Quote Originally Posted by OceanEyes28 View Post
The problem with a "chat" thread isn't so much that the staff hates when members communicate (other than me, that is ), it's that a thread like this can get so many replies that it's hard to moderate. And this particular thread would get a lot of replies, because it goes toward post count.

I am not completely against an ongoing discussion. But a spam thread is something I'd rather do without

I'm willing to wait for a few more opinions, though, before I do anything moderatorly here.
Fixed and quoted for truth(iness)

At times, such a thread would move at such a speed that you could find yourself with 3 pages within an hour. While all three pages may have small message content (like "OMG so true" or "STFU NOOB!"), it becomes insanely hard when said three pages are full of content, and not just any kind of content. Believe me, I've seen that. And not just any content, essentially a part-by-part response that becomes even larger with time.

Now, imagine that the General Chat mods (like Ally) have to be absent for a day, and for some reason the S-Mods are out for a bite. The prevalent anarchy may be so much that, eventually, the thread will have to be closed for intensive moderation before things run out of control.

Besides, not everyone will probably wish to use any other 3rd party system other than program-compatible Instant Messaging, which means you can make a big, big convo in the blink of an eye, and everything becomes quite informal (and sometimes, a bit out of control as well) It's even worse if it were thread-based, since mostly it would be rapid-fire postings, possible one-line post breeches, and who knows how much spam, left better for places where spam can be tolerated (as in, outside of the forum please)

It's like Godwin's Law (and not it's corollary): given any General Chat/free topic thread, the instance of spam increases with the length of the thread.