Idea: pre-configured support chat. Thoughts?

Hello,
from the world of anonymous XMPP multi user chats I realized how many people are active in those helping other users, answering their questions etc…
So I thought if it may be a good idea if Delta Chat by default would be delivered with a pre-configured public group support chat where developers and other motivated volunteers would linger waiting for newbies to post their questions. If showing such a group chat by default is a too heavy of a measure alternatively the user could also be asked if he wants to join that group chat when he starts Delta Chat for the very first time.
What do you guys think about this idea?

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I kind of like the idea, but some servers have a limit in the maximum number of members a group can have (‘to’ header) and users may get trapped inside a group the can not leave!!!

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Ok, that sounds like my idea isn’t as easy to implement than I thought it would be.
I absolutely didn’t know about any limits in the ‘to’-header. Can you tell me roughly what the maximum number is in worst cases? I know a protest group who are trying out alternatives to WhatsApp, so if the group size of Delta is very limited it wouldn’t be an option for them.
And why would users be unable to leave the group?

There could at least be link to this forum here in DC (or is there?)

For GMail it’s 500 per day (that is, to 50 people if I want to send 10 mails a day).

Matrix (that is actually, the Riot app) and XMPP probably good choices for big groups

And because they can’t send the “I would like to leave” message

Ok, yeah, 500 is a pretty tight limit for groups.

Linking to the forum wouldn’t be the same at all sadly. When you’re using XMPP it is ultra comfortable to just click on a support group and sending in your question without ever leaving the GUI of the client you’re using and also getting notified inside the client about answers people might send you.

Why wouldn’t they be able to send that leave message?

As you can’t send a message to 500 receipients.

And maybe there could be an option to chat with people from a forum like that one here but this is rather for the long-term wishlist as it would be hard to implement :frowning_face:

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getting back to the point of this post which I think it is giving support to the users, now I am thinking it better and a pre-configured group is actually a bad idea, have a lot of problems, first some mechanisms to add the user to the group are needed, the group size limit, the user may get too much ‘spam’, the user address will be shared with everyone in the group, and maybe the user don’t even talk English in the end, etc

IMO a better way to get support could be using a preconfigured bot like DeltaBot: an email bot assistant which could provide help to guide users to the channels where he/she can get support (ex. sharing links to de IRC channel, etc) and could answer FAQ, etc.

PS: @STPKITT users can’t leave group because to leave a group you must send an email to the group saying you are leaving the group but since you can’t send an email to so much people, the message is never delivered and your email server send you an error email saying so.

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Ah, now I understand! I didn’t know how leaving a group works. Thanks guys!

I also think a support group chat like I imagined will not be possible as things stand for now.

Such a Delta Bot is a great idea and may be a good substition for the support group that although of course real humans answering can’t be beaten.

sure the bot will not replace humans, it will just guide you to the humans and conquer your heart in the process :wink:

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An opt-in support group would require deltachat to work well with mailing list servers (including the headers indicating the unsubribe and help commands etc.). Larger and public groups won’t work with To: or CC: distribution lists.

This forum’s “mailing list mode” also includes a List-Unsubscribe: header, maybe it also allows subscribing through email (deltachat sending a message).

Maybe over bots or matching bots that chooses an currently online user for support and matches them with the ones in need for support. (@adbenitez metioned also bots)

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