As a suggestion, maybe you guys could update the flash based chat room to something HTML5 based. A quick search around gave me http://www.estreamchat.com/ which looks vary appealing due to the open source code it has. A HTML5 chat room would be more friendly to Mobile users, Linux users, and anyone who is trying to avoid use of the Flash Player plugin.

I agree with moving away from flash, not only is it unfriendly to other operating systems and mobile devices but it's also a security risk. Personally, my flash updates multiple times a week and if I don't update it, it goes into white-listing mode where I have to click yes to allow it when something on a page needs it. Which gets annoying.

Another thing, our current flash chat has a bug in it where anything you type after a less than symbol (<) doesn't appear. So it would be nice to have that fixed. I also don't like how our chat room looks and feels like an AOL chat room from 1995.


But I think the real concern here should be figuring out if we even want a chat system. The flash chat was only created to give staff a place to chat during war time and other special events that we no longer have and it's almost never used anymore. Personally, I think we should maybe just focus on 1 chat (the shoutbox) or clearly define the roles of the two.

We had to stop holding those events because our flash chat systems crash if more than 10 members are actively using it at once. Our current server is not beefy enough for a chat system. Our last test of our chat rooms was in late 2012 though. We've upgraded and optimized since then. I've thought about trying to hold events again, maybe an IMVU black market meeting to discuss what people want to see on the market.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:

@D.M We had to stop holding those events because our flash chat systems crash if more than 10 members are actively using it at once. Our current server is not beefy enough for a chat system. Our last test of our chat rooms was in late 2012 though. We've upgraded and optimized since then. I've thought about trying to hold events again, maybe an IMVU black market meeting to discuss what people want to see on the market.

All the more reason to find a lighter alternative such as node.js or something. Flash can be quite resource heavy. While our server certainly isn't the best and I would love to upgrade, I think we both (mainly me though) need to stop criticizing it and start designing things that it runs smarter. Call me naive, but I believe our server is more than capable of hosting a chat room if we were using a modern lightweight technology and improving load on other areas too.

Also, I think we should hold meetings for other things too...like what improvements people want to see to the site. You've told me you want to see a demand to make changes instead of making changes and hoping people come so that seems like a good way to go about it. After all, just look at this topic and my cms topic, that should prove there is an interest in changes.

This leads me to my final point. If we started planning some meetings like you and I have suggested, it would give us an excuse to start using the calendar system again.

I am available for any meeting we need to do.