My site has a chat.

/shameless and desperate advertising

Yeah but we can't link to it. Unless were thinking of a different one.

IPB 3 actually does have a like feature, but it's disabled on BZP for whatever reason.

A chat might be fun but I can't see it working within BZP's strict policies. :/

I agree with the chat.

Chat would be far too difficult to moderate.

As for the "like" buttons, we discussed this rather extensively and decided that keeping them would be detrimental to discussion. Really, what's the point in forums if all you ever have is one-post topics and everybody just comes through and "likes" the first post?

I'd say a first post getting ten likes is better than a topic getting ten "I agree!" posts that add nothing to the discussion. A topic that gets no posts and only likes would still get no useful posts without likes, so it'd just be spam either way, really. Furthermore, plenty of other forums work with likes, none I know of have descended into people 'like-farming' and forums being spam-filled.