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You may have noticed that over the last several weeks, we ran an experiment that added a link to chat on Stack Overflow and some Stack Exchange sites in an attempt to make it more visible to site members. We'll be adding the navigation bar link to the remaining Stack Exchange sites this week and next. These updates are currently scheduled for Wednesday, April 16 and Wednesday, April 23. No downtime or site impact is expected.

Stack Overflow and its language counterparts (Stack Overflow in Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese) will have a link that points to the normal chat landing page for that site. All other sites will have a link that goes to the general discussion room for that parent site.

UPDATE: Good news! The team was able to complete this in one go, so we're live on all planned sites.

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    what does "general discussion for that parent site" mean? Commented Apr 14 at 23:00
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    basically, in more common SE parlance - it goes to the 'main' chatroom for the site, for example "Root Access" for Super User, "Ask Ubuntu General Room" for Ask Ubuntu and so on. For SO, it'll go to the page that lists site chatrooms Commented Apr 14 at 23:25
  • @JourneymanGeek what about SEDE? There is no sidebar there. Commented Apr 14 at 23:30
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    SEDE isn't really a main network site - I'll also defer to people who use it more regularly to discuss if there's a SEDE chat and what the value of sidebarring it is. As someone who has been a proponent of this feature, I was very much thinking that this would make it easier for 'new' users to pop into the 'right' chatroom, so this wasn't something I would have considered :D Commented Apr 15 at 0:02
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    What Journeyman Geek said is correct on both counts - the room that was chosen, and that this is only for main network sites that already have an existing sidebar. Commented Apr 15 at 13:15
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    @starball Updated the text to hopefully make it more clear. Thanks! Commented Apr 15 at 14:25
  • bicycles.SE would like to volunteer our main chat for this experiment if you need another. Room 214 We already have something said almost every day. Commented Apr 16 at 1:21
  • Worldbuilding has (at least) two permanent chat rooms - I'm not empowered to volunteer, but I'm sure the mods there would be up for it when you ask them. Commented Apr 16 at 1:23
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    Oh, at this point, its no longer an experiment, its happening. Commented Apr 16 at 10:13
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    @Criggie No longer an experiment, but that's the room the link will be pointing to so thanks. :) Commented Apr 16 at 13:21
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    @W.O. No longer an experiment, but glad to hear folks are interested :) Commented Apr 16 at 13:22
  • @JourneymanGeek There is a room for SEDE. Commented Apr 16 at 15:58
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    Since when have we started shouting "(COMPLETED)" in titles? We've been discouraging "SOLVED" since I don't know when. Isn't that what the "status complete" tag is for, at least w.r.t. Meta..? Commented Apr 17 at 14:31
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    Accepted answers, and for posts like this adding the [status-completed] (which you correctly did here), is the correct way to denote a post has a solution that the author is content with, @Dalmarus ; not putting "COMPLETED" in the title. Commented Apr 17 at 14:45
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    Ah, it's part of my "I need to ensure the loop has been closed" personality - happy to adjust to meet site norms in the future. Commented Apr 17 at 15:54

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Can you make sure the main chat is unfrozen and the one that's actually being linked? There's an unfortunate pattern of "whoops, main chat got frozen for six months until some rando mod unfroze it" (example).

I do not like the freezing mechanism since it's really easy to create a new chat room and accidentally lock everyone else out of the "main" room (a ghost town on a great number of sites). Is there some plan to ensure these linked chats stay unfrozen?

Now that the chat link has been added, I've learned that the link doesn't change when the room gets frozen (so the link may take a user to a frozen room), which I saw on Linguistics. I haven't been trying to find examples, so it's disappointing to stumble across this happening already.

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    As someone who's more often than not the rando mod - ping me anytime on the assembly as long as I'm a mod and I'll help unfreeze any room on the 'main' chat server on request. I do believe that a way to prevent rooms from freezing on request is a fairly popular feature request and would obsolete this. Commented Apr 15 at 1:41
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    @JourneymanGeek The people on Meta, or those who already have a mod to bug, aren't who this answer is for. The ideal is that anyone who can find the left sidebar should be able to chat with no hurdles. Commented Apr 15 at 3:35
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    Least on the short term, its a 'solution' - I think having a unfreezable 'flag' on a room is fairly essential at this point Commented Apr 15 at 3:36
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    @Laurel Not immediately, but yes, this is something that is being planned for the exact reasons you listed above. It came up as a point of action in one of yesterday's future chat plan meetings. It's not ideal for you or the community, but anyone is welcome to ping me to unfreeze a general discussion room anytime while we work on making this change. Commented Apr 15 at 13:18
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    @Dalmarus Will you actually be identifying the main "general discussion room" for each network site when this link is added? My understanding is that previously there has been no label (e.g., in the database) of which room this is, and that it can be somewhat difficult to determine (i.e., it isn't necessarily the 'oldest' or 'most active' room). Commented Apr 15 at 15:23
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    @BryanKrause I did and it was ;) If the mods of any particular site feel there's a better room to point to, they can let me know after this goes live - this was the quickest method that allowed us to get this out soon instead of waiting for people from 183 sites to get back to me. Commented Apr 15 at 15:44
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    @Dalmarus All good; Laurel's answer here started with an "and" question and you replied "not immediately" so I was a bit concerned, but it seems you meant only about the not frozen part. Which, still hopefully can be done soon. Agreed that "guess and handle complaints" is the most efficient way to work in this circumstance, thanks for doing that fun job. Commented Apr 15 at 15:46
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    @BryanKrause No problem, and yep, I hope the frozen room issue can be worked on soon (I'm pretty sure it will be, but too early to be able to make any promises. Fingers crossed!) :) Commented Apr 15 at 16:38
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    @Dalmarus: Thanks! Commented Apr 15 at 17:13
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    @JourneymanGeek an unfreezeable flag is something Im looking at potentially implementing Commented Apr 16 at 0:06
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    @Wollzy: That would be great to have for both a site's general chat room and its mod chat room :) Commented Apr 16 at 1:49
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    @Wollzy It would be absolutely stupendous if we could get a follow-up post summarizing current plans re: chat based on all the feedback received on meta.stackexchange.com/questions/407158 -- there are scores of suggestions there; it'd be nice to know which are currently being implemented/considered/already declined! Commented Apr 16 at 19:23
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    Some sites have a Bot which keeps the room unfrozen -- e.g. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15162/buddhism Commented Apr 17 at 9:05
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    I don't know if it's desired but you can use either Sloshy or Toasty. cc: @Wollzy maybe these give you some ideas. Commented Apr 29 at 17:02
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Just to clarify (and potentially temper my excitement) - is this a permanent change or broadening the experiment?

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    This is a permanent change - the experiment post I made for the mods needs to be updated to reflect all this (I was tired when I posted this last night. Thanks for the reminder!). I'll update the mod post now. :) Commented Apr 15 at 13:19
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    Ah, a heartfelt woohoo then ;p Commented Apr 15 at 13:25
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Stack Overflow and its language counterparts (Stack Overflow in Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese) will have a link that points to the normal chat landing page for that site.

I believe that linking directly to our main chat at Stack Overflow em Português would be more useful than the landing page (besides the fact that the landing page isn't translated).

Here's our main room:

https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/11910/estouro-de-pilha

BTW, "Estouro de Pilha" is "Stack Overflow" translated

We are almost without activity in our chat, so concentrating in one room seems to be a better way to 'revive it'. Almost all of our other frozen rooms are mod-created moving excessive comments, besides other random things.


SOpt mod here.

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  • I miss the old politics chat room in SOpt. Commented Apr 16 at 20:03
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    The link has been updated as requested. :) Commented Apr 16 at 20:12
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    Thanks @Dalmarus, tested and working! Commented Apr 16 at 20:13
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Looks like this is live pretty much everywhere. Nice!

So... What about us? As in, what about Meta Stack Exchange? Were we lumped in with the decision to exclude all per-site metas as well?

If that's what happened I'm sure we can put a post together and decide whether we want a chat link, but I just wanted to verify that it's intentional that Meta SE was not included in the changes.

Looks like this has been done.

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Good (but probably very late) news. Actualy I have a very old (2017) related request on ruSO.meta to enable chat banner on main site as well as it has for meta:

Отображение блока чата на главном сайте

Now we still have only old banner on Meta, but new one is for main site exclusively.

Could we add that new Chat link to left panel on per-site metas as well?

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    The chat link was added to main sites only on purpose, as those using Meta sites a) still have access to chat through the normal route (the little speaking/burger icon in the upper right) and b) are generally more experienced users that know how to navigate the site. However, if this becomes a popular ask, we'll of course consider revisiting it. Feel free to make a new post on Meta with the request - it'll get more views that way, rather than a comment. Thanks! Commented Apr 17 at 14:25
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    @Dalmarus: I do think it'd be useful to have the link on all Meta sites as well, as there's not really a compelling reason not to include it there. But also, it should definitely be shown on MSE regardless, as it's a unique case. Commented Apr 17 at 19:46
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    @Dalmarus left sidebar is less cluttered on meta sites (at least for MSO vs. SO) anyway. It's not like it'd cause any harm. A consistent design and accessing Chat from the same place whether we are on meta or main only has positive effects and no negative side effects that I can think of. Commented Apr 18 at 2:18
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    @Dalmarus I disagree. Half of the users on meta sites are experienced users. The other half is the "why did X happen to post/comment Y" crowd, who probably don't know about chat. I also don't see the downside of including a link to chat. The other thing that could be done is that some sites (SO, SO in Russian, Mathematics, Space Exploration, and Matter Modelling are all of them as far as I know) have a chatroom for their per-site meta, which even experienced tend to be unaware of. Maybe you could link to that. Commented Apr 22 at 18:09
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Stack Overflow and its language counterparts (Stack Overflow in Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese) will have a link that points to the normal chat landing page for that site.

Would you make a change so it will land on the last active tab instead of always pointing to all rooms?

Navigating to chat from the top navbar site switcher menu lands you on the last active tab (for me, it is usually my favorite chat rooms):

https://chat.stackoverflow.com/?tab=site&host=stackoverflow.com

while the link in the right sidebar always points to all rooms:

https://chat.stackoverflow.com/?tab=all&sort=active.

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    I don't have a yes or no answer, but added the status review tag so an internal ticket is created and we'll take a look. Commented Apr 16 at 20:15
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Why doesn't the chat system kind of look more integrated with the common SO website? It opens up in a non familiar type website with an SO button on the top left.

This needs a lot of work and it should of been done before releasing the link of chat. Just looks odd from a design perspective.

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    Perhaps would be relevant as a comment, not so sure as anwer to this discussion - that is about the link itself. Commented Apr 16 at 20:30

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