Potential good feature for discourse could be integration with a call system, if this is possible for some situations when it is helpful to be able to talk on the phone or video-call with folks.
One example had mentioned in other topic about flags is if it is possible for an automatic call to be triggered in response to posts being flagged, especially for the new “unlawful” flag as well as the other categories for moderation.
This could be especially helpful for a faster response time from a moderator, to notify more urgently than just push-notification. If I was going to set this up would be with a dedicated phone line to physical phone with mechanical bell and flashing light on a wall, not mobile phone.
In addition if someone is being difficult such that a moderator may need to suspend their account, or there are any other challenges in communication that people can’t understand each other well through written text, setting up a call to improve communication could be a good thing as is already possible but not necessarily integrated with discourse that I know of.
Potential feature development for that could be something like with the “account temporarily on hold” notification, say to require someone call in to explain why they want to be a member of a community if perhaps maybe they are not an ideal member.
Starting this topic just to check if anyone else would consider this to be a helpful feature or not you can vote.
That is a Finnish saying that refers to a grossly exaggerated action when more effective tools are available. But it works in the summer in Finnish Lapland, although a shotgun would be better
That might be available in large companies that can provide accessible customer service. Because otherwise, it becomes like most chat functions that just don’t work because no one is there. However, it is certain that there is no more effective way to annoy a user than to urge them to call a number that doesn’t answer. Or there is one. That a digital company calls without being asked.
But of course, that attitude may, and certainly is, as culturally bound as landlines and faxes. And I approach the matter like a Finn, because we haven’t had landlines or faxes for a long time.
Well, I guess that’s it from my side. I have nothing constructive to say anymore, if I ever had in this thread at all.
I have an awful headache so I didn’t have feelings to start writing in English. So I used AI of my forum as a translator. English wording came from it.
That can be, things have changed a lot over the past few decades with how phones work.
Caller ID is helpful to see who is calling before answering if that works. A lot of companies have a call answer system so there is an automated greeting message, then call is on hold until representative can answer.
The main automated calls I have gotten over the past the couple years sometimes leave a voicemail that states “your google my business listing page has been flagged for review, please speak with us urgently to correct this.” That is from third-party companies who do search engine optimization with google, they use A.I. to cold-call anyone who has a phone number on a google maps business profile it seems.
Anyway that isn’t too related to discourse or what I was imagining integration to a phone system could look like. The kind of use-case that I imagine would make sense is for if there is an active public site with a lot of viewership, and say someone posts something that clearly needs moderator intervention but the official moderator is asleep, phone call can work to awake someone from slumber. The really loud mechanical bell phone I have don’t have connected to phone line now because that is too loud for 10 calls every day. I can setup secondary phone line with company account with phone company that wouldn’t be a publicly listed number but emergency only.
Regular desk phones I have are set to answer calls in French because that is much more calming to listen to than English voice is no good. It just says, “Bonjour, please leave a message (in French).”
The main limitation with email + written communication in general is that if talk is about topics that are important and/or emotionally charged / controversial, things can break down such that there start to be fairly substantial misunderstandings or disagreements that can’t be effectively resolved over text.
Talking over the phone or Skype meetings / even in person meetings aren’t necessarily going to be helpful for all conflicts, but it can be helpful to at least have opportunity for spoken communication when written correspondence is not working.
If there isn’t a lot of interest in this feature request can let this go. I only have a few members so far with one discourse instance that isn’t too active, is mainly for talking about historic architecture.
If I get to situations where need to suspend someone’s account, could say account is suspended until/if they are able to call in to talk through any problems that need resolution.
As far as I can tell, everything you’ve mentioned could be done today. Any voice/video call system is going to be hosted independently of Discourse, which means API/webhooks.
That can work, but often people seem to avoid making calls and talking on phones these days for some reason. That looks like a made-up number what you posted.
Not sure about how to integrate API/webhooks with phone system, looks like that is supported with standard tier hosting. I could potentially re-launch site with that. Do you guys have any preferred phone-system that work well with discourse?
It’s 2024. Any integration with SMS or phone will lead to an influx of people abusing it by having your system call or text their numbers in a revenue sharing fraud scheme.
Those are no good, that may be accurate definition of Angi Leads/Ads which charges fee for cold-call lead based on search for remodel contractors. Was just about to start talking about their call system but don’t know if that is compatible with discourse or not.
They have some integrity with background-checking contractors and people can post negative reviews that can’t be removed if contractor is bad.
They use proxy number for contractor to call routed through their system so customer’s numbers aren’t in public list.
Not sure if this is really accurate, can believe there is a risk that something like that may happen depending on what kind of a system you are talking about.
Common security system is to send verification code by call or sms to phone for two-factor secure login, have you seen that hijacked for some kind of fraud schemes or how would that happen?
Anyway may go with T-Mobile for setting up official company account, they have some of the most sophisticated scam filtering systems I know of.
The really large companies are able to figure out the traffic patterns relatively quickly because their volume is higher. And to them a few thousand bucks is not as important as to you and me.
Also, see here for a number of mitigating techniques, but nevertheless, I know more than a handful of people that weren’t able to get this under control and abandoned SMS/phone verification.
