Notifications#
Four kinds of message arrive in the chat, and each has its own switch. Send /notify to see them:
- Invitations to apply, when somebody invites you to a role.
- Things waiting for you, when the team asks you something.
- Updates on your applications, when one of them moves.
- Applications recorded from the form, when the application form tells us you submitted it.
Every one of them is on the portal as well. Turning a kind off here loses you nothing; it only stops the chat message.
Turning one off#
Send /notify. You get four buttons, each showing the state it is in now, and tapping one flips it. The message redraws itself, so what you see is always what is stored.
The switch is read at the moment something is about to be sent, so a change applies immediately.
Every notification carries a line at the foot pointing back at this:
Send /notify to choose what arrives here.
Sign in codes are not on the list#
A sign in code is not a notification. It only ever goes out because somebody is signing in to your account. That is precisely when you want to hear about it, even at three in the morning.
Silencing those is what an attacker would want. So there is no switch, and /notify says so instead of leaving you hunting for one.
The same message says what to do if it was not you:
If you did not just try to sign in, somebody has your password. Do not enter this code, and change your password on the portal.
When each one arrives#
A sign in code is sent within a second or two, because somebody is sitting in front of a login form waiting for it.
The other four are queued and go out in about twenty seconds. An invitation that arrives twenty seconds after it was sent is indistinguishable from an instant one. Queueing is what keeps a burst of them from being throttled.
If Telegram cannot be reached, the message is tried four more times over about twenty minutes. After that it is left for an admin to see. It is never quietly dropped.
What a notification looks like#
Each one names the role or the title, and stops there. The bot adds no summary and no preview of what is being asked.
That is deliberate for the second kind especially. A request from the team can ask anything, and the tasks page renders it properly. A chat window paraphrasing something you have to answer accurately would be the worst of both.
When the form records your application#
The fourth kind is the one the portal sends on its own. When you submit the application form, the form tells the portal, and the portal marks that application as applied with the date. That happens whether or not you told the portal yourself, because the form is what we go by. See applying.
The message names the role and says what was recorded. If you had answered No, or the question had timed out, it says so and says that the form wins. It never says what you wrote on the form, because your answers stay with the form and never reach the portal.
A test message#
The Telegram panel in account settings has Send a test message. It should arrive within half a minute, and it is the quickest way to prove the path works.
It is not one of the four kinds and no switch governs it. You pressed a button a moment ago and are watching the chat for the result.
When notifications are switched off site wide#
An admin can pause the whole channel while something is fixed. Then nothing goes out and nothing is thrown away. The queue is held, and everything in it is sent once it is switched back on.
Sign in codes are not affected, for the reason above.
If you unlink#
Anything queued for you and not yet sent is dropped, because there is no longer a chat to send it to. Nothing on your account changes, and it all stays on your outstanding tasks page. See Unlinking.