It seems that the use of the Shout Box is very sporadic. Sometimes I come back after a few hours and see that there are no new shouts.

My gut feeling is that it's a good idea, but isn't used well because members alternate shout conversations with reading and posting in the forums. Therefore, conversations in the shout box go so agonizingly low that people soon lose interest.

I wonder if a separate "chat room" could be made available instead and if members feel they would use it? I know I'd be interested in "live conversation" sometimes…!

Eh, I like it on the side. I know what you mean about the conversations, though. There was a separate chat on the community, but even when people were logged in, it didn't really get used. Of course, it was also slow as all get out, sooo....

I never even registered or went into the Community section. So many were reporting problems, I figured I'd let you all Beta it for me!

Right looks pretty much like a one-sided conversation between Mark and......Mark.

If you're using it to have a conversation, you should probably be using PMs, instead. On the other hand, I'm not sure if you're allowed to PM yourself.

I think that it would be good to have an option to open the shout box into a sepearte small window if you want.

I kind of like it.

Although, Mark has a self-perpetuating point about the level of discourse...

I think the who's online box should be moved to below the shout box, so it's easy to tell if the person you're talking to is still around.

Good idea!

Or . . . this is painful for me . . . we could move it to the right hand side. We could have a busier looking forum if you'd like, with things on the left and things on the right. Do you want to try it out?