Messenger
How direct message requests, accepted conversations, team chats, unread counts, read receipts, and reports work.
On this page
Where Messenger lives
Open Messenger from the dashboard header or from a user Profile. In the Web UI, it rises from the bottom as a compact chat window and leaves the page usable. Select a conversation, then use Back to chats to return to the list. Minimize chat preserves your draft; Restore chat reopens it. Opening the Assistant minimizes Messenger. Both remain reachable at the bottom, including on narrow screens. Close dismisses the window; Escape closes it when focus is inside.
The conversation list loads direct and team conversations, sorts them by latest activity, shows the last message preview, unread count, pending request badge, and disabled state for inactive team chats.
Direct message requests
Sending a direct message to another user creates a direct conversation keyed by the two user IDs. New direct conversations start with status pending. The sender can send the first request message, but the recipient must accept before they can reply.
The recipient can accept or decline. Accepting marks the conversation accepted and read. Declining hides the conversation and future attempts to reuse that declined request are rejected.
You cannot message yourself. Direct messages are write actions and fail if the sender is community-muted.
Team chats
Messenger automatically ensures a team conversation for each team you currently belong to. Team conversations are accepted by default and include current team members as participants.
A team chat is disabled when the team has fewer than two members. Disabled team conversations stay visible with a disabled reason, but sending is blocked until the team has at least two members.
Team membership is checked when conversations are listed or opened. If you are no longer a team member, that team conversation is not returned.
Messages, unread counts, and read state
Messages are trimmed and limited to 2000 characters. Conversation message history is loaded newest-first on the server, capped at 100 messages, then returned oldest-first for display.
Opening a conversation marks it read for you. Unread count is calculated from messages sent by other users after your last read timestamp.
Messages include a read flag based on whether all other participants have read at or after the message timestamp.
Reporting messages
You can report another user message from Messenger. Select Report to open a dialog with an optional reason up to 500 characters, then submit with Report. You cannot report your own message, and you cannot submit duplicate reports for the same message.
Submitting the report sends that exact message and your optional reason for review. Reporting does not automatically delete the conversation or block its sender. See Notifications and Reports.