We do have a general chat area in the form of a thread. I officially did a sticky for it but here's the link anyway:
http://www.classicrockforums.com/forum/f14/daily-nightly-ever-so-rightly-ii-%2Achat-thread%2A-15239/
I respect the suggestion but one thing that has carried over from the prior admins. That I've always agreed with and will carry over is those chat boxes are a cancer to forums. My first general music forum that I met the prior Admins. at had a chat box and while I and a handful of others were trying to make legit music threads all that happened up above was gossip, drama and people being juvenile. That forum BTW was doing bad much before most forums which all have significant declines because the forum format is somewhat of a dinosaur.
What's harming forums is social media and what's keeping them at the moderate level which is where we land is the loyals. Those loyals are pretty much the same people who've been using forums for years, or over a decade, whichever year message boards became a thing. Honestly even after moving here a large part of our membership came from other forums folding. Now with all the changes that happened here with crucial members leaving is more disparity so our average numbers are good honestly.
Social media, and the music groups within, aren't popular because of outside chat. If anything they are stricter and music only. The popularity comes with their ability to be simpler to join and use plus the amount of people on them is large so gaining membership is very easy. I like them as well because I like the idea of exclusive music chat but there are things I love about forums in general so I'm not completely converted one way or another.
What kills forums is apathy and not attracting as many new members who have that mojo to keep things vibrant. IMO, what really made this forum work when it was at it's peak was new music content. The thing that keeps me in forums and not making the complete break to social media is the attachment to the folks who've put the time and work in at different times over the years and the advantage of presentation that social media doesn't have. My favorite thing here has been music and making glorious music threads.
Anyway, I think the fact that our chat thread died signifies that something else has to trigger the mojo in the forum before it becomes a community where people get more personal and chat. Besides the chat thread there is profile pages and PMs to communicate in. I'm all for that thread existing for people who want to chatter but I'm not for extending with all the various ways for non-music chatter that can happen one more way to get away from the primary core of what a music forum is, which is music talk. This forum has all the tools to be productive and no one person can make it thrive. It's a matter of the members as a whole taking advantage of the time here like many still do and having fun with it by creating and engaging in threads. One day we may not have this forum culture. We'll always have ways to have general chat. Anyway, I hope you appreciate what I'm conveying as I've been putting deep thought in general about the modern day forum. Peace!
