In my opinion, chat attached to topic are for short ideation/things that do not need to be persisted over time. I could think on my forum of a feature topic on which I attached a chat. The chat would be to discuss things in quick manner but to keep the topic tidy with only persisting replies.
I could also think of having a chat in whisper mode so only people in a specific group could see/reply to then finalize an answer on the topic while the side discussion doesn’t need to be persisted (I think to remember of a feature idea to allow whisper mode to groups instead of staff only?)
All in all, I would prefer a third column than an expand button at the beginning
3 Likes