PROPOSED SOLUTION (2) - Ignore the person who is kvetching (unless it's a CSR).
Seriously.
Right now the population is low enough at any one time that new people (and even less-new people) can ask questions, LFG, announce milestones, and say hello and good night all without overloading Uni and without too much sturm und drang. If the chat is really fast and furious a question might get lost for a little while, but there are usually those like myself who will go to /tell to help. And if it has gotten ... hot ... a quick note in CeB will usually get a CSR logged on to turn on the sprinklers.
The problem with a second channel is this: The newbies will go to it, because it is active, and ask their questions there, with the same result as now when Uni is busy, so we will still in effect have only one Uni channel. It will just be called something else. Oh, and the kvetchers will tell the newbies to "Use Uni for that!", which is, in my opinion, less welcoming than getting lost in the midst of a crowd of people who are obviously having fun.
Or we can use the current fuctionality to set up a channel "/channel Social" and by dint of forming a fun vacuum, we can drag all the cool kids over to it, but in the end that has the same effect as having an official social channel. If we get up to high population, then any universal channel will be overloaded, and we'll have to go to social channels (plural) or to Region chat.
-- My two cents as a longtime observer of social dynamics.
-- Bittty
Seriously.
Right now the population is low enough at any one time that new people (and even less-new people) can ask questions, LFG, announce milestones, and say hello and good night all without overloading Uni and without too much sturm und drang. If the chat is really fast and furious a question might get lost for a little while, but there are usually those like myself who will go to /tell to help. And if it has gotten ... hot ... a quick note in CeB will usually get a CSR logged on to turn on the sprinklers.
The problem with a second channel is this: The newbies will go to it, because it is active, and ask their questions there, with the same result as now when Uni is busy, so we will still in effect have only one Uni channel. It will just be called something else. Oh, and the kvetchers will tell the newbies to "Use Uni for that!", which is, in my opinion, less welcoming than getting lost in the midst of a crowd of people who are obviously having fun.
Or we can use the current fuctionality to set up a channel "/channel Social" and by dint of forming a fun vacuum, we can drag all the cool kids over to it, but in the end that has the same effect as having an official social channel. If we get up to high population, then any universal channel will be overloaded, and we'll have to go to social channels (plural) or to Region chat.
-- My two cents as a longtime observer of social dynamics.
-- Bittty
---
Remembering Tyneetryk
Phaedreas Tears - 15 years old and first(*) of true neutral guilds in Atys.
(*) This statement is contested, but we are certainly the longest lasting.
<clowns | me & you | jokers>