A shoutbox is a box on your site where people can enter short messages, somewhat like a chat but not in real-time. If you activate the shoutbox switch at Admin Panel -> Settings -> Switches, the shoutbox will appear on the front page of WSN. You can set which groups can shout how much in the usergroup permissions at Admin Panel -> Members -> Manage Usergroups.

At Admin -> Settings -> General, the "Consecutive Shouts" setting allows you to limit how many times a member can shout without anyone else shouting meanwhile, in order to prevent hogging of the shoutbox.

Many discussion forum systems contain shoutboxes, as they help engage and retain the members with casual banter.