Way WAY in the past, there used to be dial-in BBSs in town. There were like four of them, some with two lines, some with TEN or more lines (the big time, the major leagues! ten users. AT ONCE). Some were well organized and feature-rich. Others not so much. I recall specifically that one had a chat feature called "CB" like the radio. This was a terrible idea. Follow me on this: you were prompted to "join a channel" and the you selected a number 1-40. You'd get something along the lines of "Welcome to channel 3; there is 1 person in this channel." Basically, there was no way to tell if anyone was using this feature or where they were if they were using it... Sounds like your suggestion. I kind of like it, really.