They can be/are pretty much a waste of time, most of the time, from my experiance. But its fun to chat, get to know new folks and just shoot the breeze somtimes.
I have seen some rooms that are built into forums like this, where the same login info is used. That way the chat account is attached to your forum account and if you can be held accountable better for any rule breaking in the chatroom.
I don't see the people here as being very abusive in the chat room. We are all pretty tame as far as I can see. Just like anything else, it would need to be moderated. There seems to be plenty of mods here, and if more help is needed, I would be happy to help keep an eye on it, as i'm sure a few others here would too. Most places I have seen these room, if someone is causing trouble, you just copy/paste the ofending content to a mod or admin and they can decided what to do about it. I don't really see much of that happening here.
I think if a few basic rules were set, it would all be fine.
1. No dicussion of the "taboo" topics. Could make a short list, but would mostly boil down to anything to help commit a crime or anything designed to cause bodily harm to people or animals.
2. Complicated questions should be posted in the open for all to see and input/learn from. I think it should be establised that the chat room is for conversation, not a place to pop in, ask a question and leave. As long as thats written somwhere, I don't think it will be a problem. No one is obligated to help anyone. And its pretty easy to simply suggest they do a search on the boards or on google, and also most rooms have a nice ignore feature.
I would think bandwidth consumption would be very low, but I am not sure on that one. Anyone care to chime in on that? Once the app is open, your just sending text, i can't see that eating up much. Voice would take more I would think.
I think this is a cool and very do-able idea. I would be happy to help with it in any way I can.
Please chime in here if you also like the idea so we can see if there is any more support. Its not looking good at the moment.....