Our Go club has a private group that meets once a week for the members to play against each other. We use the group chat channel which is automatically assigned to groups to communicate and arrange games. This week I wanted to check something that had been posted in group chat at the very beginning of the meeting the day before. Unfortunately that posting was no longer available.
Upon making enquiries, I discovered that group chat postings only persist for 30 days or until there have been another 50 postings, whichever is first. I think that while the time limit is fine, the limit on number of postings that persist is a little tight and would suggest that it could usefully be increased to, say, about 100. I donât know, but imagine this would be a trivial modification to code. I donât know what knock-on effects it might have.
Does anyone have an opinion on this matter or know of a reason why it would not be a good idea to implement?
That does seem like a good workaround in the short term.
Thatâs also interesting to know about, I didnât know about it Theyâre the kind of bits of info thatâd be nice to collect together somewhere, like the documentation, or if not in an faq
Also yeah, itâd probably be nice if it retained more messages. I donât know if it was calculated like
(max length of message)*x = (reasonable amount of storage per chat per group)
and x just ended up being 50 or was rounded to it. That would be the only issue I can imagine at the moment. Iâm sure if it was, it could be recalculated
I do like that the chat persists already at the moment.
Intereting - @anoek mentioned that itâs â50 lines or 30 days, whichever is soonestâ
That being said, the actual parameters donât matter a lot - the fact is that group chat lines will disappear from time to time, somewhat unpredictably - and the more there is, the less time it stays.
Yeah - that was the option suggested to Tony in the mean time
Bugcat, that could be an idea for some groups, but we donât have a need which is so pressing that it would be worth trying to train up all the members in using a different system to the one theyâre used to. Thanks for your suggestion, though. (Actually Eugene had already suggested it in my contact with him to establish what the limits were).
Bugcat, I checked the BGA chat after reading your comment. The chat does indeed go back to 1 Nov 2020. I note that it is exactly 50 posts in length, however. Of course, the BGA is a national organisation, while we are just a little local club. That could be the difference? Or maybe the fact that the BGA group is public, while ours is private? Maybe anoek just spoke of the top of his head and got the time limit wrong?
Hmmm⌠just had a look at the âEnglishâ chat and itâs well over a hundred lines, although it only goes back about an hour, so the whole thing is obviously a lot less straightforward than you might think. I wonder if we can get a definitive answer to the question âHow long does group chat persistâ?
Thinking again now, though, maybe the process that chops lines off the end hasnât had time to get round to reducing the length of the English group chat?
The point of this thread is, surely, that the actual parameters do (or can) matter, although it is perhaps even more important to realize that chat isnât preserved forever
Yeah, bumping limits could be considered but I feel like it wouldnât solve the problem because youâll pretty much run into any reasonable limit. Long term discussions are definitely better had on platforms like the Forums as was suggested, or moved out to other platforms that specialize in that sort of thing, such as Slack or Discord.
Thanks for coming on. Of course, however much you increased the number of lines, there could always come a time when one wanted the line just before. I only wanted something from the night before and time really wasnât the issue. Nor was it a long-term discussion.
To clarify, about ten of us meet once a week to play each other. To get things started, we put pairings up at the beginning. This is what I wanted to check the detail of. On consideration, chat is not the best place for that. In fact we started off putting them up in a newspost when we first started, but had problems with choking, so found it more convenient to put them up in chat. Thatâs always been fine, but nobodyâs ever wanted to go back and check the detail before. I think we may go back to trying to use newsposts again.
It would still be nice to be able to review the chat from the night before. Ten people interacting to say hello, say goodbye and ask each other if they fancy a game in between or comments like âX really hammered me againâ soon eats up 50 lines. 100 would probably be enough for us for one evening, but someone elseâs group of 20 might want more?
Is there any documentation explaining how to use all the features of the forum? Intuitive interface are great till your intuition fails you
I couldnât work out how to use it on laptop, but just now something popped up here on my mobile and I have a feeling I may have successfully done âthe elegant thingâ here. Letâs see âŚ
Btw, shouldnât that button just below where Iâm writing now say âPostâ rather than âReplyâ. Iâve already written my reply by the time I come to use it âŚ
Theyâre the kind of bits of info thatâd be nice to collect together somewhere, like the documentation, or if not in an faq 
