user10401: Recently, many members of to community, including me, have noticed that our chat is very close to dead in terms of how active our chat is. I want to change that.
I've seen how chats can be beneficial to the site's quality and content. I do think SE chat can be important to a SE community. For example, many chats support the use of "cv-please" or "flag please" to discuss bad quality posts. Many times, members come to chat to discuss about their answers & what other people think. Chat can be a good place to give and get feedback from others. There are other events like Chemistry's TRE and ELL's TCE that use chat to improve questions on the main site.
Also, chat is a free medium for free conversation, and since we want a detailed library of content, we can't allow chatty comments and the SE spirit fights against those. However, humans are social creatures and they need social casual conversation. Moderation of comments would be relatively easier if we used chat for . . . chatty purposes. By making chat more active, many people would probably use chat, instead of chatty comments to questions and answers.
Many times, I am stuck using chatty comments because the user I am talking to doesn't use chat. As you can see, it can become a problem but if we motivate people to use chat instead, it is much easier for moderators and other members of the community.
So chats have repeatedly proven to be beneficial to the site's quality and content, and a friendly, easy-to-use interface for scientific discussions. My question is -- Should we go about improving our chat, and how can we do this?

user1590: I'd counter your question how do we improve chat with the question what's wrong with chat?
I don't see chat as dead, there are often users around willing to chat, and if I want to discuss something scientific I can. The limiting factor on the quality of such chats is the number of users familiar with my field. If I want an advanced discussion about a specialist topic I am unlikely to have much success here, not because people are not willing to chat, but because there simply is not a pool of users with enough knowledge of my specialism. With some users there are some common research interests, and those users regularly talk about their topic. I don't think we can improve this side by hosting chat sessions.
We also frequently discuss problematic questions, problematic users, and various other things which are also covered in the meta site. Also, often the users that need chatty comment sections to help improve their posts are new users, so simply can't access the chatroom.
The primary reason most users are here is to post and answer questions. Chat is a secondary function. I don't think I see a desperate need for improving chat. Perhaps you could clarify your vision for the future of chat, what should chat be used for?

user3624: I think the issue is that the main site has relatively few really active users, and only a subset of these are visiting chat (for different reasons). Therefore the chat is rather inactive. However, I think the inactivity of chat is a symptom and not something that can be fixed by only trying to improve the chat per se. If the userbase of Bio-SE grows, the chat will also become more active as a result.
This is partly speculation on my part, but here are a couple of reasons why the chat is relatively inactive:
1) rather few very active users on the main site,
 2) many active users are working researchers, professionals or PhD students with many other things to do,
 3) most focus their time on asking and answering questions and view chat as secondary (or tertiary),
 4) many are here for Q/A content and not to chat casually or "make friends".
I'm not saying that it is meaningless to arrange chat activities or to improve the chat description, but I'm sceptical that it will make a big difference. Also, I don't think that a change can be forced. Start filling the chat with contents that people find interesting and more users will probably come there over time.

10401: <p>Recently, many members of to community, including me, have noticed that our chat is very close to dead in terms of how active our chat is. I want to change that.</p>

<p>I've seen how chats can be beneficial to the site's quality and content. I do think SE chat can be important to a SE community. For example, many chats support the use of "cv-please" or "flag please" to discuss bad quality posts. Many times, members come to chat to discuss about their answers &amp; what other people think. Chat can be a good place to give and get feedback from others. There are other events like Chemistry's <a href="https://chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2940/the-great-retagging-event-episode-1-the-one-taggers">TRE</a> and ELL's <a href="https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2632/title-cleanup-event-tce-an-invitation">TCE</a> that use chat to improve questions on the main site.</p>

<p>Also, chat is a free medium for free conversation, and since we want a detailed library of content, we can't allow chatty comments and the SE spirit fights against those. However, humans are social creatures and they need social casual conversation. Moderation of comments would be relatively easier if we used chat for . . . chatty purposes. By making chat more active, many people would probably use chat, instead of chatty comments to questions and answers.</p>

<p>Many times, I am stuck using chatty comments because the user I am talking to doesn't use chat. As you can see, it can become a problem but if we motivate people to use chat instead, it is much easier for moderators and other members of the community.</p>

<p>So chats have repeatedly proven to be beneficial to the site's quality and content, and a friendly, easy-to-use interface for scientific discussions. My question is -- <strong>Should we go about improving our chat, and how can we do this?</strong></p>
 1590: <p>I'd counter your question <em>how do we improve chat</em> with the question <em>what's wrong with chat?</em></p>

<p>I don't see chat as dead, there are often users around willing to chat, and if I want to discuss something scientific I can. The limiting factor on the quality of such chats is the number of users familiar with my field. If I want an advanced discussion about a specialist topic I am unlikely to have much success here, not because people are not willing to chat, but because there simply is not a pool of users with enough knowledge of my specialism. With some users there are some common research interests, and those users regularly talk about their topic. I don't think we can improve this side by hosting chat sessions.</p>

<p>We also frequently discuss problematic questions, problematic users, and various other things which are also covered in the meta site. Also, often the users that need chatty comment sections to help improve their posts are new users, <a href="https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3294/chat-room-access-minimum-rep-override?rq=1">so simply can't access the chatroom</a>.</p>

<p>The primary reason most users are here is to post and answer questions. Chat is a secondary function. I don't think I see a desperate need for improving chat. <strong>Perhaps you could clarify your vision for the future of chat, what should chat be used for?</strong></p>
 3624: <p>I think the issue is that the main site has relatively few really active users, and only a subset of these are visiting chat (for different reasons). Therefore the chat is rather inactive. However, I think the inactivity of chat is a symptom and not something that can be fixed by only trying to improve the chat per se. If the userbase of Bio-SE grows, the chat will also become more active as a result.</p>

<p>This is partly speculation on my part, but here are a couple of reasons why the chat is relatively inactive:</p>

<p>1) rather few very active users on the main site,<br>
 2) many active users are working researchers, professionals or PhD students with many other things to do,<br>
 3) most focus their time on asking and answering questions and view chat as secondary (or tertiary),<br>
 4) many are here for Q/A content and not to chat casually or "make friends".</p>

<p>I'm not saying that it is meaningless to arrange chat activities or to improve the chat description, but I'm sceptical that it will make a big difference. Also, I don't think that a change can be forced. Start filling the chat with contents that people find interesting and more users will probably come there over time.</p>
