Could the auto silence feature in chat be improved?

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AI-generated summary

In a discussion about improving the auto-silence feature in chat, hiddenseal suggests that the current system—where users receive a private message (PM) warning after being silenced—is ineffective and awkward, as users may not understand why they were silenced. They propose instead making the send button inactive during the silence period, similar to Telegram’s approach, which visually enforces the cooldown without relying on PMs. mcwumbly adds context by sharing screenshots showing that users currently receive a PM notification when flagged, and then see a message blocking them from typing further. The admin interface also logs the silence event. The core question raised is whether the current behavior is intentional or open to improvement, with visual feedback (like disabling the send button) presented as a more intuitive alternative to PM-based silencing.

1

Hello. The auto silence feature of chat is a useful one. I see this feature as a way to force users to write messages that contain complete sentences and thoughts

instead
of
sending
each
word
separately
as
some
people
may be
used to.

However, the way silencing happens now is not too effective at achieving this goal. As I understand it, the system bot sends a warning as a PM telling them they’ve been temporarily blocked. If the user doesn’t think the above behavior is a problem (which is probably a true statement, otherwise, the user wouldn’t type like that), they can’t understand what the reason for the block was.

In addition, this all feels a bit awkward – the punishment for actions in chat comes as a PM.

My question – is the current silencing behavior a result of deliberate choice or is it something you may agree can be improved?

For example, instead of sending a silence PM, why can’t we make send button inactive in chat for the duration of the silence? Telegram does that:

image

You don’t see the send button unless certain time has passed since your last message.

image

2 Likes
It's really easy to spam the discourse chat - Implement tighter spam resistance
2

Just to share some additional facts about the current state, if a user’s chat message is flagged, they get this personal message:

Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.05.41 PM
Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.05.41 PM785×369 31.7 KB

Then if, the try to chat, they are unable to type new messages. Instead, they see this:

Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.06.00 PM
Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.06.00 PM409×148 5.87 KB

In the admin section for the user, it shows this:

Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.08.25 PM
Screenshot 2022-12-25 at 9.08.25 PM1097×138 14 KB