Content creators and their mods have a huge arsenal of tools at their disposal to keep their chat moving along nicely, one of those tools is a command called uniquechat. But, what does it do and how exactly does it work? This article goes into details on this common command and whether or not you should utilise it on your channel.
If you’re a Twitch user, this article can also shed some light and what it means for you and how you can work around it.
What is the UniqueChat command
The Uniquechat command prevents users from posting non-unique messages in chat. Auto-moderator will first check for a minimum of 9 characters that are not symbol unicode characters (” – % >) and then prevent it from being posted.
It will give the user a warning that their message was not posted.
What is the purpose of the unique chat command
The primary purpose of /uniquechat is to two things: to prevent spam and to make the conversion unique.
It prevents spam in a few ways. The first, it prevents users from copying and pasting the same message over and over again, however it will allow them to post the first instance of the message. The most common incidence is when a spam-bot enters the chat and begins spamming viewbots, other channels or whatever.
The second, it will also prevent other users from repeating the message another user has said. This could be just some repetitive nonsense, or a quote.
What messages won’t be moderated by unique chat mode
Uniquechat doesn’t catch everything. Quite a lot slips through the net, which ins’t a bad thing.
Firstly, only messages with 9 or more characters will be prevented from being posted. This means that messages such as “haha” “gg” or “hello” will be fine. You wouldn’t want these to be auto moderated as a content creator.
Secondly, the uniquechat command doesn’t look at symbol unicode characters which means a spammer could copy and paste !!!!!! or %%%% and a moderator would need to step in to manually remove the messages.
Thirdly, emotes do not count and unique chat won’t stop them. Firstly because they are generally under 9 characters and secondly you wouldn’t want to anyway – imagine your chat if no one could say Sadge or Widepeepohappy.
Drawbacks of unique chat
Uniquechat works relatively well and there isn’t a great deal of drawbacks from turning it on. It is rare for a user to type something in that isn’t unique, aside from obvious messages such as “hello, how are you?” and so on.
It may cause some annoyance to the odd user but the stuff that it has potentially prevented makes it worth it. However, its worth noting that most of the biggest streamers do not actually use the command at all.
How to turn Unique chat on Twitch
To turn on unique chat mode, the content then type in the command /uniquechat. This can be done by the streamer and moderators.
Streamers can remove the ability for mods to use this command if they wish.
How to turn unique chat off on Twitch
To turn it off, type in the command /uniquechatoff. This can be done by a moderator or the streamer themselves.
Is r9k mode the same as unique chat mode?
We have posted an in-depth article about r9k mode here. In summary, when R9k mode on Twitch came out of beta it became what we now know as unique chat. Robot 9000 was created with the intention of auto moderating non-unique messages.
Does Uniquechat mode reset when its turned on and off?
Yes! The unique chat command resets its list of messages to look through when it is tuned on and off. If you have had it on for a long time on chat and its getting harder to actually post a message on chat it might be worth turning it off.
Unique chat doesn’t work
If for whatever reason unique chat doesn’t work on Twitch then check if it’s turned on by typing in /uniquechat, it will give you a message to say if it’s on (or off). If unique chat is on and not working then turn it off by typing in ‘/uniquechatoff’.
