The live chat feature on your event page or site allows viewers to interact and discuss your virtual event. You can moderate these interactions by deleting comments or blocking users. Chat moderation is only accessible through a desktop browser and is not supported on the mobile app.
In this article:
- About chat for live events
- Activating and deactivating chat
- Moderating chat
- Exporting your chat transcript
About chat for live events
During your event, the browser will display only the 100 most recent messages to you and your viewers to prevent playback buffering and system slowdown.
Chat is active for your event as soon as you activate it. Viewers can start chatting, even if you haven’t gone live yet. The chat will remain active until you finish your stream (unless you deactivate it prior).
Viewers can share the following:
- Emojis and messages are up to 240 characters long.
- Paste links in chat; these links will appear as hyperlinks and be clickable.
- Chat participants can delete their messages if they wish (but nobody else's)
While an event allows unlimited viewers, chat, polls, and Q&A are limited to 80,000 participants. If the number of participants surpasses 80,000, new viewers cannot access these features. However, existing participants will retain their access.
Activating and Deactivating chat
Audience chat is turned off by default. However, you can activate or deactivate chat capabilities via the web studio.
To turn chat for live events on and off:
- Select the chat button from the web studio interface at the screen's top right.
- Select the overflow menu (⋮) at the top-right of the chat module.
- Select the toggle next to Audience chat to turn the chat feature on or off.
Your chat will be available on your Vimeo event page, and the engagement tools embed once it is activated.
Moderating chat
During your event, you can delete individual comments or ban a user entirely via the Chat tab, the web-based production tool, or your stream’s Vimeo public page.
To delete a comment or block a user:
- From the chat window in the web studio, hover your cursor over their message.
- You can delete a comment by selecting the trash can icon. However, you cannot recover a deleted comment.
- Select the block icon, which is shaped like a circle with a line through it, to block a user. Select it again to unblock the user.
Blocking a user hides their comments from everyone except themselves. They can still comment, but others in the chat won't see them.
⚠️Note: Blocks are event-specific. If the user returns to a future event, you must re-block them.
Exporting your chat transcript:
The chat feature will deactivate once your event concludes. Following the event, you can download a transcript of the chat during the event as a .txt file. The system will store this transcript for 30 days.
To export your chat's transcript:
- Select the chat icon from the top-right of the page.
- Select the overflow menu ( ⋮ )
- Select Download.
- Select either the ‘Current’ session for the event you just streamed or select your event’s date for a previous stream.