[Coco] multi-room live chat

[Roger Taylor]

Hello all,

I'm getting ready to kick start the chat rooms for coco3.com and I am at 
the point where I need to a little feedback on a few things.

I want to add the ability for you to schedule meetings for any room at any 
time, with a theme or topic for discussion.  Meeting times could easily be 
shown anywhere on the web site automatically.  My problem is that I'm 
trying to keep this as simple as possible while preventing troublemakers 
from abusing the system.  Examples of this would be somebody dropping in 
and posting foul language in a room, etc.  Language filters will be used 
for that.  Eventually, I'm sure I'll need to put in a mechanism for booting 
this kind of chatter out of the room.  You never know if a spammer might 
want to drop in and start posting garbage, etc.  I have to keep this stuff 
in mind, and it's not easy to deal with if there is no form of authentication.

Being able to schedule meetings is also something that I think needs a 
little bit of prequalification so that the same kind of chatter couldn't 
start scheduling false meetings, etc... such as "A meeting in the Lab has 
been scheduled for 7pm Pacific time on July 24th, 2004.  The planned topic 
is: How to pick up chics!".  There's no foul language for the filter to 
catch but it's not CoCo related, either.  Also, the ability to cancel a 
meeting has to require authentication to prove you posted the meeting.

So... one question I have is whether or not I should put in a name/password 
system so that each chatter has to sign up for an "account" to which they 
also have to reply to an automatic e-mail to verify themselves.  I realize 
that if I do this, the chatrooms will not be used as much as they will if 
they are based on an "open house" system (which I prefer).

Any suggestions?

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Roger Taylor