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I was thinking about this.
OK, sorry, that was mean.
Anyway. I've been kicking around the idea of setting up a semi-permanent room on one of the public IRC servers. These are already up and running, and would therefore require no effort on UT's part. The technology is, for the most part, well-established and stable. It's overwhelmingly text-oriented, which in my view is a plus. And these days, many (most?) of them have web browser clients that mean you can click right in, with no software installation required. (On the other hand, experienced folks who prefer particular clients can still use them.) Most of them allow people to set up semi-autonomous rooms with a minimum of hoop-jumping.
One potential downside (there may be others I haven't thought of) is that some corporate networks reflexively ban IRC traffic on grounds that some spyware botnets use IRC to control zombiefied computers.
At any rate, I want to pick one out and run some tests. If it seems good, I may run it up a flagpole and see who salutes.
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