Chat Suggestion

Suggestion Title: IM Style Chat Pinging Suggestion Summary: Allowing an option to toggle pings to occur anytime a message is posted, and not just with specified terms. The pings could be muted via a disable feature, either in the chat itself or with consideration of the busy status. Possiblity to have Desktop Notifications, blinking tabs... etc. Obviously it would only work if the tab is open. Positive points: Allows chat to be more instant, increasing sense of community. Prevents checking the chat over and over again to have no one messaging. Negative points: May annoy people if many people are actively in the chat [10+]. Reason For Consideration: I believe the original purpose of the chat was to increase communication with the users between each other and allow staff to also communicate with users in a new way, strengthening the interity of the site. However, the issue with the current chat system is unless you have terms, like your name, set (and even then, if no one uses your name/term but is talking to you), it is very inconveinent to find out if messages were said and to respond in a timely manner. Allowing pings that are able to be disabled allows people who want to be more active in chat while also doing other site activities (clicking, hatching, posting... etc.), but also giving them the ability to turn it off during high activity moments.

Desktop notifications are a different story, but if you want to be pinged for every message, set your pings to e or a, e, i, o, u, y or if you're really bothered a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, !, ?

No support. What's the point? You can literally just put the entire alphabet into the ping notifications.

While I understand this as a possible solution, this also notifies me when I'm posting which is pretty unnecessary. Skype and other programs don't blip whenever the user themselves are posting because the primary function is to alert the user to other people participating into the conversation. Adding to that, I still am not entirely fond of the noise and I feel as though there could be a benefit to tabs flashing the "new message" tagline or a desktop notification. It's not something that would be high priority, of course, but would add functionality and quality of life for a communication method everyone can use.