A shoutbox completely eats the sites resources, having it on a large site would definitely cause more harm than good.
A smaller site is a different story, though.
This is where lots of people are wrong, it depends on the shoutbox. Some don't use up as much resources as others, and are pretty much text on a screen relayed back to the board. Depends on the shoutbox settings too.
They shouldn't use up too much bandwidth too. Some act like a mini thread on a forum. But it all depends on what kind of shoutbox you have on your site. flash based ones tend to take up more resources.
Yea its makes people less likely to post
(12-21-2010, 07:25 PM)Time Wrote: [ -> ]Yea its makes people less likely to post
Quoted for truth, not only that but it does take a lot of resources.