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Recently I've had to look at the recent chat activity of some users (moderation/etc). The chat profile links to the parent site profile, but none of the SE sites (including SE.com) seem to link back to the chat profile. Which means there is effectively no way of finding the chat user (knowing the SE.com user) unless you open all chat users with the same username and verify the parent profile userids.

Update:

Just now I had to move a discussion to chat. This involved creating a chat account for a 1-rep user, and then giving him write access. But: his username was extremely common, and there was no way for me to add him without knowing his chat id. Which meant I had to go through pages and pages of users with similar names to find him. Not. Good.

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    I kind of prefer someone having to go to deliberate trouble to find my chat profile...
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 5:25
  • @tim - It's not that much trouble... The chat search has auto-completion for usernames... chat.meta.stackoverflow.com/…
    – Lix
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 6:51
  • @Lix: When you have multiple users with the same name? What about "Joe"? Recently had to do that one to find a WindowsPhone mod (who I hadn't seen in the room). There is another way to find mod chat userids, but I'm talking about the general case.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 7:01
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    @man - I guess finding Mr. Stone would much easier than it would be for random_user_x.
    – Lix
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 7:04
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    @Lix Well, that requires someone to consider that I have a chat account in the first place, which becomes much more evident if there's a link.
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 11:44
  • it seems there are various tripups in the chat/main site integration & this would be a major step to improving it, and also encourage use of chat further
    – vzn
    Commented Feb 23, 2014 at 18:33

4 Answers 4

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WANT IT NOW!

I feel that the best place would be near "network profile" link.

By the way, as Stack Overflow and Meta Stack Exchange have its own chats, you can go to the chat user from the site user profile by appending chat. at the beginning of url.

Also I requested it in now deleted answer. (for <10k)

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  • Yeah, Shog's comment led me here, missed it until now.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 19:31
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Please consider making this information available for mods (as in, mods can see the links, not only mods have links)

The business of engaging a user in chat (especially when they don't already have a chat account) is difficult at best, and a link to go to/create a user's chat user would be enormously helpuful.

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  • Doesn't a super ping create a chat account automagically (for the pinged user, if he/she doesn't have one already) plus invite the user to the chat room where you super pinged?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:54
  • @ShadowWizard Indeed, but what if I want to get to the user's profile without pinging them?
    – fredley
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:56
  • As the above answer says, just append chat. in the beginning of their main site profile page URL. Extra step, but easy enough to do.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:58
  • @ShadowWizard That only works on SO, if I do that for myself on gaming I get to a completely different user.
    – fredley
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:59
  • Right, didn't notice that!
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:43
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There is now a link to the chat profile on the new "mod dashboard" profile page (left column). And there was much rejoicing!

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    And for regular users? I was trying to find the chat profile for a user, to see if he was still suspended. I found it through chat transcripts, but a direct link would be nice.
    – SQB
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 15:18
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    @SQB we still need something for regular users, yes. At least now there is some profile-integration code, so that's a start. Since the question was asked in the context of moderation activities (moving comments to chat) I answered that way, but you're right that it's a broader issue than just moderator support.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 15:55
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For users who can't wait for this functionality: a short while ago I wrote a userscript Add link to network and chat profiles which has this feature. The script can be installed via this link; source code can be found here. It works for users who aren't ♦ moderators as well. This is how my profile looks like after installing it:

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