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IPChat needs work...


Shyatic

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I have been interested in IPChat, but looking at the options out there on the web (free ones!), I can't help but think that IPChat is *severely* lacking.

I don't personally care if you guys host it or if there's another way to go about it. With all the work on the other addons, it would be nice to see some changes for IPChat as well (and I'll be a customer!)

First, I need the ability to host *unlimited* people in chat. In my case, and I'd venture to say others, chat can be a one directional thing that allows moderated discussion for huge "events", not just for forum members. Think bigger guys! If I am broadcasting an event like a podcast live, and people want to ask questions, then I need a medium to do that. Right now I've found things like Facebook live streaming (which is going away), Disqus, MSN chat, etc.

The other feature request I'd have is to have multiple chat rooms for different topics -- again, unlimited. I want to have different chat rooms to target different segments of things in my site. The vision of IPS has always been forum heavy, and now with the decoupling of forum from the rest of the products, I'd like to see the same benefit for chat.

Having heavy moderation features (or the ability for "streaming" chat to support things like live podcasts -- my intention) is huge. I want to be able to have flood control (one comment per minute, or whatever), have the ability to take moderated comments through a medium, etc.

I am not asking for all of these features NOW! -- but rather asking if you guys intend on expanding the role of IPChat, or keeping it as useless and pointless as it is. I love the interface, it's got great potential, but in order to really tie together my community I'd rather have an integrated chat client with a lot of flexibility rather than worry about integrating a 3rd party that is uglier and doesn't work as well.

Additionally, I think it's imperitively important to have the ability to self-host this... because for my needs, my site will need a LOT of chat options and likely, you won't be able to support what I'm trying to do.

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm personally a control freak. I want to be able to self-host almost everything. I don't like having to rely on third parties for any core functionality on my site.

That's why I spent hundreds on an IP.Board license and spend around $170/month just to maintain the dedicated server I use to host my community.

So I never showed much interest in IP.Chat. If I were to ever actually using it, I'd want to be able to host it myself.

I'm not saying IP.Board should or shouldn't release the code for IP.Chat to everyone, but just stating why I don't use it myself.

I'm sure one of the reasons IP.Chat is hosted through Invision Power is due to the fact many clients use a shared hosting service that would likely rage if their larger clients started hosting such a service on their servers, but for people like me who have invested in their own dedicated servers, hosting such a service would be easy.

Basically, I'd support giving people the option between "Invision Power hosting" for IP.Chat and a self-hosted license. Obviously, the self-hosted license would have no set limits (as that is beyond completely unethical to even try to do), but the client would be responsible for ensuring they have a hosting service powerful enough to host such a service.

I guess I should also probably note that I wouldn't switch to IP.Chat regardless of what happens, as my community has been using IRC for nearly two years now.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm personally a control freak. I want to be able to self-host almost everything. I don't like having to rely on third parties for any core functionality on my site.



That's why I spent hundreds on an IP.Board license and spend around $170/month just to maintain the dedicated server I use to host my community.



So I never showed much interest in IP.Chat. If I were to ever actually using it, I'd want to be able to host it myself.



I'm not saying IP.Board should or shouldn't release the code for IP.Chat to everyone, but just stating why I don't use it myself.



I'm sure one of the reasons IP.Chat is hosted through Invision Power is due to the fact many clients use a shared hosting service that would likely rage if their larger clients started hosting such a service on their servers, but for people like me who have invested in their own dedicated servers, hosting such a service would be easy.



Basically, I'd support giving people the option between "Invision Power hosting" for IP.Chat and a self-hosted license. Obviously, the self-hosted license would have no set limits (as that is beyond completely unethical to even try to do), but the client would be responsible for ensuring they have a hosting service powerful enough to host such a service.



I guess I should also probably note that I wouldn't switch to IP.Chat regardless of what happens, as my community has been using IRC for nearly two years now.



Do you use something for IRC on your site?
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  • 5 weeks later...

Being able to self host should really be an option. While IP.Chat isn't perfect, there's lot of limitations I've learned to live with. Though for me the fact that the IPB servers are so unbelievably unstable after the automatic nightly restarts and their unwillingness to do anything about it within any reasonable amount of time, really doesn't make the paid service worth it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

"Rejected"?

We have a maintenance release in beta testing, and Charles has been working on something on the backend to improve service reliability and to increase the number of users we can allow in a given chat room. We have a lot of plans for Chat, in fact. :)

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"Rejected"?

We have a maintenance release in beta testing, and Charles has been working on something on the backend to improve service reliability and to increase the number of users we can allow in a given chat room. We have a lot of plans for Chat, in fact. :smile:

I hope those plans are BIG because only big changes and features will make Chat worthwhile. In addition, I hope we don't have to wait 2 years or more for them. There also needs to be a method to invite people from the forum to chat.

Think BIG and QUICK guys because it could be a real money spinner and YES I would expect it to be significantly more expensive than it is now.

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  • 5 months later...

Here are the ideas that my users had....

Ability to link to images in chat that are stored on our forum, rather than images on the internet.

Ability to invite people into Chat from the forum, inside the chat room

Ability to have private chat with multiple users.

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