Bad idea... Too many stupid fucks saying shit that no one wants to hear...
) That resume pretty much the utility of a shoutbox... shoutbox to me has the very same function of the famous "status update" that we found on many social networking websites (only this time, everyone can see it). Sure I know about the VB shoutbox and it can be configured to allow specific groups of user to use it... so no the shoutbox function in VB isn't an open barn as many would believe but I don't see it as a necessity either as I find those really similar to "Hey I'm here I need my daily 10 second of attention!" Instead of starting a thread and have people participate on it.
I have seen many websites having shoutbox and I even managed few myself and the trends that I've seen is that shoutbox attract those poor lonely chaps who normally wouldn't post a decent thread, but want the world to know that they had fuck today, yesterday and that they plan on fucking the next day (nobody cares and is it really true lol)... and often those are always the same little crew that take over the shoutbox and replies only among themselves. The new guy posting will be buried under a bunch of proprietary posts from those crew... and you can be certain it will happen, it always does.
So if you guys really want to invest into a communication plugin... install a chat, which people come and chat if they want to... and yes you can configure the access for the chat to start at a minimum of mandatory posts so the forum doesn't loose its thread posting usability... and well, chat is easier to manage than a shoutbox where (to be honest) it is a beautiful entrance for spam and stupid statements from people who often doesn't participate, but feel the need to have their 15 seconds of glory every day, every hours.
GH isn't Facebook, it is a social networking platform, but it is not a competition platform for popularity... at least I never felt it this way.