How to use messaging in a Racey league: the league chat, the organisers thread, team chats, announcements, moderation, and the settings each driver controls.
Quick start
Organisers: set up your league chat in two minutes
- Open your league and go to Communications → Conversations.
- Under League chat, press Open league chat if nobody has opened it yet. Then choose Who can post: Everyone, or Staff only if you want an announcements-style channel.
- Go to the Announcements tab, press New Announcement, set Target Audience to Everyone and press Publish. It is posted in the league chat as well.
- Check the Organisers inbox on the same page: this is where members' messages to you arrive.
- Tell your drivers: the chat is on the league page, under League chat.
Drivers: join the conversation
- Open your league's page and press League chat. You can also use Messages in the top bar, which lists every conversation you're in.
- Type in Write a message and press Send message (or Enter).
- To ask the organisers something privately, press Message organisers on the league page.
- On a team? Press Team chat on your team's page.
- Choose your alerts under Settings → Privacy → Messages.
The three conversations
Every league has three kinds of conversation. Nobody has to create them.
| Conversation | Who can read it | Who can post |
|---|---|---|
| League chat | Members, staff and approved drivers of the league | The same people. Organisers can limit posting to staff, or lock the chat |
| Organisers thread | One member and the league's organisers (one thread per member) | The member and the organisers |
| Team chat | The team's current members. After a season ends, the last lineup can still read it | Current team members |
Racey staff cannot read any of them, or any direct message. The only exception is a reported message: a Racey admin reviewing a report sees that message and the conversation around it, and every such view is logged.
Finding your conversations
Messages in the top bar shows a red badge with your number of unread messages. The Messages page lists your conversations, newest first, with filters for All, Unread, Direct, Requests, Leagues, Teams and Archived, and a Search messages box. A member's thread with the organisers is called Organisers · League name.
New messages arrive live; you don't need to refresh. On a phone, the arrow at the top of a conversation takes you back to the list.
For organisers
Who can post, and locking the chat
In Communications → Conversations, under League chat:
- Who can post: Everyone or Staff only. With Staff only, members can still read the chat and see "Only league staff can post here."
- Lock chat: members can't post until you unlock it ("This conversation is locked."). Organisers (staff who can publish announcements) can still post, so you can explain why. Use it to cool a heated thread.
In both cases, "staff" means organisers: staff whose role can publish announcements. Other staff roles, such as stewards, can't post either.
Each change is noted in the chat, for example "This conversation was locked by staff."
Announcements
Announcements you publish from Communications → Announcements with Target Audience set to Everyone are also posted in the league chat, as an Announcement card. Announcements for drivers only, staff only or team captains stay out of the chat. To keep the chat readable, at most three announcements a day are copied into it; the announcement itself always publishes. Race-control rulings are always posted.
Messages from members
Members write to you with Message organisers. Their threads appear in the Organisers inbox in Communications → Conversations, and every organiser of the league can read and reply. To start a thread with a member yourself, use Message next to their name on the Roster page.
Removing and pinning messages
Open a message's Message actions menu (the three dots) and choose Remove. (Organisers moderate the league chat and organiser threads; team captains, and organisers who are on the team, moderate a team chat.) Pick a reason (Spam, Harassment, Hate, Sexual content, Off-topic or Other) and add a Note to the author if it helps, then press Remove message. The message shows as "Message removed" for everyone, and the author gets a notification with your reason. They are not told who removed it.
Pin keeps a message at the top of the conversation, under Pinned.
A message reported by three different people is hidden automatically while it is reviewed. If something needs Racey's attention, report it (see below) rather than only removing it.
For everyone
Writing messages
- Formatting: the toolbar above the box has bold, italic, strikethrough, code, links, quotes, lists and emoji.
- Mention someone: type
@and pick a name from Mention a member. They can get an alert, unless they've already seen it or turned alerts off. - Reply, react and copy: from a message's Message actions menu. Quick reactions are 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🏁, with More… for the rest.
- Edit or delete your own messages from the same menu. An edited message shows "(edited)"; a deleted one shows "Message removed".
Muting and archiving
From the More menu (⋯) at the top of a conversation:
- Mute it for 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, or until you unmute it. A muted conversation sends you no alerts.
- Archive it to move it out of your list. It moves back when someone posts again, and you can find it any time under Archived.
Reporting a message
Open the message's Message actions menu and choose Report. Pick what's wrong: spam, harassment or bullying, hate, sexual content, self-harm, or child safety. You can add details. Reports go to the Racey team, and the person you report isn't told who reported them.
- If you report self-harm, you are shown crisis-support resources straight away.
- A child safety report hides the message for everyone at once while Racey reviews it. If someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.
Your settings
Settings → Privacy → Messages:
- Allow direct messages: switch it off and nobody can start a new direct message with you. See Direct Messages.
- Blocked people: the people you have blocked, with an Unblock button next to each name.
- Hide read receipts: others won't see when you've read their messages, and you won't see theirs.
- Message alerts: email, Discord and push alerts for messages you haven't seen. Alerts never arrive between 11pm and 7am in the time zone on your profile.
Alerts wait a little in case you read the message first: about 5 minutes for mentions, direct messages and organiser threads, and 30 minutes for league and team chat. Drivers who joined without doing it themselves (added to the roster by an organiser, or brought in by a results import) don't get alerts until they open the league or one of its conversations on Racey once.
What's not here yet
Photos and files, link previews and copying the chat to Discord are not available yet. Direct messages between drivers are available: see Direct Messages.