Official Announcement regarding changes to conversations (private messages)

[Unit One]

Hello Terrarians, we have a new detail in place on the forums that I wanted to go over. With regards to the Conversations feature (also known as private messages or direct messages), we have needed to make some changes. I anticipate that a high percentage of our members won't even notice a difference, but for the small percentage that does, here are the changes and explanation.

New Conversation Limits

• Max Recipients of 4 (which means you can invite 4 other members into a convo, for a total of 5 members in that convo).
• Max Inbox Size of 15,000 messages (total amount of all convo messages in your inbox - both your and other members' messages).

Why are we making these changes?
It has come to the forum staff's attention that a small userbase of our members are using our Conversation feature very differently than what is intended. These forums are mainly for public discussion of Terraria, as well as a cool place to hangout online with other Terraria fans (via the profile pages or Non-Terraria Topics). It isn't meant to house massive private group chats that are acting more like an independent non-moderated chat application. Sadly, it has come to a point that we needed to do something about it.

Well then, where do we chat?
We have tons of public threads to join in on the discussion about Terraria and go into detail about the meta of the game if you want. Or if you are wanting a more laid-back pace to socialize more, there are plenty of places that we have available to chat with your fellow Terrarians, the most notable being:

• On your own profile, and on the profile of other members.
• Within the Random Chitchat Thread, or even in one of the thousands of existing threads in the Off Topic section.

What happens if I already have convos that have more than 5 people in them?

• Nothing. Existing convos that have more than 5 people in them won't change.
• Trying to create a NEW convo, you'll be able to choose 4 other members to join it.

What happens if my Inbox Size is over the limit?

• You will need to "Leave" conversations until your total convo messages are under the max limit.
• You won't be able to start any new conversations, nor will you be able to post in any current convos until the inbox size is under the limit.
• When you "Leave" a conversation you can choose to either "accept future messages" or "ignore future messages". Choosing either will remove the convo from your convo list and will reduce your total amount of messages.
• However, IF you choose "accept future messages" and someone else replies in that convo, it will put that convo back in your list and all the messages in it will contribute towards your limit again.
• There will be a percentage bar to let you know how close you are to the max limit

How do I "Leave" conversations?

• Open the convo that you want to leave. Click "Leave".
• 

-or-

• Open your list of convos.
• Check the box next to each convo you want to leave.
• 
• At the bottom left, Choose Action, Leave conversations, then click Go.
• 

What if I need to talk privately to a forum staff member, I'm over the max limit, and can't send them a private message?

• Post on one of our profiles that you need to speak privately, and we will coordinate a private message with you that you are able to reply in.
• Or, if you'd rather keep the request private, on your own profile, click the Report button, and send a request to us that way.

That should do it. If anyone has problems or questions, you can ask them here. We feel that giving each member an inbox that can hold up to 15,000 private messages is quite reasonable. In the future, if we need to relook at these limits (to either increase or decrease) we'll do so.

Again, I anticipate that a huge amount of members won't be affected by this at all. If you are one of the members that this creates an issue for, I respectfully ask that you consider if the way you are using the convo system aligns with how it's meant to be used (as a place to occasionally speak frankly with a friend or other member in private). If you genuinely still think so, please let me know.

 

[Esther]

Again, I anticipate that a huge amount of members won't be affected by this at all. If you are one of the members that this creates an issue for, I respectfully ask that you consider if the way you are using the convo system aligns with how it's meant to be used (as a place to occasionally speak frankly with a friend or other member in private). If you genuinely still think so, please let me know.

I would say yes, as someone who filled the limit with a single convo instantly (one with @MagicasquirrelTMT that started back in 2021, which we still use occasionally to this day to share random things with each other). I've never really used conversations for group chats because convo alerts tend to stress me out for reasons I can't quite understand myself, and the few "group chat" convos I'm in are small and haven't been used in years.
There are only really 4 or 5 convos I'm in that are still being used, and aside from the one I mentioned above, none of them are over 50 pages yet (the second biggest I'm in is only 30 pages long), and all of them are with only one other person. Leaving any old ones that haven't been used in a long time wouldn't do anything for me because no matter what, I'll always be over the limit.

15,000 posts seems... really harsh to me. The member limit I understand, but a reply/post limit, especially one that harsh, seems like overkill.

 

[Jessica Hyde [CiM]🌳]

I talk to my friends in convos as they don't have other means of communication and with the limit I cannot talk to them as some of the things I do say to them are stuff I'd like to keep private the person limit does not really bother me as I normally keep it to me and someone else but the character limit is really excessive
I don't think the character limit is needed as it basically means some of us can't talk to her people we hold close

 

[Ivyss]

The member limit I can understand well enough, but limiting convo messages to just 15000 is just... that is far too low.
I can full well say that, between just myself and one other user, just that one convo, has almost 8500 messages.

Frankly, if you're that against people using convos as private chat, just remove the whole feature.

 

[Unit One]

I would say yes, as someone who filled the limit with a single convo instantly (one with @MagicasquirrelTMT that started back in 2021, which we still use occasionally to this day to share random things with each other). I've never really used conversations for group chats because convo alerts tend to stress me out for reasons I can't quite understand myself, and the few "group chat" convos I'm in are small and haven't been used in years.
There are only really 4 or 5 convos I'm in that are still being used, and aside from the one I mentioned above, none of them are over 50 pages yet (the second biggest I'm in is only 30 pages long), and all of them are with only one other person. Leaving any old ones that haven't been used in a long time wouldn't do anything for me because no matter what, I'll always be over the limit.

15,000 posts seems... really harsh to me. The member limit I understand, but a reply/post limit, especially one that harsh, seems like overkill.

Thanks for your feedback Esther. I have to disagree though that giving members an inbox with a limit of 15,000 messages is really harsh. Before putting this in place, data was gathered, and there are many members that have been here for almost 10 years, all enormously active during their heyday that don’t even come close to having this amount.

 

[Ivyss]

Frankly, if you're that against people using convos as private chat, just remove the whole feature.

 

[ppowersteef]

4 participants seem really low, it means that hosting a private Terraria server can't be with more than 5 people that meet up with each other through these forums.

As far as the limit goes, I only have extended PM messages in occasion. And have only spend 1/3 of the max.
I'm not quite a loose chatter, or are in active large chats. so I guess the limit isn't too concerning for me. But I can see it can be bothersome for old and larger PMs.

 

[Jessica Hyde [CiM]🌳]

Thanks for your feedback Esther. I have to disagree though that giving members an inbox with a limit of 15,000 messages is really harsh. Before putting this in place, data was gathered, and there are many members that have been here for almost 10 years, all enormously active during their heyday that don’t even come close to having this amount.

As @ppowersteef mentioned people have different talking types
Those people might not like convos as much as some other members and some people might quickly fill up convos and some might fill them slowly it depends on when people are online and how frequently/how much people type

 

[Ivyss]

So are we getting a thread message limit next?
Or a profile message limit?

 

[Esther]

As @ppowersteef mentioned people have different talking types
Those people might not like convos as much as some other members and some people might quickly fill up convos and some might fill them slowly it depends on when people are online and how frequently/how much people type

This. I'm not a super active convo person, but a bit more than two years was all that was needed to get a convo with 20,000 posts in it because Squirrel and I have a lot of things to share at times, sometimes we'd meme or a topic would go back and forth for hours, and most of the stuff I'd share would either be things that would only make sense to him or things I don't want to put publicly yet (lore work that I haven't finished or stories I want to keep private until later, not much else really). And a large amount of the things in that convo are things I don't want to lose, meaning that unless the limit is seriously loosened up, I'm locked out of using convos entirely.

 

[Ivyss]

So are we getting a thread message limit next?
Or a profile message limit?

And will that also be 15000 or do you wanna go even lower with that?

 

[Sylv]

I was one of the people who used large group convos to chat with other people.
The reason why I really liked having that was so I could message my close friends on the forums in a space that I know they would be able to see it whenever they appeared online next. Whether the conversation was just about games we played, roleplays, or more personal stuff.
Now I’m faced with the choice of moving sites or apps, or having those same discussions or conversations in areas with people who I am not near as comfortable being around.

 

[Ivyss]

And will that also be 15000 or do you wanna go even lower with that?

Actually, you know what? Just remove threads and profiles as well.

 

[Jessica Hyde [CiM]🌳]

Actually, you know what? Just remove threads and profiles as well.

Hell
Make the forums a Google doc that redigit updates when there's updates

 

[Unit One]

Thanks for the candid thoughts everyone. I think it’s important to reiterate that the forums are a place to talk about Terraria and socialize with other Terraria fans - it is mainly for public discussion about the game with some carved out public spots for non-Terraria talk. It’s not meant to be a place to replace a private chat program.

The Conversation feature is supposed to be used for the occasional spot to speak privately, it was never meant to house tens of thousands of messages.

 

[Kelp]

I and the other members of staff understand that this is a very sudden inconvenience and will very likely immedietly affect some users and we do apologise for that. A certain degree of complaints is obviously expected but we would like to meet those head on and discuss as we believe it to be a positive change to the forum.

As Unit has said in the intial post, coversations on forums have never really been intended for such heavy use. This was not an overnight decision and after much discussion and a deal of research the team agreed to implement these limits - While we very much intend to keep a limiter on conversations it is not wholly out of the question that we could revise and change the current limitations and are more than willing to listen to any feedback from various members of the community.

Forums are a community gathering spot, places to interact with and meet people who share similar interests. While I realise that not everyone may play or even have played Terraria we at least all share an interest in games or general internet culture - That is the vision of what forums are. Having so many private segregated groups with such a magnitude of posts is contradictory to that and potentially damaging to the community.

I suppose I should begin by asking what makes you use conversations so much and why use them for activities like roleplay rather than using an open thread? This is something that I and im sure my peers are interested in hearing about.

Actually, you know what? Just remove threads and profiles as well.

We have no plans to do this, the only limit we are placing is on conversations. Its very clear that you're upset, but be assured that we won't be making any crazy, unreasonble decisions like removing profile posts or conversations features entirely.

 

[sneksarecute🐿️]

i can understand lowering the max people amount, but there is no is no god damn reason to add a message limit, especially one that affects more than one convo

 

[Esther]

Having so many private segregated groups with such a magnitude of posts is contradictory to that and potentially damaging to the community.

Honest opinion from me: It's the opposite. Having small groups that share interests is better than having one large group that barely understands each other, and at times people in large groups just won't get along, while those same people talking to each other with nobody else in the room might get along really well because there's no other people causing stress for the two.

I suppose I should begin by asking what makes you use conversations so much and why use them for activities like roleplay rather than using an open thread?

As for this, while I can't quite say much about the roleplay part specifically, many people in the roleplaying community often use conversations for planning things privately, or for showing work-in-progress characters or lore with only people they feel comfortable showing it to before it's finished. And while this next part doesn't apply to me, sometimes I'd assume people do roleplay stuff in a conversation because it's more personal and not something they need other people seeing, or something they know another person is very uncomfortable with seeing at all, in which case it's just better to move it to a place where that other person doesn't have to look at it, preventing them from being too affected by it.

 

[Jessica Hyde [CiM]🌳]

I and the other members of staff understand that this is a very sudden inconvenience and will very likely immedietly affect some users and we do apologise for that. A certain degree of complaints is obviously expected but we would like to meet those head on and discuss as we believe it to be a positive change to the forum.

As Unit has said in the intial post, coversations on forums have never really been intended for such heavy use. This was not an overnight decision and after much discussion and a deal of research the team agreed to implement these limits - While we very much intend to keep a limiter on conversations it is not wholly out of the question that we could revise and change the current limitations and are more than willing to listen to any feedback from various members of the community.

Forums are a community gathering spot, places to interact with and meet people who share similar interests. While I realise that not everyone may play or even have played Terraria we at least all share an interest in games or general internet culture - That is the vision of what forums are. Having so many private segregated groups with such a magnitude of posts is contradictory to that and potentially damaging to the community.

I suppose I should begin by asking what makes you use conversations so much and why use them for activities like roleplay rather than using an open thread? This is something that I and im sure my peers are interested in hearing about..

Why I do roleplaying in convos is that I prefer doing rping privately instead of publicly as I'd have to read all the 300+ pages of the public RP to understand what's happening and mixing posts with ooc and ic gets way to confusing for me to understand

But the main reason I use convos is having private chats with friends especially since some of the things I say in convos are quite private and are to do with what is happening in my life ATM and sometimes that is not acceptable to be told in a public place as it would get me perma banned as I'm on the whole last chance thing

Limiting it the number of messages basically locks me out of talking to 90% of my friends as most of them don't have other means of communication or are only online on them at 4am for me

 

[Fluxxation]

… is the roleplay section next?