google-hangouts
Aside from the obvious (the line item for the conversation disappears from active chats and appears in the list of Archived Hangouts), what exactly are the effects of "Archiving" a conversation in Google Hangouts?
(in particular, i'd like to know the effect on synching with Hangouts on Android; but any other effects as well)
I have had this same issue on webinars and the best solution I came up with was to log in with another account on another computer. You could similarly set it up with a second monitor
Another solution I used was if I had someone else online helping me, I had them sit in the hangout and text me the questions (or I would sit in and text it to them). It doesn't directly fix you issue, but that is how I solved it
Simply click the user you prioritised again (they should have a blue outline around them) and Google+ Hangouts will resume automatically prioritising the user speaking loudest.
Best Answer
It de-clutters your chat list. The conversation remains in your archived conversation list though and is available at hangouts.google.com (although it's a little hidden) and in the "Archived" section of the Android app.
Presumably if you add to an archived conversation it will become "unarchived" (as it's active again).
Otherwise, I don't see that anything else happens.