Messages and notifications

Direct messages

Open another member’s profile and choose Send message to start a conversation. Messages are threaded: a reply stays attached to the message it answers, so a long exchange still reads in the right order. You can retract something you sent — it disappears from the thread, and any replies to it stay where they are.

Messages, from your profile, lists every conversation with the most recently active first and a count of what you haven’t read. Opening a conversation marks it read.

Messages from an organizer

An organizer can write to everyone entered for one of their events. It arrives as a private message about that event: you find it in your own message list under the event’s name, and nobody else on the start list sees it or your answer.

Some of these are announcements. They come from the event itself rather than a named person and can’t be replied to — the thread says so where the Reply button would otherwise be. An ordinary organizer message shows who sent it and can be answered normally, and the answer goes to the organizers alone.

The notification bell

The bell in the header appears when something is waiting on you and carries a total. Opening it breaks the total down, and each row goes straight to the place that resolves it:

• unread messages
• friend requests waiting for an answer
• club invitations waiting for an answer
• notifications — an entry approved or declined, a place that has opened up on a waitlist

Following a notification marks it read; Mark all as read clears the rest. Notifications are shown in the language you are reading in, not the language of whoever set them off.

Turning messages off

Let other members send me messages, in your profile, controls whether anyone can start a conversation with you. Switch it off and your profile stops offering the button — but a thread you have already replied in stays open, so the switch never strands an exchange half-finished.

It does not silence the organizers of events you have entered. News about an event you are registered for still reaches you, the same way an approval or a waitlist promotion does.