After all, there are tons of options for a chat; Skype, Vent, MSN, IRC. Even FB has a (typically crappy) version that supports cams, though I am unsure if that part works with group chat. Hard to be sure; spending >5 minutes on FB chat leaves me foaming at the mouth and punching the monitor.

Point being, I am unsure RAFO needs chat, but certain chat does not need RAFO; there are plenty of other media and, while none (that I know of) allow sheeping, some would consider that "a feature, not a bug."

For that matter, Divya floated a wotmaniac Skype chat not long ago, but that was on FB and right before my latest FB sabbatical, so I do not know if it went anywhere. The trick has always been (and maybe RAFO has the same problem) that a half dozen to a dozen wotmaniacs would show up, stick around for a week or two, then get impatient and leave because there were not more people, then a couple days later a DIFFERENT half dozen to a dozen wotmaniacs would show up and start the cycle all over again. That was why I started pushing for a Perm Chat: So people could see if others were showing up when they were not present themselves. But the real moral seems to be "it is a marathon, not a sprint," and if people want a community they must commit to it for the long haul so said community has time to develop and fill instead of everyone getting distracted by shiny online objects if they do not instantly have a hundred conversation partners on hand at the click of a button any time of day or night.

Speaking of that and FB, I am tempted to go back long enough to dragoon a few of the more interesting people from the countless political groups I keep getting added to there, but do not want to be accused of spamming (an accusation, after all, which would be fairly valid under those circumstances.)

Oh, and if you see Dan, tell him I said Brady is a cheating SOB who blows goats (and Gronks.)