Would list of chat rooms (and chat room suggestions) be useful?

Question

To some extent this can be considered as a follow-up of this question: Increasing chat use, pros, cons and the tour. It more-or-less asks how to help in making chat rooms successful. One of possible reasons why some of the chat rooms fail might be that users are unaware of existence of some chat rooms. (In my answer there I have posted some suggestions which might improve visibility of a room - at least those which I was able to think of.)

Examples of some chat rooms which used to exist or still exist but are only scarcely visited are: Algebraic geometry, Calculus and analysis, Commutative algebra, Complex analysis, Differential geometry, Finite group theory, Functional analysis, General topology, Geometry, Geometry and topology, Linear and abstract algebra, Number theory, Set theory, ... Probably some of those areas are unlikely to generate too much interest, but some of them are probably quite popular (at least judging by the numbers of questions in the corresponding tags).

Apart from that there are a few rooms which are supposed to be study groups or reading groups. (Some of them have already been frozen, a few of them still exist.) And there are also rooms which are kind of "meta"-rooms - not directly related to mathematics but closer to maintenance and moderating this site.

1. Would it help to have here on meta some list of specialized chat rooms? (In order to make more users aware of existence of those rooms.)
2. Could it be useful to make also meta post where suggestions for new rooms could be collected? (And from voting we could see whether there is interest of other users in those rooms. The same is true about voting in the list suggested in my first point.)
3. If we decide to create a post for this purpose, would it be better to have one thread, or should the post with suggestions and the post with existing room be separated?

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that a similar thread exists at MathOverflow: Specialized chat rooms. (Admittedly, neither this thread nor chat on MO in general attract any substantial activity. The only room on MO which currently has many users and non-negligible activity is Homotopy Theory.)

Answer 1

1. Would it help to have here on meta some list of specialized chat rooms? (In order to make more users aware of existence of those rooms.)

I am not sure if it would help, but it can hardly hurt. One might create a faq for it. Something like: "What are the chat rooms of the site?" It could contain a list with short descriptions, maybe structured a bit over different answers. But as a start one could start out with just a basic list. One could even add a few rooms on other sites that seem particularly relevant to this site.

I think this could be useful as while chat allows to display the rooms of the site, the dynamics of how rooms are displayed can make it hard to find everything of interest.

2. Could it be useful to make also meta post where suggestions for new rooms could be collected? (And from voting we could see whether there is interest of other users in those rooms. The same is true about voting in the list suggested in my first point.)

I do not believe this would be useful, and it might even be harmful as it adds some layer of bureaucracy. Somebody that feels like starting a room should just go ahead and start it. I do not see much upside in systematically sketching out rooms beforehand, especially as most things can be changed easily on-the-fly. Of course, if somebody feels they want to discuss a particular idea related to the creation of a room it's fine to post about it on meta. But, I do not see the point of a thread.

3. If we decide to create a post for this purpose, would it be better to have one thread, or should the post with suggestions and the post with existing room be separated?

As explained I am in favor of just having the thread for the existing rooms. Proposals can be discussed individually as the need arises; yet usually I do not see the need, and do not want a dedicated thread for this.