I see what you are saying, and that doesn't have to do with the chat. The chat was removed for other reasons. But the problem with it constantly refreshing the page (we considered this for profile comments as well), is that with it constantly pulling information it would slow the site down considerably. Perhaps if there were an optimized way to run something like this, or if there are faster servers in the future, this might be an option. But as of now, it wouldn't really work.
It would probably slow down the site from constant refreshment, and slow down your computer while you have this open as a tab but are on other sites.Good thinking though.
I think this could actually be pulled off without too much grief tech-wise. While Flash or Java (as suggested by Drace) would be the obvious choices, I think you could get away with Javascript/AJAX and a lightweight, custom server that notifies the clients of what's changed.
I suspect the biggest problem would be UI-related. You're changing content while the user's browsing the page, so you have to be careful not to disrupt what they're doing. It'd be really annoying to have the threads jump around while you're trying to click on them because new posts change the order that they're in.
Yeah. Good point but there is a big difference between a chatroom and a forum. Chatrooms are also a bit of a safety hazard. There are some dangerous people in the world
