Help
On this page you can find a bunch of information that should get you started. This includes a list of frequently asked questions, and documentation for the available Chat commands.
On this page you can find a bunch of information that should get you started. This includes a list of frequently asked questions, and documentation for the available Chat commands.
Sadly the Mattermost UI is a bit confusing in this regard - the public channels you can see on the channel list on the left-hand side are only the channels you are already in, not the ones that are available. To see all channels you could join, click the + Icon at the top of the channel list, and then select Browse Channels (on Android and iOS it's More Channels instead).
Public channels are listed for everyone, and anyone can join. Also, public channels are moderated/mediated based on our Rules.
To get a new public channel created, please contact an administrator on the SceneCity channel. Creating such a channel also means that you need to take care about it.
Private channels on the other hand are not displayed in the channel list, and may be created by anyone. You may define your own rules on what goes and what doesn't in your private channel. You may add users to it, or invite users to join.
First of all: If you wish to have a plain-text interface, SceneCity is available via IRC - that might be the easiest solution to your problem. Also, for Linux/Unix there is the Matterhorn plain-text command line client.
But even when you are using the web application or the mobile Apps, you can customize things to make it less distracting. Go into the Settings menu. You might want to disable Website Link Previews, change Default Appearance of Image Previews, and/or change Message Display to Compact. Under Advanced you may even disable all Post Formatting.
Sure. Just let us know on the SceneCity channel and we will create a bot account for you. The Mattermost system is providing a REST API for your bot to talk to. See their documentation for more info. There is an example bot available, written in Golang, which is an excellent starting point.
In addition to bots which may write and respond themselves, there is also an even easier API for creating custom slash commands. That's an excellent choice if you for example wish to provide an option for users to search some demoscene database. In this case all you need to do is to run a script written in whatever language you like, returning Markdown text in response to the query given.
If you think SceneCity is a project that deserves support, here is what you can do:
- Are you a Golang coder? The Mattermost chat system we are based on is written in Go, and is rather clean code to work with. We have a lot of feature requests and stuff we can do to make this further "scene-centric".
- Are you a C++ coder? The Streaming Server system is written in C++. Again, there would be some further improvements that could be done.
- You are Typescript/Web hipster guy? 2b did an amazing work bringing the Apps to Android and iOS. but again, there is more to do.
- Just having a platform is only the start. We need to start building communities. Are you interested in opening and building a community in a dedicated chat channel? This could be based on a topic, a demoparty, or a language. Building a community is real work that needs patience and love.
- If you are a demo party organizer who wishes to either get away from Twitch or at least provide an alternative to your online viewers, contact us to have your streaming channel created.
- Are you willing to contribute to our "demo loop"? We are looking for HIGH QUALITY captures of demoscene productions, and for someone willing to provide meta-data (basic info about the entry) that we can display prior to each entry on the screen.
- Spread the word and try to unite the scene. Right now people are spread over on IRC, Discord, Slack and other platforms, and it's rather hard to find a place where you can reach all of our community.
- Do you wish to help develop our community policies? Our plan is that we try to keep moderation to an absolute limit, and instead try to establish mediation. This is planned to be based on democratic elections for the big/major channels, while the smaller ones should be moderated by whatever community has built it. The focus on the policies should NOT be to try to limit what you can say, the focus shall be on how to make sure very early on that the communities are healthy and nobody gets hurt.
SceneCity is created and run by a bunch of sceners. The goal is that the developers involved are focussed on the technical aspects, while the policies should be developed by the community itself. In other words: We are trying to make things as democratic as we can. See the About Us and Rules pages for more information.
Similar to IRC, the SceneCity Mattermost server supports so-called slash commands, which are messages beginning with "/".
Here are the commands available:
| Command | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| /away | Set your availablity to away | /away |
| /offline | Set your availablity to offline | /offline |
| /online | Set your availablity to online | /online |
| /dnd | Set your availablity to Do Not Disturb | /dnd |
| /code | Display text as a code block | /code File bugs |
| /collapse | Turn on auto-collapsing of image previews | /collapse |
| /expand | Turn off auto-collapsing of image previews | /expand |
| /echo | Echo back text from your account | /echo Hello World 5 |
| /header | Edit the channel header | /header File bugs here |
| /invite @ ~ | Invite user to the channel | /invite @john ~sampleChannel |
| /purpose | Edit the channel purpose | /purpose A channel to discuss bugs |
| /rename | Rename the channel | /rename Developers |
| /help | Open the SceneCity help page | /help |
| /invite @ ~ | Invite user to the channel | /invite @john ~sampleChannel |
| /invite_people | Send an email invite to your SceneCity team | /invite_people john@example.com |
| /kick (or /remove) | Remove a member from a Public or Private channel | /kick @alice |
| /join (or /open) | Join the given channel | /join off-topic |
| /leave | Leave the current channel | /leave |
| /mute | Turns off desktop, email and push notifications for the current channel or the [channel] specified | /mute ~[channel] |
| /logout | Log out of SceneCity | /logout |
| /me | Do an action | /me Hello World |
| /msg | Send a Direct Message to a user | /msg @alice hello |
| /groupmsg | Send a Group Message to the specified users | /groupmsg @alice, @bob hello |
| /search | Search text in messages | /search meeting |
| /settings | Open the Settings dialog | /settings |
| /shortcuts | Display a list of keyboard shortcuts | /shortcuts |
| /shrug | Add ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to your message |
/shrug oh well |
| /status | Set a custom status that includes an optional emoji and a descriptive status message | /status sick Feeling unwell and taking time off to recover |
| /status clear | Clear the current status | /status clear |
The SceneCity chat integrates an extension that allows you to run surveys and polls. Type /poll and hit enter twice to get an interactive popup to setup your poll. Alternatively you can use the following syntax to create the poll:
/poll "Is the scene dead?" creates a poll with the answer options "Yes" and "No".
If you want to define all answer options by yourself, type /poll "Is the scene dead?" "Of course" "In any case" "Definitely"
There are a couple of extra options that you may use by adding them at the end of your line:
/poll "Is the scene dead?" "Of course" "In any case" "Definitely" --progress --anonymous.
The available Poll Settings are:
--anonymous: Don't show who voted for what at the end
--progress: During the poll, show how many votes each answer option got
--public-add-option: Allow all users to add additional options
--votes=X: Allow users to vote for X options