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I would like to make more use of chat so I'm thinking creating subject specific chat rooms might help. Apparently anyone can do it and they magically will pin themselves to the side bar of the main and meta sites.

So I've taken to plunge and created one that we can use to discuss Dharma books that we are reading. I've an idea that if it's a specific subject then people are more likely to chat. I would love to know what the regular contributors are reading or anyone really.

I've a though that we could gradually create rooms on a number of different topics (the sanghas we practice with, meditation etc...) . Maybe we could every few months post on meta to say that we will try to contribute to a certain subject. There are a range of subjects that I would like to chat about but don't fit into the Q and A structure.

Perhaps I'm over egging the site and I should just leave as is. Anyway feel free to ignore or downvote as you feel. Just a thought and all that

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  • I've just noticed the the main chatroom 'Buddhism' got frozen due to inactivity...
    – Rabbit
    Aug 26, 2014 at 17:42
  • @Rabbit Oh no. Can it be unfrozen?
    – Crab Bucket
    Aug 26, 2014 at 20:18
  • 'Frozen rooms do not allow any new messages to be sent, and are not shown in the default room list to prevent cluttering the rooms interface.' Well, with current rate of participation, all the rooms will be frozen soon.
    – Rabbit
    Aug 26, 2014 at 20:36
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    @Rabbit I think I'm going to make the effort with the Dharma books one even if I'm talking to myself. Sign of madness maybe
    – Crab Bucket
    Aug 27, 2014 at 11:37
  • Never fear: moderators can un-freeze (melt?) rooms. Just drop a link on meta.
    – hairboat
    Sep 2, 2014 at 16:25
  • interesting idea; an additional cht room to help topics be more convenient to follow; Buddhism1 is recent & in part ~for that (c.11/2020). thank you :)
    – M H
    Nov 3, 2020 at 9:25

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I think your idea is a good one, I'm just not so sure about your timing. At the moment the number of people here is still rather small. We currently have 46 avid user and 196 visitors per day. Compare this to a site like Christianity SE for example that has 328 avid users and over 3800 visits per day (which by the way only has one active chatroom). Furthermore it often takes people a while to 'discover' meta and the chatrooms. You are right that new chatrooms are automatically pinned to the sidebar, but I think this is only on meta, and not on the main site. Also, you need at least 20 reputation to participate in chat. All this means that even if we get new people, it may take a while before they will visit chat.

I think the most important thing is to first attract new users to this site. Most new users find us via Google searches so the best way to grow is to ask good, practical and interesting questions and provide high-quality answers.

This being said, I think it's fine to start new chatrooms. I'd start with just one if I were you and see how it goes. Perhaps it will work well with a small number of users and then you can create more chatrooms. But if it doesn't draw much interest right now, don't get discouraged. This site is still very young and needs time to grow.

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Perhaps someone should revive a general chatroom (e.g. the now-frozen 'main' chatroom).

I had a question about the site, didn't find that question answered on meta, and then didn't find any 'general' chatroom either, in which to ask about it.

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  • I've created a new room called Buddhism Chat. I'll try to post a bit to stop this one getting frozen. Cheers
    – Crab Bucket
    Sep 1, 2014 at 18:26

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