My Perspective on the “Shout Box”
FWIW if anybody really cares ……
1. Information in the Shout Box is highly perishable and generally of a trivial nature. It is not searchable and therefore has limited value in time.
2. Shout Box is not a convenient place to make announcements on events and meets. Start of thread if you want to get the information out to members. Otherwise, in 5 minutes (or less) it will be gone from the front page.
3. Most folks will not scroll back 5 or 10 pages to get the gist of a running conversation. It took me more than 3 years to even find that you could go back and look at prior “Shouts”.
4. Overuse of the Shout Box is a relatively new phenomenon in the past 6 months or so.
5. Unless you are on the MM.Net home page at the time of the “Shout”, you have no idea what took place …. See #3 above.
6. It is rather awkward to sit and watch a “private” conversation on the Shout Box.
7. Use of inappropriate words or phrases that would not be allowed in a thread can move by too quickly on Shout and give a poor view of the Main/Home page of the MM.Net site. Difficult to control that.
8. Use of the Shout Box seems to be the preference as the “Lazy Man’s Chat”. See #17 below for an alternative solution.
9. I find the usefulness of the Shout Box to be significantly degraded with the volume and rapidity of shouts posted prior to the Shout Box shutdown. I enjoyed the Shout Box more when the occasional shout noted someone’s arrival in the morning or the evening.
10. The perception that the Shout Box is now the CAM Chat Box was initially a rather funny concept. However, I suspect that many non-CAM members are reluctant to jump into what may be interpreted as a private box for a small (albeit active) section of the membership.
11. Cluttering up the Shout Box with page upon page of “smilies” or “icons” by the tens or hundreds is pretty useless and juvenile. Some may see this as humor or funny. Not me.
12. I didn’t tend to use the Shout Box much when it was in operation except for an occasional morning announcement as a “Good Mornin’ “ to people who were on line at that time. I used it even less when it became a chat area.
13. To be honest, I really don’t miss the Shout Box (too much).
14. I realize that there are some members who like to conduct business, ask questions, or just plain talk through the Shout Box. I think that there are better mechanisms to do that -- Chat, PMs or Threads.
15. Not sure of the True Purpose of Shout is other than saying “I’m Here” or “Look at This”.
16. If and When the Shout Box returns, I probably still will not use it very much so all of this is really not a big deal to me.
17. It is easy to open “Chat” and just leave it open in another window while you browse elsewhere. Get in the habit of doing that when you log in to MM.Net and someone will always be available in the Chat Room. You will get a “Here’s George Jetson” tone when someone arrives so you can go check if a buddy is in the Chat Room. You get a “Door Closing” tone when someone leaves. Every post in chat results in a bell tone or something similar. I don’t have any problems with User Friendliness of the Chat …. It basically works the same as Shout. However, you can customize the settings, fonts, colors and tones. Pretty easy really. And your private conversation isn’t displayed on the Main Page for the world to see. In fact, you have the option to “meet” another member in a Private Chat Room for a really private discussion if you need to do that.
18. Sure, the Shout Box is convenient and on the main page. Maybe Chat is more difficult when using an IPhone. But I still think that Chat is the right place to well “Chat”.
This is all just my opinion. So flame away if you must.Just wanted to air my perspective on the Shout Box.
"Aarrrrr Type"
Bluerauder's Garage -- Pics and Other Info 
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I often wish other members would chime in from where ever they are. Not that I don't enjoy hearing from the CAM crowd. Everyone should know that it is there for EVERYONE.
JMHO
Originally Posted by Bluerauder
It takes up the whole screen, some members use IPhones and cant post in the chatroom, some members may not be tech savvy to use a chatroom...the list is kind of long of the cons of the chatroom. I miss the box, but I think some one just say, "Hey, the box is gone for good," instead of the answers we received. I like this site...and I like the members...So I am not going to let the shoutbox make or break me. I will stop typing because this can get lengthy.
sadly this is true we are shoutbox addicts.
