Grand Rounds

Feeds

12:11 PM

Susan has unfrozen this room.

Susan

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Q: Should something be done about frozen main chat room?

The chat room for health.SE called Waiting Room has been frozen recently. As far as I know, the SE software keeps always at least one room, even if it is inactive for longer than 14 days. However, since another chatroom was created and the "main" chatroom was inactive for long time, it was frozen...

^^ In my opinion it should be kept "warm" for people to chat as the need arises.

Martin Sleziak

@Susan I see that the other chatroom was inactive for 12 days, so maybe it will get frozen soon and again there will be only one room associated with this site.

In which case there will be no problem with this, until somebody creates a new room.

I see that now there is an answer on meta:

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A: Should something be done about frozen main chat room?

Thank you for pointing this out. I think it makes sense to keep the room open so that people can discuss things that come up. Chat rooms go through warm and cold phases, and ours has been on the chillier side recently, but that doesn't mean it always will be. I think it's especially nice to have ...

Susan

@MartinSleziak Why would that be a problem? Most sites have a general chat room that stays open (except when it gets frozen....) and other "individualized" rooms that are created for a certain purpose and then burn out when the conversation ends.

Martin Sleziak

@Susan Maybe problem was a wrong word. But if this room will be inactive for say 20 days and somebody then creates a new room, then this room will be automatically frozne.

AFAIK this is what happened now.

Susan

@MartinSleziak Oh, I see what you're saying. I didn't realize there was a policy that one room had to stay open, but I just read your first paragraph more closely.

Martin Sleziak

12:20 PM

This room was frozen on Sep 16, which is when the other room was created.

In any case, your answer clearly says that it is better if the room remains alive.

Feeds, M.D.

1

Q: Should something be done about frozen main chat room?

The chat room for health.SE called Waiting Room has been frozen recently. As far as I know, the SE software keeps always at least one room, even if it is inactive for longer than 14 days. However, since another chatroom was created and the "main" chatroom was inactive for long time, it was frozen...

discussion chat

Susan

@MartinSleziak Just my opinion.

(Good to know that we're faster than a 'bot....)

Martin Sleziak

@Susan Well, mod's opinion generally counts - at least on the sites which I frequent the mods are usually among the most experienced users.

In any case, the question is still what if that happens again. (Although probably such occasions are rare.)

Making again a new post on meta does not seem very productive.

Would pinging some of the mods somewhere (in chat or on a random question) be a reasonable action?

Susan

@MartinSleziak Why not? It worked this time.

@MartinSleziak Sure, that's fine too.

Or raise a flag somewhere (e.g. on the Meta Q&A we just did), and then any mod can handle it.

Martin Sleziak

@Susan To me it seems better not to make too much noise on meta and not to bump question when not needed. Which is why I thought that posting each time a new thread on meta would not be ideal.

In any case, if I notice again that the room is frozen, I'll try to bring attention of (one of) this site's moderators to that fact.

Susan

12:28 PM

@MartinSleziak Sounds good, and thanks for paying attention.

Martin Sleziak

Perhaps adding a few words about this (=what to do if this happens in the future) to the answer on meta might be useful.

It might give other users guidance what to do in similar situation (It is possible that if somebody sees that the room is frozen, they will first check the questions on meta about chat to see whether this has been discussed before.)

In any case, thanks both for the answer and for unfreezing the room. Let's hope it will be useful.

Susan

@MartinSleziak Done.

Martin Sleziak

Thanks!

+1 from me

I will wait a bit before accepting to see whether somebody has something to add there. (Another answer or some comments).

Although I do not think it is very likely to happen. (I see about 6 posts from this month, so meta.health.SE is probably not too active.)

Feeds, M.D.

2:00 PM

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Q: Could the first person to close-vote leave an explanatory comment?

This is more of an appeal than a question really. Namely, when a new user asks an off-topic question it is often close-voted without explanation or comments. To me, it makes sense that the first person to cast a close-vote leaves a comment to explain to the new user why this is done and (perhaps)...

discussion

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