My ONLY objection to eliminating chat altogether is that the data usage by the forum (for my monthly phone plan) has still not, to my knowledge, been resolved. As such I NEVER access this forum unless I am in a WiFi situation - and I donāt consider WDW in park WiFi to be a good option ;). Thus when in the park, sadly not nearly often enough, I would use Lines Chat vs the forum.
Thatās odd - I use the Forum from my iPhone, and I havenāt noticed any significant increase in data usage. Have you discussed this problem with @len or any of the TP staff?
Iāve found that I spend less time on Chat and on Forums 
I admit I miss the side splitting laughs that used to occur back and forth that I can never find on forums and are now mostly absent from chat. That being said I generally post park questions on Chat-where I am most likely to get a quick answer. I use Forums to search topics before I post the question in case there is an answer here. I rarely post in Forums. It seems odd. However, @len that was a great answer
No. I just recall it being an issue, and the one month I went over my data allotment I had been accessing the forum outside of wifi. Since then I have only accessed the forum via wifi and no more overages. And this was the only variable.
I posted in chat on my car ride home, but now that I am home I can really write a response! When I read this post my first thought was , " yay, someone else sees that by splitting us in two, sometimes this isnāt working". Thank you @brklinck . Of course my second thought was, " oh no, this is going to get ugly, real fast".
In reality, there are not many people answering threads here. I love coming here for long term planning. When I was trying to get information about a quick trip to DLR, I came first here. I also went to DL chat and i was prepared and confident for my crazy, sleep deprived, pouring rain visit. I have liners to thank for that. It just feels ( at least to me) that many liners come to the forum for LaCava. It has become a wonderful place for our community to come together. We crazies that love to help people plan try to watch every thread outside of LaCava, pouncing on all those unsuspecting liners with questions 
Last month I was in the world. I knew I had a problem and needed some information. I posted for five hours. I went to friends and stated my reality on that day " lines is broken, and it makes me sad". One of my friends bumped my thread, repeatedly. Another friend told me to come here. I knew that coming here would not work from the park that day.
Liners are returning to chat. Maybe it can work now. I do know that this forum is being wasted. We should be sharing our photos, our saved links and our tips. We should also be saving our fun stories, our lessons learned, and the worst advice you have ever been given. Sorry, I will get off my soap box. Thanks for the thread.
I know exactly what you mean @PrincipalTinker. It often feels like there are only about 10 of us who answer questions regularly here. Iāve been told that I shouldnāt be answering so many questions because Iāve only been to WDW twice, but if I (and others) donāt at least try then some questions might go wothout a response!
Then there are complains that there arenāt enough interesting threads or questions here. I donāt get that! Anyone can start a thread! Just ask! If even a tenth of the Chat questions were asked here, then there would be more questions. Itās a matter of use and traffic. The only way to make it work is for more people to use it, but people wonāt use it because there arenāt enough people here. Itās a Catch 22.
I think both formats have their place. I use forum for private messages and browse the topics occasionally. It works well for trip reports, too. I like chat for the quick responses and to stubble upon something I didnāt know that I needed to know (balloon trick for the AC, etc). On chat several times a day; forum maybe once a week.
Sometimes I find I add a comment on a forum thread because there were so many comments about only getting one or two answers here but 20 on chat! I know one of you provided a full complete answer, but I will post too so they get more responses!
I do think most questions here get an answer, and I think there are lots more people answering questions than it sometimes looks like. I see your answers quite often @PrincipalTinker!
I hope that both stick around. I do agree that the data AND battery usage by the forum has not yet been addressed. I like chat for answering question and the forum for shenanigans with my friends.
My twist is that I made friends like you on Chat that Iām not sure I would have found or bonded with on Forum. On Forum I now have REALLY good friends and I guess Iām still meeting new ones.
I get irked now with repeat chat questions when people havenāt bothered to try to search forum for the answers.
I only found chat about a year ago. I found it very helpful both before the forum and after while in the parks. I still find things I didnāt know about in both places. I used to think I knew quite a lot until I found everyone on chat and in the forum!
I follow the same rules for myself in answering questions on both chat and in the forum and that is that I only answer if I know an answer for sure and I am not simply duplicating something already said. I find it easier to answer questions here as limiting characters is not my strong suit and I like the edit button if I make a mistake.
I love the trip reports on the forum, complete with pictures! I am very grateful for the company I find here everyday. I donāt have data issues on my phone with the forum but I do have huge battery issues with it.
I hope we can keep both.
I think it has been mostly resolved. You should be able to check your Wifi usage - on Android go to setting, data usage, check the Wifi button, and it will give you details on which program is using how much Wifi. (Sorry - donāt know how to do it on Apple. ) If you use the same browser for multiple uses, you would have to do a rough % allocation. Alternatively, you could use a single browser just for the Forum for a period to get an idea.
I find that data usage has dropped dramatically since the beginning - and I was one of the people who was very concerned, since I have a limited data plan and use most of my data for work related purposes. (Yeah, right. 
)
Yep. I have only been here about a month and a half. I have a brand new phone and always have to charge it one extra time on days I hang out here. Small price to pay, but it is a battery chewer like nothing I have ever seen.
But yāall are worth it!
I wanted to paste my response on chat here. I have felt for a long time I needed to address my absence from the forum!
Chat is like the Breaking News of Disney. I am constantly interrupted on my phone due to work 24/7. Many times I am lucky to have a full 2 min to read/post. I check in thru out the day and stay in the know because of chat. Forum canāt do that even when you choose latest. I adapt to all tech easily and have no issues with format, etc. It is strictly a time issue. I rarely use forum now because I liked the people and posts too much. Interfered with responsibilities and therefore interfered with making my WDW money! Forum is a catch 22 for me! I do miss the interaction with those forum friends! Chat is simply easier to fit in my schedule.
Basically, I am kinda an extremist. I am either all in or I just donāt participate. Didnāt want anyone to think I didnāt approve of the shenanigans! I just simply canāt give this relationship what it deserves, lol! 8(
Oh I understand @WendyWelcher_go_com. I have to take breaks from time to time too. The Clean Threaders still love you! No worries!
Iām fine with whatever happens, but I prefer the forum to chat. I use both, but I like the longer format responses, ease of photo sharing, searchability, and organization of this forum. Chat has been useful for figuring out whatās going on in the park on a specific day or if others are seeing outages on the Disney website, so I think both CAN exist. However, I do wish more of the chat users would contribute to the discussion forums and Iām a bit puzzled by the reluctance to do so.
Iāll note that I try to remain blissfully ignorant of online drama and have done a pretty good job of doing so here. However, I will add from my experience with other (non-Disney) online forums that whenever something changes a bunch of people will get upset and some will leave the website because they are upset. From what Iāve seen that cannot be avoided. Itās a shame to lose valued contributors and, for many, good friends, but Iāve seen it happen too many times to be surprised by it any longer.
Use forum, use chat, use whatever of that which is offered is most convenient for you. If neither works, there are dozens of other options for Disney fans to express themselves. Itās a chat, or a forum, about an amusement park. If thereās a less important thing in the world, Iām struggling mightily to find it.
Iām no oneās definition of too-cool-for-school, but the drama over this siteās social media (broadly speaking) offerings went beyond ridiculous a long time ago.
Iāve read through the threads on Chat and Forum, and I still stand by my assertion that Chat should be phased out in favor of the Forum. Liners form a very knowledgeable community, and it is not good to have that knowledge divided into two areas.
I have seen threads on the Forum that go unanswered when I know there are Chat folks who could easily answer them, and threads on Chat that really require the more in-depth answers/discussions that the Forum can offer. This does not benefit either area.
I would like to comment on some of the points that I have seen in this discussion:
Chat gets you answers faster. This is not a function of the interface, but rather of the users. If the Chat folks were on the Forum, there would be quick questions and answers.
The Forum is hard to use. I can see how people feel this way, as it has a lot of functionality. I felt the same way when I started using it, but as I used it more I found that it was in many ways much easier to get at the info I needed than Chat.
The Forum is not good on phone screens. I will agree that it is better on larger screens, but I have found that once you get used to it, it is quite functional on small screens (a landscape keyboard on iPhones is a huge plus over Chat).
The Forum is a data hog. This was true during the rollout, but that appears to have been fixed and I do not notice an appreciable difference that I can relate to the Forum itself. The same holds for battery usage.
In many ways I feel that this is a textbook case study on why you do not leave a legacy system operating when you move to a new system. Many existing users will not embrace the change, leaving you with a split system that does not benefit the whole.
As Radar says, āThat is all.ā