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Ben Lovy
Ben Lovy

Posted on

How many of y'all are using DEV Connect?

I think DEV's chat feature is super cool, but I'm coming up on my two-year badge in a few weeks and I've still got enough fingers for each conversation I've had. I get the sense that some people communicate this way more often, but I'm curious to get an overall temperature!

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

Oldest comments (39)

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

For me, it seems to be "if I have no other way of contacting ".

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albertomontalesi profile image
AlbertoM

Never used it, I usually just comment.

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engineercoding profile image
Wesley Ameling

I wasn't even aware that feature exists..

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ifone456 profile image
Gerzon Z.

So there was a chat here huh

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

this whole time. You have to mutually follow.

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aminejvm profile image
Amine

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT ? a DEV chat, I didn't know that

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

There's a whole paper airplane for it:

chat icon

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aminejvm profile image
Amine

Ouch my bad, I didn't notice it.

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy • Edited

I'm not, you know, trying to be a jerk or anything. But there's also a button:

amine

You just gotta stalk folks.

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aminejvm profile image
Amine

imma start with you tomorrow for sure :D!

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

Vaguely ominous. I'm in.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Our chat, called DEV Connect, has for most of its existence been not quite where we want it to be to really do a promotional push to drive awareness. But we've been patient building it out and we're just getting into the phase where we will be leaning into driving awareness.

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

Edited, thanks!

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justaashir profile image
Aashir Khan

The problem is we can only talk to people, whom I follow, and they should follow me too.

I've 12000 followers, but I'm just following 70.
I want to follow all the 12000, so anyone can talk to me but how should I do it, there is no bulk action 😕

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

You really don't want to follow 12000 people! That wouldn't be something you could manage, and it wouldn't help anyone.

What you want is to allow anyone to talk to you, regardless of whether they follow you or not, and you can set that under Settings -> Misc -> Connect.

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zaynaib profile image
Zaynaib (Ola) Giwa • Edited

I did not know this existed!!

Can we embed gifs in the chat?

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enzo profile image
Enzo

Didn't notice either haha. I think the icon is not the best to explain the purpose.

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atulcodex profile image
🚩 Atul Prajapati 🇮🇳

🙄 seriously

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codenutt profile image
Jared

I've used it once

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jasterix profile image
Jasterix

I used it once to reply to an ad, but not sure how open others would be to a random message. Any way you guys can promote this? On a scale of Twitter to LinkedIn, how camaraderie do you want to generate?

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aleksandrhovhannisyan profile image
Aleksandr Hovhannisyan

But that, like, requires socializing

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delta456 profile image
Swastik Baranwal

I had no one to talk with :(

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bhupesh profile image
Bhupesh Varshney 👾

I am here bro 🤗

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delta456 profile image
Swastik Baranwal

Oh yes

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leob profile image
leob

I use it occasionally, but I think awareness of it is pretty low.

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mccurcio profile image
Matt Curcio

A couple of times, I just noticed it maybe 3-4 weeks ago??
Does the person have to follow you or vice-versa?

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bhupesh profile image
Bhupesh Varshney 👾

Yes, but it will work anyway if the user has a Open Connect (See Miscellaneous Settings)

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miteshkamat27 profile image
Mitesh Kamat

Damn.. the option is so close to writing a post and I never tried. Glad I read your post. :P

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saulsilver profile image
Hatem Houssein

The notifications system seems to be still under development so haven't been using it that much. Hope it becomes more developed and widely used in the future though.

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devanghingu profile image
Devang Hingu • Edited

i seen that but i didn't chat with anyone... over here.. because i doesn't have any topics to do that.
😄
if your find any topics to discuss with me just do it please. atleast i can use that features through it. 😂

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I use it for saying things to people in general if it's not worth making a post.

I'm in two minds about it. One one hand, cool, it encourages socialisation more than a DM system like Twitter or Quora or such - on those places I feel like they're intrusive ways of talking to people, but a general channel is a great way to make friends.

On the other hand, it's never going to replace any of the 9000+ other chat systems people already use, and (as these comments demonstrate) people aren't going to use it.

If it was linked to IRC, say, or Slack by a bot so you could use the chat on the website or through your regular client, that'd be better.

If there were more signposts or certain things (like, say, mini AMA sessions) were held on chat, that might drive people there.

I'm sure there used to be some kind of "event" or "session" feature here for things like livestreams, which could have their chat linked to a chat channel too.