I took some time to collect my thoughts on this, I'm leaning more towards Shakers opinion here. If the majority (if not all or close to a 100% of the) online players prefer using it, then it's a good feature and it's good for players to have it whenever they reach a moment where it could be useful. I think we overestimate how big of a problem it is for SP players when the chatlogger appears. If fullscreen they don't notice, if windowed it's really not that bothersome. And if it is they can click it away which sounds a lot more simple than having to find the toggle or the existence of the feature itself. If players only care to play EP1-4, a chatlogger realistically does not stop them from doing that. These are players not super interested in JJ2 anyway except for a one off nostalgia trip.

The claim that the chatlogger making lives worse is a bit exorbitant, because the inconvinience is near neglible and non-existent. And why do we have to cater to people playing SP fullscreen maybe just once and having the chatlogger behind a fullscreen, if it's that bothersome they X it. Atleast they know it exists.

On the other hand it has a huge impact for those who happen to reach further interest in online or levelmaking to not have the logger. It would likely be until someone tips them off. It is true that online is a minority in terms in overall players, but not in hours and devotion. Having an approachable chat where you can have a thought later, save links and talks is one of the first steps to join the community. I'm not saying this is impossible without a chatlogger, but it's definitely a core feature that helps with making a first connection. These people could be the future of the game, so I think we should be more proud to share a taste of MP features.

I'll just state the obvious here that we can not expect new players to look up and read through the jj2.plus website when just starting out.

I also thought that the chatlogger could open conditionally when you reach the serverlist, but I'm just not a big fan of stuff launching/opening seemingly random for the player long after the game launch. I also don't know how windows would react to how the game is in focus and what happens and the logger pops up, or if you happen to alt+tab on a same interval. I'm sure it can be done in a non-interruptive way, but better safe than sorry.

At the very least the chatlogger option is as far as I know a clientside option and should probably be underneath JJ2+ options and not underneath Server options.