Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on December 30, 2011, 03:59:58 pm
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In order to accomodate some people that could no longer participate to the French Tinychat calculator voice chat conferences called TCAP ("T'as une Calto? Allons Programmer!") on Saturdays, we have decided to move the start time two hours later.
TCAP originally started at 1 PM Eastern Time and 7 PM France Time on Saturdays, to allow as many people from both continents to be able to join, without school getting in the way. However, not only we discovered that nobody ever joined the conference until 3 PM (9 PM in France), but this prevented one of TCAP founders to even be able to participate anymore in the past two months, due to working every Saturdays, since by the time he arrived home, everyone had left TCAP already, and when he was on his alternating evening shift, nobody would join until he left home. Since it seems pointless to start before 3 PM and that on Saturdays, most people can go to bed later, we decided to push the starting date at 3 PM EST/9 PM France time, which means that instead of finishing around 5 PM/11 PM, TCAP will now finish around 7 PM/Sunday 2 AM.
Of course keep in mind that the ending time is approximate, though, and is based on how most people generally stay around for 2-3 hours. The first ever TCAP conference lasted 15 hours.
Also these hours are subject to change in the future, especially during long periods of vacations such as Summer. However for now please note the new start time for TCAP French voice-chat conferences about calculators and programming!
Every Saturday 3 PM Eastern Time (9 PM Eastern Time), including tomorrow, on http://www.tinychat.com/tcap
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I was kinda confused with all that stuff, but I guess it makes sense. But what about people who would only get on in the afternoon? That why I thought making this begin in the afternoon, just make sure everyone is there when you get on.
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Oh ok, but then the issue is that making it last so long would split the amount of people online, so at each time there may be like 3-4 people on max. Also if it's done only during afternoon of their time, then we both won't be able to get on, since we both wake up pretty late (except when I work, but then I'm not even home anyway). It's best to concentrate it into a smaller time frame, so there are more people online at once.
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Yeah it's kinda hard to define an hour. Actually, I would just say that everyone are free to get on anytime they want, just to make sure everyone is on at 3PM/9PM.
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Well I still think it would be best if the time frame was not too wide. If for example half of the people who used to join at 9 PM now joined at 3 PM instead, then that's 9 AM for us, and often we're not even awake yet (same for most americans who sometimes frequents TCAP).
Something that would be nice is if you had some sort of bot that checked tinychat.com/tcap every 30 minute or so to scan how many people are online, then update the total in a site ezblock or something (defaulting to 0 when Tinychat is down). That might make it easier for people to know when there are people on. Else it's kinda hit-n-miss with such long time frame.
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That might be a good idea. If there's APIs about that.
Edit: Oh yeah there is a way but it's under maintenance.
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I kinda doubt they have, although I heard it was possible to scan a webpage or something to grab some info. In any case, though, it would be best if there were no thing such as AJAX, Java, Flash, etc on the main page. :P
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Well, a quick search told me to get an application key and get some stuff with PHP, but the section about that on Tinychat is closed.
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Ah ok, maybe it's a removed feature.
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There are always people on TCAP ?
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I don't know for the last two conferences, because Juju was not on and apparently HCWP was pretty empty too, but I assume there are still people showing up from time to time. Just make sure to be ready for 3 PM GMT-5 as others arrive I guess. I myself hope I can participate again once they fixed my work schedules and the ones of one my work teamate (mistakes in them caused me to lose all my Saturdays).
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Ok, thanks for the answer Dj_O. I hope it will be quickly resolved for your work.
I will make a news for the next TCAP to attract people.
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People showed up last Saturday, but not for an extended period of time.
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Dac, c'est noté !
PS : pourquoi la news n'est pas en français ? O_o
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Because Omni front page is english-only :P