Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The chat area is definitely NOT only for "silly" posts. It can be used for any purpose that people wish.
|
No, you're right. I said that rather tongue in cheek as that's what it's used for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
It can be, of course, but for most things, it's a very inefficient tool.
If someone has a question about their reader, the answer generally requires quite a long reply. Maybe not one of my Great Walls o'Text, but a couple of hundred words of explanation, links, whatever. Other people, too, might chime in with additional information, and the OP might ask for clarification on some point. The chat box really isn't very good for that. You can't write out a post and edit it, as I am here; even if you try typing your explanation, it'll all be backwards. You need a venue like that of our current discussion to realistically answer any but the most trivial question.
That's why it attracts bad puns, posts about zombies, and other ... trivia. It's great for trivia, one-liners, and chit-chat. It's utterly lousy for almost everything else because of its small size, its limited nature, and its minuscule number of users.
If someone asks, say, a Kindle question on the Kindle forum, they'll have an answer within the hour; if they ask it in the chat box, the best they can hope for is -- in a few hours -- someone saying "I can't help you because I don't have a Kindle; try the forum." Or, if they actually do have a kindle, the answer is still probably going to be "It's too long to explain here; go to the forum." Either way, the poster has lost hours of time for no good reason, trying to use the wrong tool for the job because he's either dense (hmm ... Kindle forum full of experts, or chat box full of zombies?) or oblivious (how do people manage to scroll past all the device and technical forums to focus on the chat?). He's not getting what he's looking for, and due to the nature of where he's asking, he can't get what he's looking for, not there. It would have been better for him, in the sense of getting what he needs most easily, if he went straight to the relevant forum, where even if someone else hasn't already asked the question, there are always people reading who can take a shot at answering.
I'm too cynical to think that a disclaimer would work, though. If these people were in the habit of reading to begin with, they'd have noticed all those forums they scrolled past to insert their question in the midst of zombies.
|
What WW said.... it's not easy to answer serious questions in that little space, and it probably doesn't get seen by as many people as it would in the dedicated forum. I'm actually surprised people find it and use it that way. It's not very active. Perhaps a disclaimer wouldn't work, I guess I was just thinking about it because this is the umpteenth one in ages to ask a serious question on the chat and hear about zombies in return (and a person or two try to redirect).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
(and how did we get it stuck on zombies, anyway?)
|
I blame Dr. Drib. It always turns zombie-like when he's around.
Eh, it's ok. If it's a stupid idea, it's a stupid idea.