Live Web Chat Issues

[ApotheosisAZ]

damnatio memoriae

[curiousGeorge]

This indeed was the penultimate Phorum Phiasco. It's pretty sad when the most entertaining part of the "story" is watching the screwups take place in live time. Great fodder for snark, but pretty sad in the end.

It just seems that the whole vision that Mesh had in mind has gone completely off the tracks. We had fresh and original characters, excellent writing, mad skillz editing by Miles, and wonderful performances by Jess and Yousef.

And now we have this... What has happened to you all?

[nobackspacebutton]

350,000 is a blatant lie. The video was only clicked on about 100,000 times on YouTube. No way that every single person that watched on YouTube convinced 3-4 of their friends to check out Bree chat.

350,000 "users" may not be accurate but 350,000 main page refreshes wouldn't surprise me. That's where most people were trying to log-in over and over again.

Definately counting all the refreshes. I know I refreshed a million times...I had three windows open as I frantically refreshed one after the other.


Also A Suggestion

Maybe in the next chat, things can be so that we can observe more so than everyone spamming the page.

[Languorous Lass]

Wow. Sounds like I made the right choice in deciding to go to bed rather than try to participate.

I don't fault the creators or the technical team for trying to achieve something new, and finding that they were far less prepared than they thought. That's how lessons are learned.

For those of you jumping down their throats: please remember that this is entertainment we're talking about, and try to maintain a sense of perspective. These folks didn't screw up, say, emergency response in a national disaster. Nobody died or was seriously injured here.

What did happen: some substantial number of people (I'm not going to get into the debate about how many) were disappointed that they weren't able to get into a on-line chat with a group of fictional characters.

This isn't your last chance, people. There will be other chats. We will have other opportunities to affect the storyline. And presumably the team will be able to screen out comments like those from the poop and penis guys. (I'm definitely not sorry I missed those.)

[Kasdeja]

Maybe next time there should be a group put on 'observe' and only so many people at a time can 'chat'...if that's possible.

[Killthesmiley]

for an admins perspective:

the chat was a living nightmare! but ... murphy's law. we did what we could...

all i know is that my brain felt like mush when it was over.

Next time we'll be better prepared. and more forewarning next time too!! ok????? Just so we can have a better game plan planned.

[iamcool]

and it wasnt for us?

[butterfly]

Creators, you're doing a great job! Yes, there were some kinks last night, but overall the experience of chatting with the characters was a lot of fun!

[watchingall]

I applaud the attempt at something new and interactive, that was very exciting!

But seriously, you cant expect us to believe that you didnt expect that many people. LG is a huge part of a lot of people's lives and the chance to chat with Bree made a lot of people wake (or stay up) at really odd hours of the day.

I have so many questions that were obvious from the start.

Why have Bree state she's going to chat when the site obviously isnt capable of handling it and the new chat was not even set up in time? I realize you were trying to stick Jonas and Bree together to move the story along but... surely you had more than a few days to plan this.

Why was the chat not moderated? This is STANDARD procedure for every site Ive been on that features chats.

Why couldn't Bree have said, "hey i'll be at the chat on tuesday at 6pm pst"? "Tomorrow" is extremely unhelpful.

Besides the fact that the chat was not ready, why was there no easy to find link to the chat?

*sigh* Frankly Im disappointed. I know for a fact that several people (myself included) said that it would almost HAVE to be moderated purely because there ARE so many fans.

Again, on paper you had a great idea. I hope that if you decide to have a chat again you will look into these things and please for the love of all that is good and decent MODERATE these chats!

Thank you for LG15. Its exciting and fascinating and Im truly surprised that with the "donate" button, revver advertising support and all the media that you are still draining your pocketbooks.

[DontHaveAClue]

Ok, it was pure chaos, but from my point of view, we are experiencing the beta version of a new form of entertainment. The chat idea + interaction between Bree and Jonas was a really good idea. I just feel glad to be on for the ride. On my side of the world, I had to wake up at 3 am to witness the disaster. 5 minutes later I was back in bed. But I won't complain...no one forced me to set my alarm clock so early in the morning. So:

[goblynn]

Firstly--that was amazing. I've not seen so much chaos in...heavens, I can't think when!

Secondly--I still appreciate the effort, and regret problems arose ("best laid schemes o' mice and men" and all). Looking forward to the next attempt, I assure you.

Thirdly--and perhaps off-topic--is there any way you can provide us a figure/goal for donations? You've mentioned you're draining savings accounts...what sort of figure would slow down or halt the damage? My paycheck goes in Friday morning, and I'd be happy to skim a bit out of my Christmas money for you!

[The Creators]

There is an evolving transcript of the chat in LGPedia:

http://www.lonelygirl15.com/lgpedia/ind ... er_28_chat

[Lizard219]

I'll tell you, when I was a student in middle school, I was pretty derisive about what some of my teachers had to do for a living. Some of them seemed a bit lazy (i.e, reading to us out of the book that we could just as well read ourselves) and I couldn't see why anyone couldn't do it. Mind you, I was 12, but hey.

I taught middle school for two years since reaching adulthood. You don't appreciate the other side until you're there-- It was WAY more stressful for me to be at school than some of my whiney little darlings. Imagine 30 kids all clamoring for individual attention, hitting each other, goofing off, not paying attention. When you're an inexperienced new teacher, you start out trying to do things by the book and degenerate into, "Stop that! Stop! be quiet! Sit down! Stop! You're so about to get into trouble! STOP IT!" and just helplessly repeating yourself with a whirlwind of children who will or will not listen depending on how close you are to the stack of referrals on your desk.

Chat moderators don't get referrals. In UserPlane, they can't kick people out of the room or shut them up when they're being stupid and infantile.

It's really easy to just say, "They should've done it better." Then again, how many people saying that have ever tried to moderate a chatroom with 200 people in it?

Easier said than done. Like teaching.

(Incidentally, by the middle of the year, I got a grip on how to rule with an iron fist. All it took was putting the fear in them: "I have your parents' cell phone number and I'm not afraid to use it." )

[trip0125]

I am a casual fan of LG15. I wasnt going to post, but after reading everyones comments, I felt obligated to.

You moderaters\creators did what you could. I run webservers myself. If you have a huge strain on a server with hundreds\thousands of people refreshing 10, 20, 30, 100 times... Servers tend to slow down. Especially if they are not set up with that kind of load in mind. Some say that "they should have known there would be that many people".... or "They should have prepared sooner." I agree that they should have prepared sooner. However, they probably figured it wouldnt take much time to do the final steps required, because they werent expecting so many people. And as for them failing to expect them: Isnt modesty considered to be admirable?

Whether they actually had 350,000 individual people loading or if it was a few hundred reloading doesnt matter. To a server, 350,000 loads is 350,000 loads. It still has to put out enough effort for 350,000 loads. And as for the view counter only reading a few thousand loads, consider this: Most of the time people were getting "Page can not be displayed" Meaning the server gave up on that attempt or was so over loaded that it was not able to reply in time, which means that the counter would not register, since the counter programming is processed when the pages finishes loading. So while the server would show the attempt, the counter on the page would not. It makes perfect sence.

This was a very admirable first attempt to a under funded project of FREE entertainment to the public. They had big problems come up. I was in the chat, as i watched moderators, doing everything they could to try to get people to quiet down so they could relay. I saw them refuse to relay at one point. I dont blame them for that. They were trying to get peoples attention. They were TRYING!!! And people kept on yelling at the moderaters. Moderaters would ban the trouble makers and then the trouble makers would RETURN under a different username and tell others how to get back in if banned..... Moderaters, I feel for you and I am very sorry for your trouble in the chat. Creators, I feel for you as well, I know how troublesome servers can be, putting new programming, that is that complicated, into effect while thousands of page requests are being made is nearly impossible.

So in closing... Yes, things could have been done differently. But you cant blame the (free working) Creators and Moderaters for under estimating the turnout. Some of us out here know what your going through guys. Keep up the good work. And happy holidays to you all.

[The Creators]

Thanks for your understanding. Things will definitely be better next time around!