# Disable the Discourse chat

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398>\
**Category:** Meta Discussion\
**Created:** [April 2, 2024, 5:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398 "2024-04-02T05:24:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![goerz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/goerz/32/3269_2.png) [@goerz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/goerz)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 5:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/1 "2024-04-02T05:24:26Z")

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This Julia Discourse appears to have a chat (Channels / general at the bottom of the side-bar). Sending messages to that chat seems to notify everyone, which is a bit intrusive.

I think we have plenty of Julia chat options with Slack and Zulip already. Would it be possible to disable the entire feature so that it does not get used inadvertently?

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**Author:** ![mkitti](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkitti/32/12459_2.png) [@mkitti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkitti)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 7:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/2 "2024-04-02T07:18:02Z")

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There are per-user settings to enable or disable the chat.

 ![Screenshot_20240402_031713_Chrome](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/a/5/a5117314ef4e254fbbc1356c10c99ae854a9dbe7.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![sylvaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sylvaticus/32/203883_2.png) [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 7:21am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/3 "2024-04-02T07:21:55Z")

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But it’s nice to have one communication place for everything…

I don’t know how the Discourse chat compare to the other options, but one alternative set up could be to disable the automatic opt-in notification in the general chat channel, even better if there could be an auto opt-in on message post, that expires after some times… so there is still a “general” chat thread but you receive notifications only if you recently posted on it (or if someone explicitly ping you)…

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**Author:** ![kellertuer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kellertuer/32/220707_2.png) [@kellertuer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kellertuer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 7:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/4 "2024-04-02T07:46:49Z")

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Tanks for that note. I personally deactivated it, because I am on Zulip and slack and that together with the forum here is enough granularity (short, vanishing stuff on slack, longer chats on Zulip, open discussions with longer arguments here) for me.

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**Author:** ![mschauer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mschauer/32/13946_2.png) [@mschauer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mschauer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 7:59am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/5 "2024-04-02T07:59:16Z")

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An alternative option is to leave the `#general` channel on chat (via the channel interface.)

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**Author:** ![barucden](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/barucden/32/26154_2.png) [@barucden](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/barucden)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 8:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/6 "2024-04-02T08:25:01Z")

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Thanks!

It took me a minute to find the proper page. For other lost users: open [https://discourse.julialang.org/chat/browse/open](https://discourse.julialang.org/chat/browse/open) and click on the red button 🙂

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**Author:** ![kellertuer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kellertuer/32/220707_2.png) [@kellertuer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kellertuer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 9:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/7 "2024-04-02T09:51:11Z")

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…disabling that does not seem to work so well though.  
I still see the chat and notifications atop.

When I go to the preferences (where the chat is not checked) and click safe, the chat icon vanishes. but when I revisit the forum the chat is back. So this is also still a bit buggy.

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/disable-the-discourse-chat/112398/8 "2024-04-02T12:09:12Z")

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For now I’ve closed the “general” channel — that’s the chat channel that automatically added all users. I have found chat DMs to be useful in the past.

If there’s a consensus to _choose_ to start using chat I’ll be happy to re-enable the whole-board chat, but this was just a new feature of Discourse that was auto-enabled during some auto-upgrade a while back.

It’s also worth noting there’s a good deal of site-wide customizability that we can do here (but we haven’t intentionally done anything).