Overgrow Chat

Community
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Finally! After years of waiting, this is now a reality! The top most-requested feature is here!

Introducing Overgrow Chat

We’re starting with a single, general-purpose chat room, but we’re open to adding more chat rooms if it starts to feel crowded. Feel free to suggest new themed rooms in this thread.

The chat will also be a hub for hosting official, site-wide events in the future.

As always, the site’s terms of service apply in the chat (and they’ve been updated recently, by the way). There’s one new rule, though: no trading or giveaways in chat. Please use the #TradingPost or #Giveaways sections in the forums for that.

We’re gradually rolling out the chat feature for all user groups, starting with supporters and now extending to regular users.

To enter the chat, just click the speech bubble :speech_balloon: icon at the top of the page. You can also jump straight into a specific chat room or direct message by using the sidebar.

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There are two main features: chat rooms and direct messages (DMs). You can join and leave chat rooms as you like - they’re public spaces. DMs, on the other hand, are private conversations with up to 20 participants. Keep in mind that messages in both chat rooms and DMs are temporary and disappear after a while. If you want a more permanent conversation, use private messages or forum threads as you’re used to.

Chat rooms also support threading, which lets you keep replies to specific posts neat and organized. You’ll need to click on the replies to dive into a particular thread, so not everything clutters the main view. On desktop, threads will show up in a separate side panel for easy viewing.

The currently used chat forum topics will be phased out in favor of real-time chat.

Enjoy!

FAQ

Q: Am I eligible to access all chat rooms?

Public chat rooms currently require at least status of a Member (trust level 2). Learn more about trust levels here: Explaining user trust levels and permissions.
Private chat rooms may have other requirements.

Q: Where can I set my preferences and notifications for Chat?

:hammer_and_wrench: To customize your user experience for Chat app please visit User Preferences → Chat.

Q: What is the difference between forum and chat?

The former is asynchronous and the latter synchronous messaging platform. Read the detailed explanation below.

Synchronous vs. asynchronous messaging

Imagine you have sick plants. You take some photos and then you can:

  1. Ask in the chat :speech_balloon: because you need help right away. You’ll receive a quick response, usually within minutes, from whoever is online. It’s similar to a quick brainstorming session.

  2. Ask in the forum :books: if you can wait. It may take a bit longer, possibly a few days, to fully understand the issue. More photos might be requested, additional information shared, and links to other resources or similar cases provided. The feedback tends to be more detailed and thoughtful since people can respond on their own time, without the pressure of providing an immediate answer.

Pros :white_check_mark: Cons :x:
Chat :speech_balloon: - Instant, real-time response - Responses may be brief or surface-level
- Great for quick brainstorming or urgent needs - May lack thorough research or in-depth explanations
- Conversational, fast back-and-forth interaction
Forum :books: - More comprehensive, thoughtful responses - Responses may take time (hours or even days)
- Ideal for complex or technical issues
- Crowdsourced knowledge with multiple perspectives
- Forum structure allows for discovery of related topics
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I just noticed the chat feature and most people it says chat is disabled? Any where i can get info on the chat update

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It’s only available for supporters for now

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As a supporter who’s only social media is OG: the chat feature is amazing!

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(Chat does not look like the above, but it totally feels like IRC back in the day so I share this nostalgic meme. )

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I think it’s open to everyone now, I’m no supporter.

IRC is still alive and well, but I like having a chat here. Better than closed doors discord!

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I would say that the chatbox is more akin to AIM or ICQ than IRC but if you recognize those letters then you know what I mean.

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I still remember my #. lol

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Hey @Pigeonman how have you been!

It is showing that i can add myself to a chat and im not a supporter ?

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@LemonadeJoe

I really like a lot of the new stuff !:+1:and the easy way to navigate

Thanks :pray:

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Agreed! It definitely is a nice touch

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That’s great news! I didn’t know that, I wasn’t sure how long the testing period would be.

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I have no idea but mayhap it’s wide open already! :hugs:

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Chat was opened today also for Regulars (trust level 3+)!

In the next few days it will be opened for tl2 and later for tl1 too.

Trust level 1 will be the minimum level for access to both public Chat rooms and DMs (which are basically private chat rooms with up to 20 members).

From now on we need to refer to private messages as PMs and to direct messages in Chat as DMs.

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That’s awesome, thanks, Joe. Its a really cool feature.

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833430, hahaha

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What would be difference between the new chat feature and just having an ongoing general chat thread in the smokers lounge called for example roll another one…? I’ve always thought of the forum and threads as chat rooms, so this feels like a chat room within a chat room.

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A forum is designed for asynchronous communication, where topics aim to provide valuable information. Without this structure, it’s difficult to build a comprehensive FAQ or knowledge base for growers to learn from. Discussions are archived permanently, enabling users to revisit or continue them, even after several years. Content is organized with categories and tags, and finding topics is usually easy through full-text search.

In contrast, chat is synchronous, offering a different user experience. Typically, it has low informational value, and messages are deleted after a certain period.

I’ve always disliked when these two platforms get mixed up. When a forum topic turns into a chat, it diminishes its value. Keep in mind that we have many readers who rely on these discussions and grow diaries to learn and get inspired. Moving forward, we may become stricter about enforcing this distinction, asking users to keep chats or off-topic conversations out of the main forum and move them to the chat instead.

On the flip side, anything valuable or worthy of broader community discussion that comes up in chat can be moved to a forum topic for further exploration.

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The new chat is part of the August upgrade so why has this been moved out of the pinned thread? Makes me wonder what else has been moved out. Jesus this place is hard enough to navigate now without having posts moved and micro managed to the Nth degree. It feels like it’s being subdivided over and over until there will be nothing left.

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With the update things are bound to be a little fuckey for a bit.

The chat itself, I dunno, we’ll have to see.

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The pinned post would have been insanely long and hard to navigate, find something or discuss a specific feature if everything was kept in one thread. I find it’s way easier if there’s some splits and things are organized in different threads. It’s just a matter of following them after that.

1 Like