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Currently the chat link on SE 2.0 sites takes you to the area in chat with a list of all the chat rooms. However, I would imagine many users would expect to see the chat link to a room dedicated to the SE 2.0 main site.

Should the chat link take you to the main room associated with each SE 2.0 site?

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2 Answers 2

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This is kind of a follow-up to Marc's answer, because I agree that people will expect to see their site's rooms, but it's nice to be able to see the other rooms too. Maybe they should just be divided that way?

Screenshot of divided room sets

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  • For sites like gaming, they may not see anything else...
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Oct 29, 2010 at 18:00
  • @Marc (1) why not? (2) why is that bad? Just include a link to the main lobby to see all rooms. It just shouldn't be the default.
    – Oak
    Commented Dec 8, 2010 at 22:31
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    If there are multiple rooms, the main one should be highlighted or always listed as the first one.
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 16:21
  • @Ivo I don't think chat has the concept of a "main" room for a site right now, but if it did that seems logical
    – Michael Mrozek
    Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 16:25
  • Well Gaming and Super User do have several rooms, but only one main room. But I guess we're unique :P
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 17:49
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    @Ivo Probably all sites have a main/general room, but chat currently has no way to mark one room as the master room for a given site
    – Michael Mrozek
    Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 17:56
  • Which is what I was proposing :-)
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 18:40
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Actually, we tried that, and I'm happy to re-introduce it if you like (for SE only). Your thinking seems to mirror Jeff's :) the problems we saw were:

  • it didn't give people to see what was available
  • it was inconsistent to jump straight in
  • often it simply wasn't the most appropriate room

Currently, instead, some of your site's rooms get an artificial boost into the first row of the results when coming from an SE site. Is that enough? It seems to offer a reasonable compromise of site-specific and "what is there".

Idea (edit): maybe we should highlight all of the SE site's rooms when coming from a SE site?

Edit edit: there's also te issue of login; we can do a silent-ish login on the room index, but not really inside a room.

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  • Well, the meta link goes to meta. Logout link goes to logout. faq link goes to faq. By symmetry, chat link should go to the site's main room (a room designated for each site) with links to other rooms like so at the top: Other Rooms for SE site xx, Rooms for all other sites.
    – user149013
    Commented Oct 29, 2010 at 18:43
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    @srikant - how is that symmetry? The meta link doesn't take you to the first meta question, etc. Logout and FAQ are completely different (there is no list) so I don't see how to compare them.
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Oct 30, 2010 at 6:29
  • Well- 'I need to ask a qn about how site works. -> Click on link to meta'. 'I need to find out how site works. -> Click on link to faq'. 'I need to ask someone/mods ask a qn. -> Click on chat - what is this???' Clicking on chat for a site should take me to the site's room so I can start asking a qn. Most users would not care about other rooms as chat is one way to get immediate help / talk to others informally. At the very least implement Marc's answer.
    – user149013
    Commented Oct 30, 2010 at 13:48
  • @Srikant - confused; this is "Marc's answer", and it is a statement of how the site already works... not sure I need to implement anything...
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Nov 1, 2010 at 6:37
  • oops. I meant: Michael's answer
    – user149013
    Commented Nov 2, 2010 at 15:06

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