Just read the chat transcript and..

[Coelacanth]

And Shaq too. Am I the only one that has to turn the volume up to 10 to figure out what the heck the guy is mumbling in a monotone?

The fact that the transcript is reorganized probably changes things. And you guys are right -- I might have had a different opinion of the chat had I been there in the first place. But I thought what I was reading was the actual transcript in the way that it happened, which is pretty close to being there, so I commented on that. Turns out that that wasn't the actual sequence of things, so that could have affected my opinion.

Anyhow, I'm not really trying to be a pain and criticize things too harshly at all. It was just a couple of observations, that's all. I still think these chats are definitely good things, for the reasons I mentioned. I hope I didn't sound too negative.

[AlgaeWiz]

Jim is exactly right. The question about algae had to do with the "nuisance crud" (as he called it) and not the macroalgae discussed previously in the link posted by Coelacanth. I think it would be nice to have a little "crud" for the fish to scrape away at.

BTW, I notice what appears to be a little growth in the gravel and it adds great realism.

[Coelacanth]

I think the only "crud algae" (microalgae) that should be in the tank is just some purple coralline algae to give the rocks a nice aesthetic (and realistic) effect.

Of course in real aquariums, coralline algae also starts growing on the glass, and you need to scrape it away. But the Sachs aquarium is always a perfectly maintained tank. I think that's the way it should be. No bothersome messes to clean up that ruin the "serene" aesthetic effect.

Now macroalgae, that's another story. Macroalgae would be really cool to have in some spots on the 3D background, waving in the current, with a school of fish swimming in and out of it.

[HellBound]

I think u should just let everyone ask there questions without feldon having to ask them. That way Jim can choose wut questions he wants to answer not u.

[feldon34]

HellBound, if you were watching the behind-the-scenes of the chat, we were getting 2-3 questions at a time and a LOT of questions that we just forwarded people to the FAQ.

It would have been absolute chaos and there were only 15 people or so at any one time. Imagine 30 or 50.

[Jav400]

Let me try to clarify things for the people who weren't there. In the first place, everyone did ask their questons. That was the whole point of the chat in the first place. But there has to be some structure to the process, or Morgan is right, everything ends up in total chaos. If you have 20 people all trying to post a question, and make a comment, at the same time then there is no continuity to the process and no one can follow anything. The words and questions just flow past the screen into oblivion before Jim has a chance to direct a response to anything. To alleviate this problem, the room is set to moderated, which means that no one can type in the room except Morgan, Jim, or I. When someone asks a question, I get a list of all of them in real time, ( this way the only ones flooded are Morgan and I ) and I post them one at a time in the room, so everyone can see it and Jim has a chance to respond to each question one at a time without being flooded. That way everyone gets a chance to ask any question that he or she wishes, and everyone can easily follow the whole process.

[Coelacanth]

I can concur with that. Ever been on IRC (especially on a gaming channel) where there are about 12 conversations going on all at once? It's total chaos, and half of the posts end up being ones borne of confusion:

Kelly: "Are you guys coming to the LAN party on Sunday?"
Paul: "Do you think the GeForce Ti200 is better than the original GeForce3?"
Joe: "No."
Kelly: "What? Why not? I thought you said you're coming, Joe."
Doofus: "I like peanut butter do u?"
Chris: "So anyway, what do you guyz think of Quake 3 Team Arena?"
Joe: "I wasn't talking to you, Kelly, I was talking to Paul."
Paul: "Joe, why not?"
Joe: "I *am* coming to the LAN party."
Paul: "No, I mean why isn't the Ti200 better than the original GF3?"
Doofus: "Who else likes peanut butter?!?"

You get the idea...hehe. There has to be at least some moderation and flow control going on.

[feldon34]

haha. Brings back memories of EFNet. I was an op of #psx for a month. ~200 people at a time and always some kind of flamewar going on.

[WILLYPR]

Just a suggestion......

For next time, make the ad banner like this, "Chat with Jim, Morgan, etc, LIVE!"

My humble oppinion.... please don't throw any rock on me, you might break my aquarium glass! ;=)

[canonelan2]

Originally posted by feldon23
snip...

If there is enough interest, I could show the logs of how the chat actually went. It's pretty hard to follow that way.

If that's the case then perhaps some order needed.

You could have the first portion of the chat strictly moderated...

queue them up with ? for a question and ! for a comment, have an admin keep track of the order and make everyone agree not to talk until it's their turn. Once Jim is done with is answer have him type "done" and move on to the next person.

Do it this way and you will have no flow problems.

Then towards the end of the chat you could open it up to everything goes.

Just my 2 cents.

[Jav400]

If everyone would stay in order that would work fine, but its one of those things that looks good on paper, but in real life never actually seems to work the way it looks. And if you try to do it that way it always seems that someone shows up just for the sole purpose of trying to disrupt the whole thing.

But several of those things were done. At the first of the chat I leave the room open for a few minutes for everyone to say hello to Jim and give any quick thoughts. Then the moderated part starts with the question and answer session. And last but not least, when Jim lets us know that it is about time for him to leave, I open the room again for people to be able to give quick opinions and say their goodbyes.