Hi Walt...any chance of a chat room feature on this site?

[cazz0069]

Just wondering if it has ever been posed to the powers that be to have a chat room feature available on this site?

 

Not sure, how and if it could be set up. But you could have a chat room for all the major cruiselines perhaps, if not maybe just locality. Any thoughts from my beloved CC`ers?

 

I suppose the one thing that would ruin it, would be having the unfortunate ability of being LIVE with a certain someone that has their profile cancelled every morning.... :)

 

I for one, would love be able to chat to 99% of the people on here...anyway just a thought:rolleyes:

[Kiwi_cruiser]

I suggest you e-mail your suggestion to community@cruisecritic.com / boards@cruisecritic.com .

 

As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums.

 

This thread could well be removed.

[cazz0069]

I suggest you e-mail your suggestion to community@cruisecritic.com / boards@cruisecritic.com .

 

As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums.

 

This thread could well be removed.

 

Thanks for that. Why dont they like people talking about cruise critic? Its not that i was saying anything bad...just putting out an idea and encouraging discussion...:)

[Kiwi Kruzer]

I suggest you e-mail your suggestion to community@cruisecritic.com / boards@cruisecritic.com .As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums.This thread could well be removed.

 

 

I dont see why.:confused:

Cazz has simply posed a question.

At times our board here is like a chat room,

as long , as it it relates to cruising.

Once it strays from cruise related topics,

then it can be deleted...or moved to the Floataway Lounge.

[Guest012]

 

I suppose the one thing that would ruin it, would be having the unfortunate ability of being LIVE with a certain someone that has their profile cancelled every morning....

 

I for one, would love be able to chat to 99% of the people on here...anyway just a thought

 

Live.....omg.......dread the thought Jas... a chatroom would be impossible to manage we have to let our Walt and the mods sleep sometimes...:cool::cool:

 

As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums.

 

:confused::confused::confused::confused: where did that come from

[Kiwi Kruzer]

As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums.This thread could well be removed.

 

We can talk about Cruise Critic, but not why some posts are deleted.

 

where did that come from

 

Walt welcomes suggestions.

We have had a thread re What this board should be called running for ages.

.

[Sandielle]

I'd like to have a Private Message button because, for obvious reasons, I don't want to put my email address on here. :cool:

[Guest012]

Originally Posted by badgerbill

where did that come from

 

Walt welcomes suggestions.

We have had a thread re What this board should be called running for ages.

.

 

:confused:David i was commenting on :confused:statement ........

"As Cruise Critic does not like people talking about Cruise Critic on their forums."

not entirely sure why you answered it in the way you did....:confused::confused: shiona

[rugbypopsie]

I would love a chat room too...lots of my friends who are involved in all sorts of stuff (SA National Parks etc.)

 

Re emails...you can always set up a hotmail account...easy to delete if it attracts unwanted correspondence. Then you can share your home email with those who you would really like to chat with.

 

I would still like to have some CC meet and greets on land...we had one before our Bangkok cruise where members on the roll call from different states each met up before the cruise it was great fun...we went on a heritage fleet ship on Sydney Harbour and everyone bought food to share it was lovely and great to meet up in person.

 

We are really all cruise tragics anything that supports our lovely addiction is great by me.

 

Fred, Kathy, Gai, Net, Robyn and Reg where are you?

 

[Guest012]

I'd like to have a Private Message button because, for obvious reasons, I don't want to put my email address on here. :cool:

 

It's the nutters out there that spoil it for the rest....not fair but better to be safe than sorry cheers Shiona

[cazz0069]

It's the nutters out there that spoil it for the rest....not fair but better to be safe than sorry cheers Shiona

 

I agree Shiona, i suppose thats why i would be reluctant...but if our little community were able to chat openly and honestly as we do now in a live forum, just thought that would be fun.

 

Sandy, thats another good idea is a message button. I like your thinking. Even so we could just send each other private messages. I`ll send off an email as earlier suggested...it cant hurt! :)

[Guest012]

I think we used to have something like that in the past Jas.....Walt will reveal all cheers Shiona

[Host Walt]

Cazz0069, you ask a good question, one that I'll try to answer.

 

As a member of the Host team, I'm a volunteer and not a part of management so I cannot provide any insights into the decisions made "upstairs." However I've been involved with Cruise Critic as a Host for 15 years so I can give you my thoughts, based on conjecture in some cases and based on internal communications and personal experience in others.

 

When Cruise Critic was first established on AOL 16 years ago it included a chat room. That's "A" chat room. One room that discussed anything and everything regardless of cruise line.

 

Given the very large membership base and the infrastructure that would be necessary, I will hazard a guess that a Chat Room for each Cruise Line would be unwieldy and very difficult to staff up with Hosts. An unmonitored chat room is very unlikely.

 

However I'll pass the word along that an interest in a chat room does exist.

 

As for other matters mentioned later in this thread:

 

PM is not available on Cruise Critic for several reasons, one of which is that it can easily be misused by those who wish to sell travel and/or other things. A PM system would have the individual option for members to opt out, which would probably be the decision by most after receiving a full load of "opportunity" PM's designed to sell a service or a product. There are several other reasons as well.

 

As for discussing Cruise Critic, per se, on the boards, Kiwi Kruzer stated it well. We're fine with suggestions and ideas like this but we won't permit threads with discussions about specific members or actions taken, such as the removal of posts and the like. Kiwi_cruiser (not to be confused with Kiwi Kruzer) suggested emailing community@cruisecritic.com and/or boards@cruisecritic.com which is also a good approach because those communications will go directly to those responsible for managing the Boards

 

I hope this helps. If anyone wants clarification of specific issues that are not of general interest or that may be inappropriate to discuss openly on the boards, please feel free to email me directly...as many of you already have on a variety of matters.

 

And thanks for making this particular forum an interesting and fun one to host.

 

A few years back there was just one forum, P&O Cruise Lines, with the result that it commingled posts and discussions of both P&O UK and P&O Australia. I had to push to get P&O Australia set up as a separate forum, The concern was that there would not be enough interest to support a separate board.

 

Thanks for proving me right. The volume of activity on this forum increased far beyond that which we had on the old, combined P&O board and continues to grow. The P&O UK board has also grown but not nearly as significantly.

 

I hope this is responsive to the original post and to the questions raised in subsequent posts. If not you know how to contact me.

[Host Walt]

While I was writing my reply, Sandielle posted her reluctance to post an email address; a fair concern.

 

I can help get email addresses to other members by special request while respecting/protecting the privacy of both members. Just let me know and I'll tell you how that can be done.

 

An alternative that has worked well for some is to create a temporary free email address on a site like hotmail or gmail and post that address publicly. If the address attracts unwanted stuff, you can easily just close the address, or just ignore it after it has served its purpose.

[cazz0069]

Cazz0069, you ask a good question, one that I'll try to answer.

 

As a member of the Host team, I'm a volunteer and not a part of management so I cannot provide any insights into the decisions made "upstairs." However I've been involved with Cruise Critic as a Host for 15 years so I can give you my thoughts, based on conjecture in some cases and based on internal communications and personal experience in others.

 

When Cruise Critic was first established on AOL 16 years ago it included a chat room. That's "A" chat room. One room that discussed anything and everything regardless of cruise line.

 

Given the very large membership base and the infrastructure that would be necessary, I will hazard a guess that a Chat Room for each Cruise Line would be unwieldy and very difficult to staff up with Hosts. An unmonitored chat room is very unlikely.

 

However I'll pass the word along that an interest in a chat room does exist.

 

As for other matters mentioned later in this thread:

 

PM is not available on Cruise Critic for several reasons, one of which is that it can easily be misused by those who wish to sell travel and/or other things. A PM system would have the individual option for members to opt out, which would probably be the decision by most after receiving a full load of "opportunity" PM's designed to sell a service or a product. There are several other reasons as well.

 

As for discussing Cruise Critic, per se, on the boards, Kiwi Kruzer stated it well. We're fine with suggestions and ideas like this but we won't permit threads with discussions about specific members or actions taken, such as the removal of posts and the like. Kiwi_cruiser (not to be confused with Kiwi Kruzer) suggested emailing community@cruisecritic.com and/or boards@cruisecritic.com which is also a good approach because those communications will go directly to those responsible for managing the Boards

 

I hope this helps. If anyone wants clarification of specific issues that are not of general interest or that may be inappropriate to discuss openly on the boards, please feel free to email me directly...as many of you already have on a variety of matters.

 

And thanks for making this particular forum an interesting and fun one to host.

 

A few years back there was just one forum, P&O Cruise Lines, with the result that it commingled posts and discussions of both P&O UK and P&O Australia. I had to push to get P&O Australia set up as a separate forum, The concern was that there would not be enough interest to support a separate board.

 

Thanks for proving me right. The volume of activity on this forum increased far beyond that which we had on the old, combined P&O board and continues to grow. The P&O UK board has also grown but not nearly as significantly.

 

I hope this is responsive to the original post and to the questions raised in subsequent posts. If not you know how to contact me.

 

Walt, you should be knighted :) Thankyou so much for the feedback. I really appreciate the effort put in. I understand totally the logistics of having a chat room for every cruise line, and it was only seconds after i typed it that i thought `Dam, that would be really hard`

 

As i mentioned earlier, it was only a suggestion, and life goes on, if it cant be done, but personally i find alot of the people on here really sweet and fun and would enjoy the opportunity to chat..i shall certainly send an email off with the idea.

 

Thanks again for being so helpful and thorough:) in your answer. Have a great day.

 

Cheers Jas

[Sandielle]

Hi Walt,

 

Many thanks for your quick reponse. :) I feel you have covered everything and am grateful for the suggestion re getting a private message to posters.

 

Cheers

[patseacruiser]

Then people would be chatting about their great travel agents or saying email me and I'll tell you who my travel agent is and that's not allowed. Just like posting a link to other web boards (especially ones that are travel agencies) are not allowed.

[Kinkacruiser]

I'd like to have a Private Message button because, for obvious reasons, I don't want to put my email address on here. :cool:

 

Likewise,....a private message area would be great, but after reading Walt's message, I can appreciate the reasons for not doing this.

Cheers,

Anna