# Messaging your judges > From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/messaging-your-judges **Inbox** is where you write to the judges you cover, and where their answers come back. One conversation per judge: you, them, and nothing else in it. It is the first row in the organization block of the left navigation, at `/org//inbox`, and it carries an amber count of the messages waiting on you. Three things to know before anything else: - **Your conversations are yours alone.** Nobody else at your organization can read them — not a festival admin, not the owner, not the person who invited you. See [Nobody else can read your conversations](#nobody-else-can-read-your-conversations). - **The judge reads your message in FilmScorecard**, on their own Messages screen, and gets it by email as well. They answer you there, and their answer lands back here — on its own, while you have the screen open. See [It keeps itself up to date](#it-keeps-itself-up-to-date). - **A conversation belongs to one organization.** The same judge at two organizations you work for is two separate conversations, one under each organization's Inbox. ## Finding the screen **Inbox** sits in the organization block at the top of the left navigation, under [Overview](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/overview.md) and above **Judges directory**. The addresses are: ``` /org//inbox /org//inbox/ ``` - **The list and the open conversation are two addresses**, so a conversation can be linked to — though only you can open yours. The link in an email telling you a judge wrote opens the conversation it is about. - **Nothing else is kept in the address.** The search box, the Conversations/Archived switch and your scroll position are working state and reset when you leave. - **The browser tab is titled "*your organization* Inbox".** - **There is no tab strip.** Announcements are a separate screen on the season they belong to — see [Announcements](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/announcements.md). ## The amber number The count on the **Inbox** row is **messages judges have sent you that you have not opened**, in this organization. - **Only a judge's own messages count.** Your own do not, and neither do the quiet grey record lines in a conversation. - **Opening a conversation clears it**, and so does sending into one. - **An archived conversation is outside the count** — see [Archiving, and coming back](#archiving-and-coming-back). - **No number means nothing is waiting.** - **It moves on its own.** It is re-read about every 30 seconds on every screen of the organization, the Inbox and the rest alike — but only while the browser tab is in front of you, and again whenever you come back to it. Opening, sending and archiving move it straight away. - **It is this organization's count.** Working in two organizations means two Inboxes and two counts; the number you see belongs to the organization whose screens you are on. See [Working in two organizations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/working-in-two-organizations.md). ## It keeps itself up to date **A reply arrives while you watch.** While the browser tab is in front of you: - **The conversation you have open** is re-read about every 10 seconds, so a judge's reply appears in it within about 10 seconds, with no reload. - **The conversation list** is re-read about every 30 seconds, so a new message moves its conversation to the top and puts an amber count on it within about half a minute. - **The amber number** on the Inbox row follows within the same half minute. **Nothing is read while the tab is behind something else.** Come back to it and everything is read again at once. Anything you do yourself — sending, editing, deleting, archiving, opening a conversation — shows straight away rather than waiting for the next read. **Choosing a conversation does not redraw the screen.** The row you press lights up at once, the list stays exactly where it was, and only the conversation side shows its placeholder while the messages arrive. The address changes to that conversation's, so the browser's back button and a copied link both work as before. **If a read fails**, it is tried again a few times before anything is said: | You see | What it means | | --- | --- | | "Couldn't refresh the list. Showing what was last loaded." at the foot of the screen | The list could not be read again. Everything on screen is what last arrived, and the next read that works replaces it. | | "This conversation could not be loaded." with **Try again** | The conversation you chose could not be read. Press **Try again**. | | "This conversation is no longer on the list." | It has moved out of your reach while you were looking — the judge's place with you went, say. The list drops it on its next read. Nothing to retry. | ## Who can work here **Everybody in the organization has an Inbox**, whatever their role — the screen opens for any active member, and for a FilmScorecard platform administrator. **Writing is narrower than reading:** | Who | Can start and reply | | --- | --- | | Organization owner, organization admin | **Yes**, everywhere in the organization | | **Festival admin**, **Coordinator**, **Programmer** on a festival or season | **Yes**, for the judges on those seasons | | **Viewer** | **No.** They read what a judge wrote to them and see **View-only access** where the message box would be | | A member with no festival access at all | Nobody to write to, and an empty picker | | FilmScorecard platform administrator with no membership here | An empty inbox and an empty picker | - **A suspended member gets "page not found"**, the same answer a stranger gets — and their conversations go with the screen rather than staying readable. - **Judges never see this screen.** Their side is their own Messages tab; see [Messaging festival staff](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/messaging-festival-staff.md). Access is set on [Festival access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access.md). The rule here is the same one that governs every other change to a season: **a viewer reads, and everybody else with a grant writes.** ## Who you can write to Press **New**, above the conversation list, and search the judges on offer. Each row is a name over their `JDG-` number and the festivals you share. **The list is the judges you cover:** - **They must have accepted an invitation from you.** Accepting is what joins a judge's account to your organization's record of them, and this list is built from that link — see [The judges an open call brought you](#the-judges-an-open-call-brought-you). - **They must hold a place on a season you can write to.** A judge on a season you only *view* is not on your list; a colleague with write access to that season can write to them. - **Paused judges are on it**, and so is somebody you have removed from the roster — the conversation about why is often the point. **The one place that does not qualify is a revoked invitation**: an offer you withdrew before it was answered leaves nothing to talk about here. - **Finished seasons count.** A season closing does not end the conversation about it. Who is never on it: - **Applicants.** Somebody who has applied to one of your open calls is not in this picker. **The request row is the door to them** — see [Writing to an applicant](#writing-to-an-applicant). - **Yourself**, and **other staff.** This screen is for judges only; there is no staff-to-staff messaging anywhere in FilmScorecard. - **Judges of another organization**, including one you personally work for elsewhere. Their conversation lives under that organization's Inbox. **One conversation per judge, per organization.** A judge sitting on three of your seasons is one row, and the line under their name lists every festival you share with them. **When there is nobody to write to**, New still opens — on one line, "No judges to write to". The button never disappears, so you can always tell the difference between "there is nothing here" and "this control is not for me". ## Starting a conversation 1. Press **New** and pick a judge. If you already have a conversation with them it opens; nothing is ever duplicated. 2. A new pairing opens an empty pane — "No messages yet. Write to *Ada Reyes* if something needs resolving." Nothing exists yet; **the conversation is created the moment your first message sends.** 3. Type in the box at the bottom and press **Send** — or **⌘ Enter** (**Ctrl Enter** on Windows). Plain Enter stays a line break, so a longer message never sends before you mean it to. Up to 2000 characters; plain text only. Your message appears on the right-hand side of the stream, in indigo, with its time underneath. **Times here are in universal time (UTC)**, not your festival's time zone. **Two other doors send into the same conversation from where you are working**, without coming to this screen: **Send a message** in a judge's row menu on the [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) roster, and the speech-bubble icon beside a judge's name on the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md#writing-to-a-judge-from-the-queue). Each opens a small dialog — a **Message** box, **Send**, and an **Open conversation** link that brings you here — and what it sends is an ordinary message in the conversation, created if it did not exist yet. Both are drawn only for a judge who has accepted an invitation from you; there is nothing to open for anyone else. ### What the judge receives Three things, and the judge controls two of them: | What | When | Can they switch it off? | | --- | --- | --- | | **The message itself**, in their Messages screen | Immediately — and, if they have the conversation open, it appears there within about 10 seconds | **No.** This is the delivery. | | **An email** titled "A message from *your name*", carrying your words in full and a link back to the conversation | Usually within the hour | **Yes**, with the Email switch on the same row. | **Switching the email off is not silence.** The message is in their Messages screen either way, and a judge who has turned the email off simply reads it next time they are in FilmScorecard. See [Your account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account.md#notifications) for the judge's side of that switch. **Nothing tells you which of the three they got**, and there are no read receipts anywhere in messaging. ## Writing to an applicant Somebody who has applied to one of your open calls is not in the New picker. **Message the judge**, on the [Judge requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#message-the-judge) tab, is how that conversation starts: - Your message goes to their email address exactly as it always has, **and**, if they hold a FilmScorecard account, lands in a conversation here as well. - **They can answer it here**, and their answer arrives in this Inbox. - **An applicant with no account is email-only.** No conversation is created, and none is created later if they sign up — the messages you sent before they had an account are not backfilled. - **The conversation lives as long as the application is open** — while it is New, Shortlisted or Countered. **Declining closes it**: the history stays readable and the message box becomes "*Ada Reyes* is no longer on a roster you cover". ### The judges an open call brought you **Accepting an application does not, on its own, let you keep writing to that person here.** What joins a judge's account to your organization's record of them is *their* acceptance of an invitation from you — and an open-call applicant has never been sent one. So, for somebody whose only history with you is an application you accepted: - They **do not appear in the New picker**, even though they are on the roster. - The conversation you had while they were applying **stops taking new messages** once the application is accepted, and reads "*Ada Reyes* is no longer on a roster you cover". Everything already said stays readable. **Somebody who has also accepted an invitation from you at some point is unaffected** — that acceptance is the link, whichever season it was for. If you need to keep writing to an accepted applicant, use their email address, or bring them onto another season with an invitation from the [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md). ## The conversation list One row per conversation: initials, the judge's name, their `JDG-` number and the festivals you share, the date of the last message, a preview line ("You: …" when the last word was yours), and an amber count when anything in it is unread. - **Newest activity first.** A conversation moves to the top when either of you writes in it — including while you are looking at the list. - **The list holds your latest 200 conversations.** - The dropdown above the list switches between **Conversations** and **Archived**, each with its own count, and the search box matches **the judge's name, their `JDG-` number and the festival line**. Filtered to nothing, it says "No conversation matches *what you typed*" with **Clear search** under it. - **Nothing on a row says a judge has blocked you.** That fact belongs to the judge, and it appears where it matters — in the conversation itself, when you go to write. See [When you cannot write](#when-you-cannot-write). **The judge's name is read live**, so somebody who changes their display name is renamed on your rows too. The festival line is the festivals you currently share; when the pairing came from an application it names the festival whose call they applied to. ## Reading a conversation The header carries the judge's name, their `JDG-` number and the festival line. Under it, the stream: - **Your messages sit on the right, in indigo; theirs on the left**, with their initials and their name above the first of a run. - **Grey centred lines are the record** — things neither of you typed. Nobody can edit or delete one. - **Days are separated by a dated rule**, and each message carries its time. - **A long conversation shows its latest 500 messages**, with a line at the top saying how many exist in all. ## Editing and deleting your messages Point at a message of yours and three dots appear beside it (on a phone they are always visible). Both items work only on messages **you** sent — a judge's messages and the grey record lines take no changes from anybody. **Edit message** turns the bubble into a box in place, with **Save** and **Cancel**. **⌘ Enter** saves, **Esc** cancels, and Save will not commit while the box is empty. An edited message shows a quiet **Edited** mark beside its time; the mark is set by the system the moment the words change, and there is no way to edit without it. **Delete message** confirms first, quoting the message so you delete the right one. It leaves the conversation from the moment you confirm and cannot be restored — there is no undo and no "deleted message" placeholder. The conversation's last-activity date steps back to the newest message still standing. Two honest limits, both about what has already left the screen: - **The email may already be out.** The judge is emailed your message, usually within the hour. An edit does not chase it, and a deleted message may already have been read. Deleting before the email goes out does stop it. - **A deleted message is still on the record.** If the judge reports the conversation to FilmScorecard support, the copy that goes with the report includes deleted messages, marked as deleted, and notes which were edited after sending. **Editing and deleting keep working when writing does not** — on a conversation the judge has blocked, after your access to the festival ends, and after the judge's place with you is gone. Tidying what you already said is not the same as starting something new. ## When you cannot write The message box is replaced by a quiet strip. **In every case the conversation stays fully readable**, and your own messages can still be edited or deleted. | The strip | What it means | | --- | --- | | **"*Ada Reyes* is not accepting messages from you"** — "Announcements and assignments still reach them." | **The judge blocked you.** It is theirs to lift and there is no way to ask; everything else about their judging is unaffected. This one is shown ahead of the others. | | **"View-only access"** — "Someone with write access to *Pine City Film Festival* can reply." | You are a **viewer** on the festival this conversation belongs to. A colleague who can write to that season can answer. | | **"You no longer cover *Pine City Film Festival*"** | Your access to the festival behind this conversation has ended. | | **"*Ada Reyes* is no longer on a roster you cover"** | Their last place with you was revoked, their application was declined — or it was accepted, which is the case described in [The judges an open call brought you](#the-judges-an-open-call-brought-you). | **A send that slips through — from a stale tab, say — is refused in the same words.** See [If something is refused](#if-something-is-refused). ## Archiving, and coming back The three dots at the top of an open conversation hold exactly one item: **Archive this conversation**, and **Move back to conversations** once it is archived. - **Archiving is yours alone.** The judge may have filed the same conversation, or not; neither side is told and neither affects the other. - **A new message brings it back for both of you.** Anything either of you sends returns an archived conversation to the active list, so a live conversation is never lost to an old archive decision. - **Archiving does not mark anything read.** An archived conversation holding unread messages keeps them — they simply leave the amber count while it is archived, and come back with the conversation. ## When a judge replies Their message lands in the conversation, the row moves to the top of your list with an amber count on it, and the Inbox row's number goes up — within about half a minute if you are looking at the list, and within about 10 seconds in the conversation itself if you have it open. **You are also emailed** — subject "A message from *the judge's name*" — with their words in full and a link straight back to the conversation. **That email is the one thing here you can switch off**, on the *Judge sends you a message* row of your own [notification preferences](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account-settings.md#notifications). The message still arrives on this screen either way. ## Nobody else can read your conversations **Visibility is personal, not organizational.** A conversation exists between one member of staff and one judge, and nobody else at your organization can open it — a festival admin cannot read a coordinator's conversations, and the owner cannot read anybody's. What follows from that, and is worth planning around: - **A conversation cannot be handed over.** There is no shared inbox, no reassignment and no way to bring a colleague in. - **When somebody leaves, their conversations go quiet.** The judge keeps the history and sees "No longer staff at *the festival*" where their message box was; whoever replaces them starts a fresh conversation. See [Messaging festival staff](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/messaging-festival-staff.md#when-a-staff-member-leaves). - **A judge's report about a conversation goes to FilmScorecard, never to you.** Nobody at the organization is told who reported what. ## On a phone Under a narrow width the two panes become two steps: the conversation list fills the screen, and opening a row takes the conversation full screen, with a back arrow in its header and the message box pinned to the bottom. The list and the stream scroll inside their own panes rather than moving the page. ## If something is refused Nothing sends silently and nothing you typed is cleared. | The message | What it means | | --- | --- | | "Write a message before sending." | The message box is empty. | | "Keep the message under 2000 characters." | Exactly that. | | "*Ada Reyes* is not accepting messages from you." | The judge blocked you. | | "You have view-only access to *Pine City Film Festival*, so this message cannot be sent." | You are a viewer on that festival. | | "You no longer cover *Pine City Film Festival*, so this message cannot be sent." | Your festival access ended, possibly while the page was open. | | "*Ada Reyes* is no longer on a roster you cover, so this message cannot be sent." | Their last place with you is gone. | | "Write a message before saving." | The edit box is empty. Delete is the verb for taking a message away; an edit cannot blank one. | | "Your message did not send. Try again." | Something went wrong in transit. Nothing was recorded — check the conversation before retyping. | | "The edit did not save. Try again." / "The message did not delete. Try again." | Something went wrong in transit, or the message was not yours to change. The stream still shows what is true. | | "That did not save. Reload and try again." | An archive or a read-stamp that did not commit. | | "You are signed out. Sign in again and retry." | Your session ended while the page was open. | The same sentences appear inside the **Send a message** dialog on the Judges roster and the Review Queue, under the box, with the dialog staying open. ## What this screen does not have - **No Block and no Report.** Both are the judge's verbs, deliberately: your lever over a judge is their place on the roster, not the conversation. If a judge's messages are a problem, take it up through [their roster place](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md). - **No group conversations, and no writing to "the festival's judges".** Every conversation is you and one judge. To reach a group, post an [announcement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/announcements.md). - **No shared or team inbox**, and no way to read or answer a colleague's conversation. - **No attachments, no formatting, no links that open anything.** Plain text. - **No read receipts**, in either direction. You are not told whether a judge opened your message or your email. - **No edit history.** An edited message shows its latest words and an *Edited* mark — not what it said before. - **No sound and no pop-up.** A reply shows itself by arriving in the list and the conversation, and nothing reads while the browser tab is in the background. - **No search inside messages.** The search box matches the list rows — names, `JDG-` numbers and festivals — not the words inside a conversation. - **No applicants in the picker**, and no conversation at all with an applicant who has no account. - **No staff-to-staff messaging**, and no messaging a filmmaker or submitter anywhere in FilmScorecard. ## Related guides - [Messaging festival staff](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/messaging-festival-staff.md) — the judge's side of the same conversation: what they see, what they can block and report, and what they are told when you leave. - [Judge requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#message-the-judge) — the applicant's door into this screen. - [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md#writing-to-a-judge-from-the-queue) — the speech-bubble icon beside a judge's name, which sends into the same conversation from a scorecard's row. - [Announcements](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/announcements.md) — one message to a group of a season's judges, when a conversation is not what you want. - [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) — the roster: pausing, removing, and everything else that decides whether a conversation stays open. - [Festival access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access.md) — the four festival roles, and which of them can write here. - [Your account settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account-settings.md#notifications) — the Notifications tab, including the email a judge's reply sends you.