I've been giving some thought to possibly implementing a chat room feature for the site, integrated with the forum to save on bothersome user registration and spam controls. Particularly, the
Blueimp/Frug AJAX-Chat addon, though I'm open to alternatives. While it would be available to any forum member at any time, my primary goal would be to provide a monthly or bimonthly 2 or 3 hour chat session where fans can come in, ask questions, show off artwork, and handle other discussion of Sogna-related items in a more immediate manner than the forum currently provides. I think it might renew some interest in the website, which has fallen off as the years go by and Sogna becomes less well known (in part because I don't update the site often enough.) Thoughts? Concerns? Pros/Cons to share?
One thing I'd like to figure out is if it can operate in no-registration mode during these open chat sessions, but revert to registration-only mode the rest of the time. Will get more interest if people don't have to register first (and it may become a sort of try-before-you-buy deal to eventually get more people registered on the forum.)