Taking part in public chats

Public chats let you keep in touch with the world and meet new people who share your interests.

Joining a public chat

You can join a public chat by clicking on a link or web promotion of the public chat you’re interested in. You will then see the community guidelines of that particular chat, telling you what rules apply to the chat and how it is managed.

Some chats will allow you to enter immediately while some require that the host or administrators of the public chat accept you as a member of the chat before you can view messages and post.

Chat members and posting

In the participants panel of the public chat you can see the other participants and their status within the chat. Users listed as ‘Chatting’ can read and also post messages. Some users may be listed as ‘Read Only’ and they can only read messages and cannot post to the chat. If you are listed as an Observer you cannot post messages to the chat at present.

Chat notification settings

If you’d like to manage how often you receive notifications of new content in the public chat select ‘Chat Notification Settings’. You can then choose if you wish to limit notifications to always notify you, notify you only if certain words are mentioned or never notify you.

If you select ‘Do not notify me’ an event notification will be displayed when new content is added to the chat, however the chat window will not open until you click on the chat name in the events panel.

Accessing your public chats

You can bookmark public chats that you’re a member of for easy access to them in future by selecting ‘Bookmark’ in the chat window and then choosing ‘Bookmark Chat’. To locate bookmarked chats in the future select ‘Bookmark’ in any chat window and select the chat you wish to re-open from the list.

Leaving a public chat

If you get bored of a particular chat then leave permanently by clicking ‘Leave’ in the top right hand corner of the chat window.