Halo

Chatboxes and Shoutboxes can be "forum killers" if you let them. If a forum based website allows a Chatbox to suck energy away from the forum, the administrator has one shot to nip the situation in the bud, otherwise you can forget about it.

The following below is not pointed at any particular member(s), just general observations.

I noticed a gradual decrease in members interaction on ANY forums below the Saints forum. Instead of less popular forums getting at least a post per day, they went to 1 post per week in some instances.

Chatboxes and shoutboxes can be great fun but there were the 2 factors that sealed our Chatbox fate. (1) I also saw people merely logging in and idling to look at the Chatbox alone; and (2) on 2 separate occasions I saw important "breaking news" for the forum and homepage was being discussed exclusively in the chatbox with no thread in the Saints forum... so members were like "let's just talk about it in the chatbox... oh forget about that forum thingy."

Therefore, instead of just closing down the entire website and just making it one big "chatbox" (which, btw, chatboxes do not produce any revenue with Ads etc.), I decided to remove the feature from the Forums home page only and put it back where it was for years before I inserted it on the forums home page during the playoffs last season.

The minute I turned it off I immediately saw people reading and posting threads and replying to threads in the forums, which is kind of the point of our site.
Just wait until we take away all the guns and weaponry, and freeze all the money in everyone's bank account.

Muhaha, You ain't seen nothing yet!!