System posts: - " LEFT THIS MESSAGE X MINS AGO"

Product Support

AI-generated summary

A discussion is taking place about the system message “@USER LEFT THIS MESSAGE X MINS AGO”, which appears when a user leaves a Personal Message (PM). Biscuit points out that the message is ambiguous, as “leaving a message” typically means sending a message, not departing from a conversation.

Biscuit suggests rephrasing the message to “@User unsubscribed from this Personal Message X minutes ago” or “@User departed from this message X minutes ago”. codinghorror agrees and proposes “{user} removed themselves from this message {time} minutes ago”, but notes that “removed themselves” is not ideal.

Alternative suggestions are made by Biscuit and sau226, including “{user} exited {time} minutes ago”, “{user} left {time} minutes ago”, and “{user} removed themselves from this conversation {time} minutes ago”. However, codinghorror notes that “exited” does not accurately convey the meaning.

techAPJ updates the system message to “{user} removed themselves from this message {time} minutes ago”, but Stephen suggests that “left this conversation” would be a more accurate phrase. codinghorror points out that the term “conversation” is not used in Discourse, and that “Personal Message” is a more relevant term.

1

What causes this system message to be posted:

 @USER LEFT THIS MESSAGE X MINS AGO
2

The system message is created when a user in the PM leaves the PM.

3

ahhh. Okay. Thanks.

Would probably be better to say

  • “@User unsubscribed from this Personal Message X minutes ago” or,
  • “@User departed from this message X minutes ago”

Because “User left this message” sounds like it’s confirming when they wrote a message.

“Leaving a message” doesn’t usually refer to someone departing.

4

Oh I see, it’s unintentionally ambiguous. I can support that. @techAPJ let’s change it to

{user} removed themselves from this message {time} minutes ago

“removed themselves” isn’t great, but I surely can’t say himself/herself and I can’t think of a shorter way to state it, though?

5

Maybe:

{user} exited {time} minutes ago

or

{user} left {time} minutes ago

Those are both pretty short and convey that someone has departed.

6

Not quite the right message, though. Exit does not equal “removed self from”.

7

Maybe something along the lines of {user} removed themselves from this conversation {time} minutes ago.

Thanks

8

Done via

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/39d0dae5febca39c87568dff17c4215e1351d123

9

“left this conversation” is would make the most sense, wouldn’t it? They’re not leaving a message, they’re dropping out of an entire thread.

10

Thanks for your responsiveness. You guys are all great.

11

The word conversation has no meaning to Discourse and is not used anywhere else in the app to my knowledge. A personal message does though.