It's not a bad idea, but I'm against it. Just more stuff to look after.
Instead, why not put up an irc guide for the DATS channel so people who never used irc know how it works(or links to good ones/sites?)?
Its not necessarily that they don't know how to use IRC but some people might not want to use IRC, I know how to run IRC and I have the DATs server added, its just a hassle and i don't like using IRC, I doubt im the only one
I've seen some sites that had server problems with shoutboxes, although I doubt that this forum would have that problem (it was a major site with a ton of well... spammy idiots).
And it would be good for people who are just too timid to use IRC.
I can second this. I don't like IRC and the one time I went on it several years I got my head bit off by a random mod. Most of the people there that I've run into are rude and aren't willing to help a n00b out when it comes to downloading. It may have changed recently.. dunno. For downloading I'd rather use Isohunt.
As for a shoutbox. Nah. Forum's fine as it is, we chat enough here. I asume most people have some form of outside contact (Aim, Yahoo, etc) to keep in touch and talk.
An IRC tutorial wouldn't be bad at all. I've learned the easy stuffs to learning how to get off of either xdcc bots from groups and from fileservers through some. If needed there's also one guide that did it animated, step-by-step.