The site

[Jackolantern]

Chat rooms do tend to work well for non-technical communities, such as communities for game players (such as Allakhazam) and other more leisurely sites where most posting is conversational and users rarely search topics for help with issues. In those cases a chat feature can make the site much more interactive and sticky.

[Xen]

Ok can see where you are coming from, subject closed.

EDIT: Don't know if you are aware, but when viewing the forum pages in IE, an empty image box is sitting over the Indie-Resource.com title at the top of the page. Doesn't appear in FF.

[MAruz]

Looks like it's an image called logo.gif that's broken.
FF removes broken images completely, while IE and some other browsers display a frame where the image should have been...

[Cayle]

I actually don't like integrating chat with forum communities like these. It becomes easier for people to just hang out in the chat room and talk there, and all of the conversations just scroll away and are lost. People will often get help on questions as well, and the answers they receive will not be archived, or searchable through the forum. It also tends to lower post count and new threads. MMORPGMaker.com added an AJAX chat box, and I still don't like it for the above reasons.

Jack pretty much summarizes my problem with such synchronous tools. I've seen it become a contributor to the death of an NWN world as well.

But now most of the community have gotten used to it and would be unhappy if it was taken off.

For the record, I've not used it a single time and mostly just regard it as a usability annoyance as I first have to scroll down before clicking on "posts since last visit".

[hallsofvallhalla]

For the record, I've not used it a single time and mostly just regard it as a usability annoyance as I first have to scroll down before clicking on "posts since last visit".

amen, especially when it is slow to download or sync and it bumps your page as you are about to click a link