Even when PMs are made staff only (the most restrictive setting), a few system messages and PMs from staff (i.e. via flags etc) squeak through.
Of note, these are heavily suppressed in the UI, and only feature as message notifications for non-staff users. They are no longer discoverable in the UI once read (but /my/messages still exists).
This non-discoverability is a bit of a problem - how do I get to the chatbot tutorial? What did that moderator say to me last week?
Iād like it to be possible for all of those PMs to be chats instead, and to have Chat given a little bit more functionality that PMs have such as these:
Iāve spent the day reading on the differences between Chat and Messages, here and everywhere else that has now adopted it, as it made no sense to me at all.
Now it doesā¦ but the difference wonāt to many users and thatās now the issue.
Iām going to try out a different terminology to try and make it clear what it is and why its different, so iām going to call mine āLiveā. Thought iād share in case that helps anyone else, or anyone has a better idea.
I have been thinking about the role of both private messages / direct messages (which could really just be called mail for better distinction) coexisting with chat on Discourse, and I feel the former should never be deprecated (good to know it wonāt!). Discourse has a fantastic feature where its private message system can serve as a medium for email exchange to work with others outside of their organization, and email is here to stay.
Considering how the private inbox feature on Reddit has been quietly shelved away in favor of chat (I believe the messages icon used to be in the navigation as well, but now thereās just a chat icon), I wonder if there is a prime example on another platform of the two systems coexisting well. (Tumblr has a similar-ish system with an inbox for questions as well as a chat feature but is not the strongest example.)
Personally I do not see the value of synchronous chatrooms on a traditional discussion forum as I feel the ephemeral can rob valuable and authentic discussion and/or limits the tone of the actual board to a more formal one, but I recognize needs may be different depending on the type of community such as a more productive one for the workplace.
An idea maybe worth of exploring in your thinking: I feel there could be a strong emphasis on the synchronous/asynchronous aspect of both systems with an integrated easy āswitching functionā from one to the other.
The forum could detect if the other user is online or not and push towards the appropriate one. For example: āxyz is currently online, do you want to initiate a chat instead?ā when starting a private message, or the opposite: āxyz doesnāt seem to be available right now, do you want to initiate a private message instead?ā.
If the last posts in a chat session go unanswered for more than x minutes and/or the user is disconnected since more than x minutes, move automatically the chat to a private message. Maybe with some kind of āContinuing the discussion from:ā like when creating a linked topic and ideally with some quote/context.
In an ongoing private message, show a notice on the side when the interlocutor is online with āxyz is online now, do you want to continue this conversation in a chat session?ā and do the opposite.
This sounds nice to me as a coexisting mechanism and implies immediately the differences and benefits of both. Direct (chat) will also tend to be quicker and shorter messages, but that idea should come naturally to mind.
Iāve used PMs numerous times already for back and forth deep discussion. Discussion Iāll be referencing back to for years. The same cannot be said for chat, which we donāt use.
Chat is more focused on short and quick talk than focused deep and more one on one discussions. Two completely different things. Removing PMs would be a disaster and lead me to another solution.
A PM for each person in our family forums so they can update their address and stuff for us
Tracking housing applications (or anything that has tons of personal info)
Client messaging/group inbox
I see lot of suggestions on how the two merge may merge together, but to me it is already in a sweet spot: it can be turned on if needed; I turn them off on all my public sites, for instance, whereas I use chat. (Public in this case just means ānot privateā, weāre talking potentially dozens of simultaneous users .)
Anyhow, I continue to enjoy using PMs for a variety of activities.
.)