wizgriz What if the same topic emerges, one in the form of a chat and the other in the form of a traditional discussion?
Don't know, am not in control of that, and don't assume to be in control of how and why all forum administrators would use that feature.
I can give an example of how I would, on my forum. We have 'match threads' for football matches. That's quite a traditional thing to have on a sports forum. But, we also have a forum-based chat room for this same purpose, which was a replacement for a separate chat room software installed some years previously. Which nobody ever used.
Now, 90-95% of our logged-in users use the chat room on a match day. It is tied to their forum account, and it fits in with the forum design. So it all feels quite familiar to them. Real time chat makes sense for live events, because in that scenario people are logged-on concurrently, and many wish to 'chat' with each other, rather than 'leave messages' for each other.
However in the way luceos envisaged chat room integration with forums, you would tie the two concepts perfectly together; you'd still have a thread, yet it would be a 'Thread Type' or 'Discussion Type' which enables instant updating of the thread and a notification of who is using it. I love it!
I have long thought about integrating our 'Match Threads' with our chat room, two ways, but this concept just brings them together in the familiar threaded interface.
And, I believe that sticking with the threaded interface as much as possible (as a Minimum Viable Product way of achieving this feature set) is actually a strength of my argument rather than a weakness. Done well, you'd bring these various discussion methods into that familiar web-based interface. Let's start with something that we know well.
The power of the system however, would be the ability run distinct parts of it on other parts of a website (like your blog comments), or to develop mobile applications employing those different Discussion Types. You get mobile developers involved in your project... you may well end up with official Flarum mobile apps and iOS & Android developers as part of the project, and who knows what innovation based off these concepts.
Which is why I would envisage them as being a core part of the 'engine' (though I'm not suggesting that I know Flarum in an under-the-bonnet sense, so I'm using abstract terminology, here).
