In a UX discussion titled “Start a new DM” in sidebar for users who cannot use DMs, Moin reports that a new “Start a new DM” sidebar entry—added via PR #34820—is visible to users who are not permitted to send DMs, despite being in “Chat allowed groups.” This creates a confusing and broken experience, as users cannot actually initiate DMs. Lindsey confirms this is unintentional and thanks Moin for reporting it. j.jaffeux submits a fix via PR #34450 to hide the DM entry for unauthorized users. Moin further suggests hiding the visual separator line between the DM and channel sections when DMs are not available, to improve UI consistency. j.jaffeux acknowledges the request and later confirms in post 8 that the separator line fix has been implemented via PR #34595. The issue was resolved with UI adjustments to ensure only users with DM permissions see the relevant UI elements, improving clarity for new and restricted users.
I just checked my forum from the perspective of a new user and found this new “start a new DM” entry in the sidebar[1]
However, the experience of using it was rather disappointing. The test user is in Chat allowed groups but not in Direct message enabled groups, so no user can be found in the search, which then opens.
Is this intentional? Why is this visible for users who cannot use DM chats?
No, not intentional — thanks for catching this. We’ll fix it up!
That should fix it thanks:
Is it possible to also hide the line that would usually separate the DM section from the channel section?
When the user isn’t allowed to chat at all, there is no line below the tag section. But when they are allowed to chat, but not to use DM chats, then there is a line below the Channel section.
Will look if I can do this
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@moin you already have seen it 
But FTR I made the followup:
