subchannelOf static method
The channel an added/removed line travelled on.
The one place a masked string is taken apart, and it is safe because mask built it: the channel is everything before the first space, and a channel name never contains one.
Implementation
static String subchannelOf(String masked) {
var space = masked.indexOf(' ');
return space < 0 ? masked : masked.substring(0, space);
}