I've seen it in a couple of threads and I'm curious if this is the direction the forum will be taking.
On the one hand, it's great for the regulars who just think of this as a casual place.
On the other hand, it turns the signal to noise ratio to mush.
As an example, I'll point to
http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=222 mainly because it's only three pages long, which makes it a bearable length. By pg 3 it's become a private chat room. There isn't a single post on page 3 at this time that has to do with the actual topic.
Personally, I don't care enough to do anything more than start the discussion. This isn't my forum. You guys can run it any way you want. The question is, what do you want this forum viewed as? If you're building a place for people who like shadowrun to hang out and chat, it's fine, and if that's your goal, keep on keeping on. If you're building a place to go to get answers, the absence of developers and the signal to noise ratio makes it close to useless. There is neither fast response or effective way of seaching threads (since, as demonstrated, they become chat rooms), which makes the official forums less useful as a research tool.