i personally like them, they build a stronger sense of community and are very sueful for guests with questions.

I'm with you there, I don't think my board would be quite the same without ours. I do understand why some people don't like them - I went through that as well, it actually took a lot of convincing to get the existing one put in.

I don't think they detract from the posting. Actually, they seem to minimise the amount of pointless crap posted on forums.

I find them to be quite useful - and I haven't had problems with people spamming my Cbox yet.

The size of your site is a big factor in whether it's good or bad to have a cbox.

After a site gets so large, it might not be such a good thing to have a cbox. Its function may be lost to floods.

I do really like having the CBOX. It allows you to speak freely with other members on the board. However, they do have their down points such as; they are easy to spam. You can block the IP addresses but that still doesn't cut out the spam.

Having a CBOX is nice, most of the time. It lets you reach someone quicker then then a in a topic, only because the CBOX follows you around. They get annoying sometimes though because people love to spam them, and sometimes they post inappropriate links in them.

I'm very fond of cboxes. AG is a very chatty forum and it helps keep the community strong (one of the main complaints about the forum is that the cbox doesn't store enough messages for members to read back over all the conversations of the day...heh). Can't say I've ever had problems with spammers, though. *knocks on wood*

Cboxes are a good way to speak as a community and for guests to get to know members. If they detract from the RP posting then the RPG must not be very interesting, I mean if its thats easy to distract people and all. >_>

I like them, becuase it gives a way for members to talk to eachother instead of having to pm them or something else that just takes longer.

They are crucial to my roleplaying communities. The reason I like them is because, as others have said, they foster a community. The argument against that tends to be "well, what's the difference between chatting in an OOC thread?" A cbox is easily accessible and works fairly quickly regardless of internet connection. Plus, you can easily chat with prospective members and quickly answer questions that aren't worth an entire topic.

However, they come with some responsibility. Some people are idiots and will use it for malicious means. It just needs somebody to watch it and be prepared to delete entries and ban IP's.

I adminned a site with nearly 10,000 members and what I believe was a 150x400px cbox, but the cbox was still possible to follow, though it did overwhelm some people. If size of the site is really an issue, resize the cbox itself - if you make it wider and deeper, it can hold more messages in the main display, allowing even more people to follow it.

That said, I wouldn't make a site without a cbox, preferably paid. It just adds so much to the sense of community, and ends up like a mini-IRC channel - so much lulz are spawned by it that it seems like a crime to go without.