DISK LAMER: I translated, modified, and currently operate Chat@Heyuri (though all Heyuri staff-san help moderate it), so keep that in mind

Regarding secrecy/missing out on stuff: I'd argue it's the same kind of "ephemeral" experience u get with fast-moving imageboards, like the ones Heyuri is heavily inspired by. Much of Heyuri's past OC did not have the threads related to them archived, and now they can only be understood by asking those who were there to explain them (which we're usually happy 2 do unless it's drama related). Keeping public logs of everything would ruin that I think, in the same way that archive sites can often detract from the ephemerality of imageboards

Regarding separating users: there's a subset of Chat regulars who choose to not use teh other boards for various reasons, but many of that subset are users who either have little interest in imageboards, or were to some extent "driven away" from them by teh couple of name/trip-hating n00bs that caused a ruckus over them. Overall, I don't think the demographics of Heyuri's "traditional" boards has changed much since Chat was added back in December - at least beyond teh usual change. I also don't think there's any real reason to force users into using areas of the site they're not interested in

Regarding activity: I've been keeping track of Off-Topic's post's per month, and there's not been a notable decrease since Chat's launch in December - there was a notable dip around September-November (going from roughly 4000-5000 PPM to 2700-3300 PPM), then a big bump in December (5400 PPM), then back down to 3700 PPM in January. I think the slumps line up with exam periods more than anything else

(sidenote: there used to be users who complained about Strange World back when it was going toe-to-toe with Off-Topic's activity, so it's a little funny to me seeing users be concerned that Chat is taking activity away from Strange World )

Regarding "private OC": ...yeah, I wish OC makers there would at least post their image-based OC on teh imageboards - or at least use our own Uploader (formerly 2ちゃん) instead of catbox so we can find it!!!

Regarding drama: so far it's been no different to any other area of Heyuri in terms of drama. There's as much "drama" there as there is here or on Off-Topic - in fact I would say that Site Discussion is the current king of drama...

HOWEVAR!!!!!11

Chat can be just as much of a pain in teh butt to deal with from a moderation perspective as any other area of Heyuri, so I'm not completely opposed to closing things down just to reduce the amount of things I/others are actively monitoring. Many users seem to like it though, so I'm not eager to do that

Hakoniwa Chat on teh other hand... I'm more eager to kill that off