatic rss feed announcements , so when folks are chatting away MandleBot (the chat room services bot) will automaticly announce any new post or post replies into the chatroom along with a click-able link.. as an example:

<MandleBot> Forum News: Re: Most powerful computer possible for a reasonable price - http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?top
<MandleBot> Forum News: Re: "We Have Lift-Off" - http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?topic=11414.msg45576#msg45576


have also added a "!checktime (name)" tool, so you can type this to see someone local time.
as an example.
<Pangaea> !checktime Pangaea
<MandleBot> Pangaea's time and date: (Sat Apr 07 01:10:24 2012)

regards
pan



EDIT
Update for 8th April:
Well Im not sure if people are going to try this out or what, but Ill give it another week.. so lets say Monday 16th April.. (ill let another weekend roll by.. since perhaps folks might be around more at the weekends)... if its still not used.. i may as well take it offline..
Im trying my best to try to be around most of the time hoping to catch ppl who join as to welcome them.. but its a little frustrating hanging around waiting to welcome folks who dont come, then wasting a day when I could be doing other stuff .
Anyway .. hope by next weekends things pick up a little. :)
regards


EDIT
Final Update for 9th April:
Well on 2nd thought Im not even sure if I want to wait around all week and next weekend for people not to join as to make sure im there to welcome them. I guess there's a whole lot more better things I could be doing with that time. Anyway I tried my best to provide an interesting service, but its become crystal clear to me that there is absolutely no interest whatsoever in it despite the initial interest from a few people including the forum owner who never gave it much of a go , if at all. It was based on that interest i put the work into it.. I see that was also a waste of my time..
Anyway I see no point in waiting till next Monday at this stage... so the chat service is now unavailable.

If in the future there is some "serious" interest, ill be more then happy to help out.
Perhaps it might be a good idea for an admin to delete this whole thread/topic as to avoid disappointment to someone who might still be interested in the idea by reading the thread title.

regards
pan.