Chat & Channels

Real-time messaging with lifecycle channels, scoped conversations, and anonymous complaints.

Channel Types

Each channel has a type that determines when it's relevant in the season lifecycle:

General

Always-on channel for the league. Open from day one and stays open all season. Use it for announcements, general discussion, and anything that doesn't fit a specific phase.

Preseason

Active during the Draft and Open phases. Good for roster discussions, team formation talk, and pre-season logistics.

Weekly

One channel per week of the regular season. Opens before the week's matches and closes after results are finalized. Keeps weekly banter contained.

Playoff

Active during the postseason bracket. Used for playoff matchup discussion, trash talk, and bracket predictions.

Postseason

Opens after the season completes. Wrap-up discussions, awards, and planning for next season.

Complaint

Anonymous complaint channel visible only to managers. Players can submit complaints without their name attached. More on this below.

Channel Scopes

Channels are scoped to control who can see and post in them:

Org

Visible to all members of the organization across all leagues.

League

Visible to all players and managers in a specific league.

Match

Scoped to the players in a specific match. Private to that matchup.

Direct message between two users. Private conversation.

Creating Lifecycle Channels

Lifecycle channels (Preseason, Weekly, Playoff, Postseason) are created in bulk from the Settings tab. Hit "Setup Season Channels" and the system creates all the channels for the current season:

1 Preseason channel
1 Weekly channel for each regular season week
1 Playoff channel
1 Postseason channel
1 Complaint channel (manager-only visibility)

Tip

Run "Setup Season Channels" once during the Draft phase. You can open and close individual channels as the season progresses.

Opening and Closing Channels

Each channel has a state: Open or Closed. Closed channels are read-only — players can see the history but can't post new messages.

Managers control channel state from the Chat sidebar. Hover over a channel name to reveal the open or close controls. Typical workflow:

Open the Preseason channel when the season enters Draft
Open each Weekly channel the day before that week's matches
Close the Weekly channel after results are finalized
Open the Playoff channel when the bracket starts
Open the Postseason channel after the final match

Anonymous Complaints

The Complaint channel is a special channel type. When a player submits a complaint, it appears as a system message with no identifying information. Only managers can see the Complaint channel.

How Complaints Work

Players submit complaints from the league chat interface
The complaint is stored as a SYSTEM message — no sender name is attached
Managers see all complaints in the dedicated Complaint channel
Players cannot see the Complaint channel at all
Managers can discuss complaints among themselves in the channel

Note

Anonymous complaints exist so players can raise issues (cheating suspicions, rule disputes, conduct problems) without fear of social blowback. Take them seriously.

Real-Time Messaging

Chat is powered by Pusher for real-time delivery. Messages appear instantly for all participants without page refresh. Each channel uses a private Pusher channel so messages are only delivered to authorized members.

If the real-time connection drops (spotty wifi, phone goes to sleep), messages are still saved to the database. The chat will catch up when the connection is restored.