This is really smart (depending on the context of course, sounds like it worked in your community).
But yes, I think Automation will be your friend for these sorts of things.
And if you find that it doesn’t have the triggers etc. you need available, I would urge you to post in the topic. Who knows if more can be added 
Alternatively, Discourse has many available webhooks/APIs, so if you need to go all-out with your automations, you could use something like Zapier or similar no-code tools.