Hey @balpha, I wasn't trying to insult chat -- apologies if it came across that way on my meta post.

It's just software, you won't hurt its feelings :) It's just that what you describe is the behavior that appears if your computer goes off and on, there's no way to distinguish that from you opening and closing browser tabs (except for requiring an annoying confirmation click, I guess).

I know that quite a few people here don't bother to leave rooms when they're not there. I've always found that a bit rude, but then maybe my mental modal of a chat room is just more literal

The issue with leaving is that you have to rejoin again when you wake up. Which is fine if you only have a single room (I used to leave when I was a mod), but not so much when I became an employee.

For example, I find Slack's model 100% broken (but at least they don't call them "rooms" but channels)

@jmac that sounds like we need to make the "favorite rooms" functionality more obvious :)

I am not a big fan of Slack -- this is much better.

@balpha I have favorite rooms, but it doesn't open windows for all the rooms from what I can tell, it just puts them in the right bar.

@balpha Helps a bit when you tend to get pinged in lots of places. Though, arguably, the global inbox is now much better for catching up - so it's probably force of habit for me now.

anyway, so if I understand you correctly, you want to have a browser tab open for each room you're in?

That's what I usually do. The right pane thing only shows a single line, which makes it impossible to see what's going on for busier rooms (like TL)

I just toss all the chat rooms (and a couple other tabs like e-mail and trello) on a display, and can see at a glance if I have e-mail/trello notifications/chat activity.

(I thought that was what everyone did)

right, I switch back and forth, and usually only have multiple chat tabs when I'm actively participating in multiple rooms simultaneously

@balpha, see how Sam just popped in? 99% sure he's not actually here. That's the behavior I'm talking about.

the sidebar works great for me to see at a glance a) whether the room is active, and b) what the topic of discussion is

(@SamtheBrand, you're not actually here, right?)

yeah, Sam is a candidate for this

but he just loaded this page, even if he's actually in his sleep

@balpha I guess it's a workflow thing.

So if he uses his computer to check his e-mail, it will make it look like he just logged in to chat?

no

Checking a notification on the mobile app that came from this room maybe?

please don't contribute to that theory

(that would link to the transcript, but if he were logged in on another computer, and checked on the mobile app, and clicked on the notification, would it make him become active?)

Not trying to contribute to a theory -- I just don't understand why it happens when people aren't touching their computers, and if possible, to prevent it from giving people the wrong impression.

At any rate, it's all good -- it seems like you understand the behavior that's confusing to me, and I think you know what's causing it, so all is well with the world. I don't understand it at all, so I'll leave it in your capable hands to fix/ignore as sees fit.

He had a browser tab open with this room, never bothered to leave the room, his computer turned itself off (call it sleep, hibernate, whatever). So the computer is essentially off. Chat removes you from a room if you haven't actually been there after 10 minutes, so Sam is out. Then the computer turns itself back on (whyever -- you have to ask Sam), and the browser reloads the page it was previously displaying, which is the chat.

And, as you would expect to happen, loading the chat room page makes you join the room.

Okay, so the 'greyed out people' aren't actually in the room I take it?

(as in, they aren't loading the page, and no data is being sent to them)

Yes they are. You're only visible in the list if there's actually a computer somewhere that talks to the chat servers right now.

Or at least, within the last 10 minutes.

Gotcha. So apparently this is an issue with my computer disconnecting from chat when it's asleep, and then reconnecting me automatically when it wakes up for whatever reason in the middle of the night.

So if I make sure my computer never sleeps to stop accepting data, this won't happen.

the grayed out thing shows that they haven't talk for a long time. Or, and that's the culprit, if they've recently joined the room while you were looking at the rooom.

There's a certain purpose to this behavior, but I can see how it may be confusing

Yeah. It's just confusing. I think I understand why it works the way it does now, and why this is happening, and in the meantime will just leave TL when I am sleeping.

We would still show you as joingin the room (that's very important), but maybe we would gray out the avatar more quickly in that case, because you haven't really been talking

@jmac just to clarify, that won't stop people from pinging you

Yeah, that's not the issue -- the other day I got 4 people pinging me about 4 different things because I rejoined at 3am when my computer woke up for whatever reason, and after seeing the first ping, 3 other people assumed that the first person pinging me knew something they didn't

Leaving will definitely avoid that specific problem.

Yeah. Your meta suggestion in general isn't without merit (though I dislike the specific implementation suggestions, in particular from the answer). But this other problem needs a different solution, and that's not easy

because it's very hard (pretty much, impossible) for us to distinguish you opening a page in your browser, and your browser reloading the page for whatever reason

@balpha what about something as simple as ordering the chat avatars from the order they spoke instead of the order they joined?

That way if my browser wakes me up in the middle of the night, I am still sitting halfway down the list and don't look like I just popped in and am available?

that is how they're ordered, for the most part

except for this "or" part:

Yep, good point. I will think it over. The comments asking for an easier way to harass community managers may solve the problem too.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it @balpha! I understand a lot better what the issue is.

And to be clear, when someone does join the room, this should always cause the "fly in" animation. But instead of flying in to the top space in the list, they could maybe fly in whereever they belong according to when they last spoke

(and be greyed out accordingly)

And there is the #1 culprit for this issue -- Jaydles. He does this all day and all night.

@balpha That would 100% solve the problem too.

I'll just ban @Jaydles from chat forever. Problem solved.

That would also work. He'd probably get way more done every day too.

Win-win.

so in either case, I appreciate the talk -- it's good to talk about different people's perception, mental models, and expectations of the chat

because everybody seems to see it slightly differently

so maybe we should get better at 1) being more liberal with people's mental models, and 2) where we have to enforce a certain way of thinking, do it more clearly

Yeah, I think the whole Slack test has made this chat thing a bit more contentious than it used to be.

I'm sure that smarter people than I will figure it out.

It doesn't have to do with being smart, it's just that things like "room", "being there" etc. are a metaphor pulled from the real world, but obviously don't match the real world 100%. And that's why everybody (consciously or not) draws slightly different conclusions about certain details.