Don't apologise. I know what you are saying. It would be nice to be able to IM the regulars here. I just think it would be very hard to keep the conversation under control.
Wastedyuthe, I've seen a lot of forums with Chat Rooms, Heck, even some of the forums I work on have them. Generally there's no way of moderating them. I mean yes, you can hire Chat Room Mods, but unless you've got one or two for each time zone, you'll never have full coverage. 80% of the forums I work on don't have any problems with the chat rooms. So long as there are strict rules, and anyone breaking them is banned.
Another thought came to my mind: If a chat was installed, especially if it was IRC Based, I've seen a system once that upon a user saying a certain number of "Black Listed Words" it would kick or ban them. That could work couldn't it?
A "live" chat room would be pretty interesting. Imagine the live banter going on about games etc. You can pm others personally or just chat on the main screen. But, I see that it could be total chaos if everyone wanna have their say!
Those things are always a great idea, but no one ever uses them. The problem is no 2 people are ever in there. Might as well just get everyone's AIM or something and that way, you can block out the undesirables
