Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-24821496-20151106191617

After a nice discussion last night, I've decided that if we decide to have another discussion or have a kind of chaotic chat and some people want to steer the chat towards something that's more on a certain topic, we'll use something called the "!" system.

Essentially, there is one person who directs the chat, which can change from being a staff member depending on what's happening. If we decide to have a topic, we can go around the room in a list-like order for any input, or if you have no input, you can simply say "pass". If we have a lot of people (like 8 or more) try to limit yourself to about 5 minutes so that other people can jump in to the conversation. After someone talks, the person who is directing the chat will ask everyone if someone has a comment to make. If you do, you enter in one exclamation point, such as:

TheAdfeng: !

The first person who entered it in will get called on and can ask a question or say their comment. If you ask a question, be sure that it's clear who it's directed towards (either the original person or someone else). Only talk when you are called on, because this keeps order and prevents everything from being chaotic. Once everyone's done with their comments and such, we move on to the next person and the process is repeated.

If you want to have a discussion with another user during this time, PM the user you want to have a discussion with. This will prevent any confusion during a group discussion.

Hopefully this makes sense.

tl;dr version:

1.  Director of the chat will call on person who says "!" first. They get to talk first

2.  After person finishes talking, people say "!" to comment.

3.  Person who says "!" first gets to comment/ask a question first, then after they're finished the next person gets to talk.

4.  Repeat process to talk. 