chat room

[Murray Wilkinson]

is it possible for this site to host a live chat room.where we can openly discuss these subjects live?
Im sure plenty would enjoy this option.
There are bugger-all camera buffs in rural australia... it would be great to touch base and communicate with like minded people.

[Jacques Mersereau]

We couldn't talk live Murray . . .
it's tomorrow where you live :)

[Chris Hurd]

Well, it's possible, but I guess I'm somewhat blind to the utility of chat. Most DV-related chat sessions I've done before are fine for small talk, but I don't see the usefulness for technical conversation.

In this current particular arena -- asynchronous discussion -- the benefit is that there's a reviewable permanent record which can be appended at anytime.

Whereas with chat, I'm afraid it's more work to archive it and then search through later, and can't be ammended later. Guess I'm biased in this regard.

Look at it this way, it's "almost live." Are there particular topics that are better discussed via chat? Frankly I can't type fast enough to keep up with it, but I'm open to suggestions.

By the way Murray, plenty of folks are here from Oz. At least one or two others from Melbourne.

[Jeff Donald]

I can see benefits if it were properly organized. The Chat would need to be at a specified time and posted in the calendar. A fixed time limit would be needed. An established topic would be covered. Moderators would be needed and guest experts would be the highlight.

The advantages would be the spontaneity of the discussion. Sort of like going to a lecture and having a question and answer period afterwards. You never know what direction the conversation might go. But interesting ground might be covered.

The downside is the lack of a record to review. But overall it gives a greater sense of community. On our end it would require the commitment of moderators time, organizing guest and maintaining the calendar. I would be willing to devote some time to it.

Jeff

[Don Berube]

Jacques is correct, we would have to completely change our sleeping schedules to make this happen.

These type of forums that Chris offers are much more valuable than live-chat, which can be prone to a lot of noise. If anyone has something valuable to add, they can post it here in the Community Forums where it will be addressed rather quickly by many knowledgeable people. Don't forget that you can set your preferences here so that you are notified when a new post is added, or when someone responds to a post that you have subscribed to. Our Community Forum posts go a long way in helping everyone in the community by being asynchronously available, via the "Search" feature at the top of your screen.

- don

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Springboarding from Jeff's idea as "chat as lecture," probably the only time a chat would be apropos of DVInfo.net would be if there was some important "guest lecturer" whose schedule didn't permit regular participation in the boards, but for whom an hour of lecture and Q&A discussion would be possible and beneficial. To attract our featured guests, we could send out letters to the likes of

DV film gurus such as Stefan Avalos & Lance Weiler and Jason Tomaric, to discuss their experiences with their independent films.
Roberto Rodriguez, to talk about his "rebel without a crew" philosophy of guerilla filmmaking (deprecated since he has "gone Hollywood"?)
Steven Soderberg, to discuss use of the XL1 on Full Frontal
Tom Bull, producer of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which is shot on video
Russell E. Darling and Ari Rapkin, video engineers on STAR WARS II.

etc.

And then host a moderated chat which would be archived on the DVInfo.net main page. As noted, sleeping schedules would be the participation-limiting issue.

[Adrian Douglas]

I think what Murray is talking about is just a way to have a casual conversation with someone else with a similar interest. Like if you met your mate at the pub and just shot the breeze, no moderators, no rules, just simple human interaction. Like he said there aren't too many camera people in rural Australia, hell, there aren't too many people period!! Chris you know what I mean, he just wants to be able to chat to someone like minded. It's hard to sit down and have a beer when you nearest neibour is 60 miles away.

It was a good idea about the guest lectures but like was mentioned it's heading towards a full-time deal. This is a community and I think it would go a long way to strengthen what is already a good solid foundation.

[Zac Stein]

Murray Wilkinson,

I am in melbourne, australia.

There is a live chat channel that covers topics like in this forum a bit, but is a little more orientated to software chat and 3d motion.

But anyways it is on the efnet,

and the channel is called #dv-media

the best chat client to use would be www.mirc.com

it is free and is very easy to work out how to use.

Just join any efnet server and join the channel #dv-media


kermie

[Chris Hurd]

I like Robert's idea of a formally structured guest chat, although I'm not sure we could get some of those folks but we can sure try.

In the past I've thought about a guest interview and Q&A, however I think typed-out chat is a rather arcane way to do it, this is the 21st Century and all. I was mulling over the possibility of doing it internet radio style. Of course that's already being done in the DV arena (see www.dvguys.com), but not how *I* would do it, besides I've been thinking about this long before they ever got started anyway. It would run like a radio program telephone interview, but over the net via Real Audio most likely. You could call in, or if you're on the other side of the planet, participate via e-mail.

Adrian, I can certainly understand the need for a casual "have a beer" chat room, there's no reason why we couldn't do this, so it'll get implemented at some point not too far down the road... gotta get site updates done first then make it happen. Hope this helps,

[Don Berube]

Good idea Chris.

Aol does this a lot and from what I can tell, chatters can paticipate by typing their cooments/ questions, which then get put into a que and are moderated by personnel before it gets allowed to be inputted into the chat discussion. I guess not evryone's comments are used this way in the interest of allowing the chat session to flow a certain way, but at leat they do allow anyone to follow along and read the chat discussion as it progresses. From what I understand, these chat sessions are then archived so that they can be viewed by anyone at a later date and time.

Chris, what would you choose as a screen name? hehe

[Ken Tanaka]

Since many others are chiming-in on this subject I'll add my 2 cents, too.

I am not a proponent of chat facilities whatsoever. The post/reply format of this board encourages everyone to -think- about what they're writing rather than spewing one-line streams of cconsciousness. As such it accumulates a great deal more useful information for direct participants and subsequent Searchers than a any fragmented and ephemeral "chat" session.

I am also not a proponent of "special guest" live q/a chat sessions. During the early 1980's I hosted many such sessions on the old Compuserve system. In general they were a waste of time for everyone. It was far more time-effective for "special guests" to respond to a collected a set of questions and then to post the responses in a special area for everyone to read at their convenience. Here on DVInfo, where our membership covers nearly all of the Earth's time zones, I cannot imagine "live" special sessions being practical in any form.

So can "chat" be useful anywhere? Yes, but only where immediacy and subject matter are both confined (such as private trading networks). Large sites use chat "communities" to raise their linger/ad exposure times, an issue we do not have here.