Couple things have changed for me on this:
-
the bot is in addition to the new site setup wizard. It takes over after the new site setup wizard is complete, when you’ve set logos, colors, some tweaks to settings, and have already invited other staff members. That part of the setup is critical – it is a “yes and”, not an “or”.
-
the bot will be posting exclusively in the Staff category, only after initial site setup, so there’s 0% chance it will show anything to public users. (It could also send a personal message or a group message. My overall point was, it does not make public posts, that are visible to the public in any way.)
So really this should be titled
Try bot, a bot that teaches staff about Discourse
… and I’ll change it to that. This is something that we’ll be building in 1.7 to help people get their Discourse running great.
The general idea is teach staff members how discourse works by interacting with them. Some examples:
-
Bot creates a new topic, asks someone to reply to it. When they reply, the bot replies to them.
-
Ask them to create their own topic, and @name mention the bot. After mention, the bot will reply to them.
-
add a picture, add a onebox, and the bot will reply with a funny picture or onebox of its own. Sort of the “dueling banjos” there.
I think you can see where this is going; it is both teaching staff how to use Discourse, while simultaneously showing off the cool things you can do with Discourse! If you have further ideas about what the bot should do along these lines, feel free to share.