Implement modmail

[asudox]

Requirements

• [X] Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support
• [X] Did you check to see if this issue already exists?
• [X] Is this only a feature request? Do not put multiple feature requests in one issue.
• [X] Is this a backend issue? Use the lemmy-ui repo for UI / frontend issues.
• [X] Do you agree to follow the rules in our Code of Conduct?

Is your proposal related to a problem?

Currently, to contact the moderators, you need to check the moderator list of a community and choose a single moderator to send a PM to. After a few days, if the mod is inactive, the user will proceed to either PM the entire moderation team, one by one, PM another moderator and do the same things again, or give up on trying to contact the moderators altogether.

Describe the solution you'd like.

I propose something similar to Reddit's modmail functionality.

My idea: We basically copy the report system Lemmy already has and adjust it so that the reports are just texts from users. The resolve function would be a perfect way for moderators to assign themselves to a modmail so that multiple mods don't respond to the user. After that, the conversation between the mod and user can continue in PMs or external messaging services such as Matrix.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

My first idea was a simple bulk PM functionality. A modmail route would simply bulk PM a user written message to all of the moderators in the specified community, ideally prefixed with an indicator like "[modmail]" so that mods and users can differentiate the modmail PMs from normal PMs.

Additional context

I might try working on the backend side of this if I have the time and understand the Lemmy codebase structure someday.

[DraconicNEO]

Also should have a separate one using the same system but for contacting the admins of a server, call it adminmail, would be a separate function from the modmail and could also be accessed in remote communities in the section below the community sidebar where it shows the remote server, allowing you to contact the remote admins of that server from there as well.

[dessalines]

This would be really complicated to implement, and there aren't enough of us working on lemmy to add this. There are also already better tools that could handle this (email, matrix), rather than replicating all that work within lemmy.

Maybe adding a contact url as a community and site setting would be enough.

[asudox]

This would be really complicated to implement, and there aren't enough of us working on lemmy to add this. There are also already better tools that could handle this (email, matrix), rather than replicating all that work within lemmy.

Maybe adding a contact url as a community and site setting would be enough.

I can see that (with not being even able to fund one lemmy dev, it definitely should not be high priority at the moment). However, I also think that the current moderation features lack compared to others. Just a feature request, if the devs don't want to do it at the moment, then the community can. The beauty of open source software.

[DraconicNEO]

This would be really complicated to implement, and there aren't enough of us working on lemmy to add this. There are also already better tools that could handle this (email, matrix), rather than replicating all that work within lemmy.

Maybe adding a contact url as a community and site setting would be enough.

I mean I get what you're saying but also I don't think it's reasonable to expect every single community to set up a matrix chat or support email for modmail. It's one thing to ask site admins to do it, another thing to ask community mods to do it. I mean think of it this way, matrix is better than DMs in Lemmy, but Lemmy still offers DMs because many users don't have matrix.

Maybe it's a bad example because DMs are simpler than modmail but the general idea is to have something barebones since vast majority don't have the nice one, they arguably should, but if they don't have a fallback alternative they aren't necessarily going to get the nicer one as their only one, they'll just have nothing. Which is what the vast majority of communities and instances have to contact their mod teams as a whole, nothing.

I can get if it's not high priority, there are definitely things that could and probably should come before this, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. I'd argue that having functional modmail is as important as having DMs for users.

[dessalines]

@DraconicNEO would you be willing to work on this issue?