Reflecting on Chat 
While chat has been some fun to play with over the last few months, I’m not sure it is what the eHealth Forum needs right now.
The upside of chat
It gives a great place for informal chatter which stays open while reading / interacting with topics. The emoji reactions are nice, and it is easy to use.
The downside of chat
The notifications aren’t quite there yet, and are unlikely to be much good until iOS adds support for PWAs next year sometime.
The UX of the core site is busier due to chat, the sidebar in particular. It does scroll down to the bottom, so that isn’t a massive deal.
Confusion between personal messages and Chat is significant. Unfortunately, much of Discourse’s stuff is still PM based so they can’t be turned off.
Also, chat isn’t searchable at all.
In conclusion
I’m going to turn chat off for now. If anyone misses it terribly, or has some suggestions and the like then please let me know as a reply in this thread.