This might be a really dumb question from a non-techie:
How do chat rooms hold so many people in real time constantly chatting? While the chat would not be save able like FR threads, wouldn’t it be easier to get into and keep running in fast real time?
Couldn’t FR create a chat room only for special occasions? It would be up to JR to determine which events were worth opening the room for. Surely debates and election nights would be essential.
Would that help? Everyone just wants to be in a room with likemindeds at these times. We want to express ourselves and see how others are feeling. It has to be fast. But it doesn’t have to be a thread for eternity.
What about a special event chat room rather than a live thread?
Chat rooms simply echo input out to everyone that is connected. There's no record. The equivalent to an FR thread is if everyone was constantly reloading their browser and displaying everything that had been written since the post was started.
However, I think that a chat room would be a good idea. There are open source implementations out there, and a simple Java client could be downloaded into your browser. It wouldn't work for some tablets and phones, but it would be available to almost everyone else.