Thanks for your thoughts.
In fact, I have in mind that there will be a Jabber server with an
interface from/to MediaWiki. On the discussion page there will be a
"Chat" link (next to the "edit" and "+" links), so that
clicking on it
will launch the IM program (such as GAIM) with a session that is
archived in the discussion page from where the session was
started/joined. That is, the logging of conversations will be implicit
as users will start up their chats from within wiki. There will also be
a list of other online users in the page and a way of inviting them to a
chat session.
Regarding your comments:
1) Batch Edits - Please batch together IM dialog as a
single edit rather
than having each new statement in a conversation be a new "Edit" to the
page. This is to prevent flooding of the Recentchanges as well as the pages
edit histories.
Hmm, these are valid considerations. One would hope that conversations
are not too long. If you have IM sessions that are still alive after a
couple of hours then those outside the session might miss quite a bit of
the pending discussion page update.
2) Consent - It would probably be good to have a way
for your users to
"consent" to having their IM conversations logged as wiki pages since this
amounts to a sort of cyber-monitoring system.
As mentioned above, the IM conversation is launched from within the wiki
making the logging implicit, but you're right that users should be made
aware of this. "Use implies consent to archiving of the conversation in
this page" sort of thing.
3) Bot Edits - Depending on popularity, it would
probably be a good idea to
attribute these automatic edits to a bot user. This is to limit flooding of
Recentchanges and watchlist emailings (if they're enabled).
Kind of same as above. If an entire IM conversation gets saved by the
bot and assuming that there won't be more than a couple of these per day
then a flooding is not too likely. Of course an entirely different case
may exist on chat-crazy sites.
That's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Good luck!
Thanks Jim!
Robert.