Since I have not been on much, feel free to correct me if I say something misleading, wrong, ect.

When I first joined, the shout box was a place to have interesting conversations, goof around a bit, ask for help, the usual things.
I even remember at one point me and a few other peeps accidently broke it(many laughs were had). No one was punished, even though the cause of said breaking was possibly the spamming of special characters.

Now from what I'm hearing now it seems you can get punished for the smallest of things. I don't want to believe that, but I can't also believe spinny(and others apparently) would break the rules on purpose.

I don't know how much bandwidth the SB is taking, so I can't make a valid argument against that issue. But surely it can't be THAT much? Even with the increase of users (some of which who probably don't even use the SB, but that could also be credited to this issue...)

(My View on Why We Need The SB)
Using PMs to have a conversation with a bevy of people seems like an inconvenience to me. For one thing, others can't join in on the conversation unless they ask or are asked (which means filling the PM limit faster). Second, you would have to refresh the page constantly to know if you received a reply (Havetia). Third," OH and also sometimes the pages can be a pain I mean it can grow so large by the end of a convo. Because it's very hard to keep the convo if you wish because you have to copy it line at a time"
(thanks Havetia for your input)


I can't think of other reasons right now, but if they come to mind I'll add them later.

TL;DR. If the shout box wasn't there, we'd have more problems with inconvenience, threads about suggesting a SB would pop up, and new users would constantly feel pressured whether or not to ask a question about something that they can't find with the search engine(and may have or have not already been answered).

Once again... if I said something wrong or took it out of context, let me know. It's the only way I can get the full scope of the problem.

EDIT: Also, Yes lighten up on the rules a bit or the "unfair moderation". Otherwise I agree we should not have an SB at all. This isn't the place for drama.