shout boxes get abused... bad. I've never put one up but I would imagine people would put anything from really bad messages as jokes to ADs for bullS#!t... I know that if I was trying to scam up some traffic for something less than ledgit I would think about exploiting something like that, especially if the site allowed links in the shoutbox.
I've seen them.. I've ran the idea in my mind... but I just don't think it will work out well with as much traffic as the site gets. The more traffic... the more that people want to target you.
Thanks for the idea though.. .please keep them coming.
-D
Yah you probably have a point there...