Does reporter receive any response that their email delivered and successfully converted into the topic?
Currently I go the same way but realize that initially a mail from unregistered mailbox forces to generate staged user (not approved) and such user does not receive any responses from forum. Neither confirmation for their first report, nor forum notification because of by their absence.
I have to manually approve such user, then reply the topic with a phrase “Your request is being processed…/ Your message has been delivered.” Is there any way to automate such reply for staged users or by small action? The email might contain next steps, for example URL to self-activate their account.
As a proposal, this may be a part of Disourse Assign plugin. The reply may be visible to moderators, like a note (not a regular post).