https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/jwme40/deprecating_community_chat_rooms/
created by schrista on 18/11/2020 at 19:23 UTC
1090 upvotes, 136 top-level comments (showing 25)
A couple years ago we announced subreddit chat rooms[1] for all communities. We received a lot of feedback from mods and users and have come to the conclusion that it is not up to our standards.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/93gsqz/all_communities_can_now_create_chat_rooms_also/
Our mission at Reddit is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world - and our goal with this feature was to provide users a convenient way to dive into real-time conversation about topics they love with other Redditors. Although community chat achieved part of the goals we had set, it met neither yours nor our expectations.
The feature was never widely adopted and over time we saw fewer communities and users utilizing it, instead opting for other chat features like 1:1 and group chat. Moreover, we enabled this experience without accurately estimating the extra work it demanded from moderators.
With that said, we are sunsetting community chat rooms and will stop offering the functionality for all subreddits, moderators, and users.
What will happen:
We’ve listened to your feedback and will focus on improvements you all have suggested. We still see chat as a key offering in Reddit’s future and will continue to invest in it. The chat team is looking forward to applying the learnings from community chat rooms into 2021 and beyond.
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/j69lot/adding_host_role_to_group_chats/
Most importantly, we would like to recognize the mods for adopting this feature. You helped us, provided feedback, dealt with moderation and - as always - were a valuable resource. We appreciate all the effort you put into this and are encouraged by your passion for bringing community to Redditors. Thank you!
“*You miss some of the shots you do take.*”
-The Reddit Chat Team.
​
Comment by Statue_left at 18/11/2020 at 19:40 UTC
553 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Thank god. I think we can all give admins credit for admitting their mistake here, even if it took longer than we wanted.
Comment by YourMothaWasAHamster at 18/11/2020 at 20:02 UTC
41 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Some community chat rooms have hundreds if not thousands of members, how will this be managed with the group chats, aren't they currently capped at 100 members?
Comment by MajorParadox at 18/11/2020 at 19:35 UTC
83 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Can we opt out of having our chatroom transitioned automatically? Or would that just mean we need to delete them before November 30th?
Also, are you officially no longer using r/community_chat for chat-related communication?
Comment by darknep at 18/11/2020 at 19:26 UTC
253 upvotes, 3 direct replies
thank god.
Comment by ohsomeday_ at 18/11/2020 at 21:47 UTC
35 upvotes, 1 direct replies
For some subreddits, their chat rooms are a major part of their communities' life. We also have a subreddit that relies heavily on chat rooms to actually do what it's been created for (providing translations for which setting up live discussion posts on the sub itself is an overkill). Features such as the ability to lock and unlock the rooms, and having a separate tab to keep all those rooms organized and in one place will be very missed; hope to see those being available in some form or another later on.
How will these new transitioned Direct chats work in terms of getting new members? Will we as mods and hosts have to add users manually, or will there still be a shareable link so users can join themselves?
Comment by Sun_Beams at 18/11/2020 at 20:08 UTC
64 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Do you think you could also now find a way to stop disgruntled users from hurling abusive private chat messages at mods? I know once a user is banned they can't see the mod list but even a simple post removal for breaking a rule can cause a steam of abuse directed at the mods.
Blocking users makes modding difficult and you can't mute abusers like you can in modmail.
Comment by zaphod_85 at 18/11/2020 at 19:30 UTC
299 upvotes, 10 direct replies
So next time will y'all actually listen to your userbase when we tell you that your new feature is garbage?
Comment by midir at 18/11/2020 at 20:03 UTC
32 upvotes, 3 direct replies
the extra work it demanded from moderators.
Was this something I was supposed to moderate? O_o
I didn't know it was there.
Comment by Xenc at 18/11/2020 at 19:34 UTC
25 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This is a positive step. Will you be improving API functionality for live discussions? It would benefit greatly from socket support or a way to retrieve new messages quicker.
Comment by [deleted] at 18/11/2020 at 21:31 UTC*
14 upvotes, 1 direct replies
While I agree it wasn't widely adopted and up to Reddit standards -- for some reason, our community in r/nbadiscussion really likes it. If there is any kind of amnesty you can give us and others like us, we'd really appreciate it :)
edit: upon reading the OP again, it appears that our chat will live on with all of the same users and us still running it? the only difference is that it will be called a group chat, be in a different place in the UI and the moderators will be called 'hosts'? sounds good to me, if so...
Comment by nemoomen at 18/11/2020 at 19:29 UTC*
35 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I didn't know this was a thing, the only chat I got invited to was a 2020 politics chat where no one knew how they got invited and the opening lines of the chat were in Russian.
Edit: oh and a few individuals have chatted me trying to sell me bitcoin or get me to go to their scummy scammy porn sites. But I ignore those. My point is that I have never had anything other than bad experiences with chat and I wish I could turn it off entirely.
Comment by iamthatis at 18/11/2020 at 19:51 UTC
33 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It’s been several years now since statements that it was being looked into, are there any plans to open the API for even just 1:1 chats so that third party apps can use them, as well as give moderators the ability to build moderation utility tools around them?
Comment by strolls at 18/11/2020 at 20:53 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Moreover, we enabled this experience without accurately estimating the extra work it demanded from moderators.
Yeah, guys never do, do you?
Fair play to you for recognising it this once.
Comment by The_Golden_Goddess at 04/12/2020 at 06:55 UTC
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
So, to add to my earlier issues, not that anyone "in charge" seems to care, I've found another thing we mods have lost by you turning our chat rooms into huge DM groups, the banned words list. In the last few hours I've been called a hoe and a n*gg*r all for telling people the rules. Thank you....mods don't get enough abuse. Also, if things get completely out of control, which they have been all day in my "group dm formerly known a chat", we have no way to just close it. No temporary lock, and no permanent way to delete the "room" anymore. Also, it would have been nice if you had sent a message to ALL reddit users explaining what you were going to do (before you did it). Instead every 20-30 minutes I have to explain to someone new what you did that made them so unhappy. NOT ONE SINGLE MEMBER in my "group dm" likes this change. NOT ONE. And seriously....you think mods want to be called "hosts"?!?! Subs that don't want chats didn't have to have them....why take them from the subs that want and use them, and make life so much harder for mods in the process????
Comment by ZadocPaet at 18/11/2020 at 22:13 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This really sucks.
Comment by EdibleMalfunction at 04/12/2020 at 14:31 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We as mods need the option to delete the chat and rename the chat. Leaving the chat is not an acceptable option.
Comment by Time_Terminal at 18/11/2020 at 20:01 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It can be hard to accept when things don't work out, but thank you for doing it anyways.
The relationship between mods and admins was really strained with feature. Hopefully we can all take this as a learning and move forward together.
Comment by KnightroUCF at 18/11/2020 at 20:54 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
So we may be among the few, but r/Forensics has loved the chat rooms. We were an early adopter and used is at as a way for our verified users to have more informal discussions. Happy to see it will still remain in some format, but sad to see it change
Comment by Spewingnonsense2002 at 19/11/2020 at 01:41 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm apart of 3 chat rooms that I super duper enjoy, one where I can have intellectual convos with little to no judgement between us all, one where I cant just be stupid, and one about retrogaming all with great people on it. But without a way to share a link for group chats, the influx of new people that is needed will die off, so I ask, as a user not a mod, that you please reconsider and dont kill off chatrooms, or at least make it so that we can create links for group chats.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/11/2020 at 05:10 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I guess that our sub was in the minority that really treasured this feature, and we're sad to see it go.
Thanks for the work you've all put into it, we really appreciated it!
Comment by UltraSolgaleoZ at 02/12/2020 at 17:08 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Can we separate the group chats from the normal ones somehow? Having a permanently empty tab seems inefficient and mixing them in with all the PMs creates needless clutter. I want easy access to chat with my friends.
Comment by [deleted] at 02/12/2020 at 18:44 UTC*
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by [deleted] at 03/12/2020 at 05:44 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Howabout we bring back how it was? Seems like it just moved to private chats. Now all the chat rooms and PMs are a mess. Not to mention this solves virtually nothing.
Comment by mirandanielcz at 18/11/2020 at 20:04 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I kinda liked the chatroom, sometimes. I'm really glad that you are finally listening to our feedback. Thank you!!
Comment by Ketchup901 at 19/11/2020 at 08:56 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
So this does nothing to prevent the new type of spam where people create group chats?
And where is the option to disable chats from random people who think it's PM?