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Sometimes I find old posts. I'd like to call a users attention to something new, or just ask for a followup. How can I invite a user to chat?

I've clicked on the chat link and I can create a room, but I'm unable to invite a particular user.

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    when you see the chat link near the comments and press it, it will automatically create the room and invite the user, weather he accepts it or not is a different question. I guess the best way using the current features of this site would be if you @name this user on some post he made with a link to a room you've created.
    – Prix
    Jul 4, 2013 at 22:38
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    ^Sounds like the answer
    – Gary
    Jul 4, 2013 at 22:42
  • You can't invite a particular user to chat. You can only post a link in the comments of a question with a link to a chat room, or invite them if they have been in chat before.
    – Benjamin Gruenbaum
    Jul 4, 2013 at 23:21
  • To the OP: you can create an account here on Meta too; it'll be linked if you use the same email address, then you can comment on the question here.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Jul 5, 2013 at 15:38

1 Answer 1

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I just tried to figure this out, and this process worked:

  1. Go to 'chat'.
  2. Create a new room.
  3. Click on 'room'.
  4. Click on 'control access'.
  5. Click on 'add new user' beside "explicit write access' (or 'owner', but this supposedly works for people who have chatted before)
  6. Type in the user name.
  7. Click on the user name (after it pops up).
  8. Click on 'invite this user to [your room name]' --or-- 'start new room with this user'

I did this multiple times (trying different settings, and then to step through it again to write all of this out), and on just one occasion I got a pop-up window with a confirmation that an invitation was sent.

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    @a-m: I followed these steps and find a similar way but quicker than yours. Visit the uesr's profile. Add the subdomain "chat" to the url. (i.e. stackoverflow.com/users... becomes chat.stackoverflow.com/users/...). This will allow you to visit the user's chat profile. Now do step 8!
    – musafar006
    May 2, 2016 at 7:56
  • @musafar006 Add your own answer. your method is great +1 !!!!
    – Saic Siquot
    Aug 14, 2016 at 12:55
  • @LuisSiquot The question is marked as duplicate. Can't add a new answer.
    – musafar006
    Aug 16, 2016 at 5:39
  • @musafar006 - Sadly your method didn't work for me.
    – aparente001
    Nov 26, 2016 at 4:18
  • @aparente001 why not?
    – musafar006
    Nov 26, 2016 at 6:08
  • @musafar006 - Sorry, I should have said, I get a "Page Not Found."
    – aparente001
    Nov 26, 2016 at 15:29
  • @aparente001 make sure you're using SO's subdomain. I am not sure whether stackexchange domain has a subdomain for chat.
    – musafar006
    Nov 29, 2016 at 5:11
  • Somehow four years in and this procedure is still precisely as ridiculously awkward. This really needs to be streamlined.
    – tadman
    Aug 29, 2017 at 16:09
  • Yeah, everytime I want to invite a new user, i have to loose unwanted 20 min. This is insane.
    – samayo
    Aug 30, 2017 at 19:33
  • I just asked a question about this because I can't find it still meta.stackexchange.com/questions/300357/…
    – samayo
    Aug 30, 2017 at 19:41
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    Worth noting that you can not chat with new users < 20 rep. So it is not possible to guide a new user who deleted their question
    – lucidbrot
    Jul 27, 2019 at 15:24

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