Policy change: Break out Channels

[ablac]

Summary

Suggests adding native "Breakout Channels" within Discord. This would allow server administrators to designate a specific "Hub" voice channel. When a user joins this Hub, Discord would automatically generate a temporary, private child voice channel for that user, granting them full moderation controls over that specific room. Once the channel is empty, it is automatically dissolved.

https://voicemaster.xyz/

Current policy section

Currently, we have 3 voice chats, which get over crowded, and have tons of people that end up talking over each other, or arguing, when attempting to help somebody with openclaw issues this creates a challenging environment to communicate with people who actually need help.

Proposed change

1. A server admin creates a standard voice channel and flags it as a "Voice Hub." (or something similar)
2. A user clicks to join the Hub channel.
3. Instead of joining the Hub, the user is instantly routed into a newly generated temporary voice channel nested below the Hub.
4. The channel automatically takes a default name ([User]'s Channel) which can be customized at the time of Application setup.
5. When the last user leaves the temporary channel, it is instantly deleted by the system. (I prefer to have it when the starting user leaves the Temp Channel is closed and other users are ejected from the channel)

Rationale

This would create huge advantages for people that actually want help, and don't want to have to talk over everyone else while there trying to assist somebody with a genuine issue. It also would reduce the stress on the 3 main channels, by allowing certain users to break out of the main QA/Community/Dev channel etc, and have more private conversations geared directly at what there trying to communicate.

Impact / enforcement notes

Enforcement: I believe this would be a Role you would need to apply for to be able to create break out rooms, this prevents every single user from spamming and having hundreds of breakout room. While each user is limited to only One Break out room at a time. Only users with the dedicated role are able to join the hub and create new ones.

Voice Permissions: The Main owner is the only one with Speaking permissions by default when the channel is created, they are able to use the /(Commands) to allow other users to speak, or open the speaking to a community style where anyone that joins is able to communicate. This is to prevent spamming, and allow the owner of the channel to be in control.

By default the Voice Master app locks the channel to private, this can be changed within the app settings, as these channels should default to being public, but with no speaking rights in my opinion.

Alternatives considered

No response

Checklist

• I reviewed existing policy docs to avoid duplicates.
• I wrote the proposed text in a clear, enforceable way.
• I wrote this in my human voice with no AI assistance.

[thewilloftheshadow]

I like the idea! We're discussing with the Voice Chat Team now

[thewilloftheshadow]

Hey @ablac! We've discussed this, and overall while it is a great idea for the community side, we do have some moderation concerns with a theoretically infinite number of VCs.
I'm going to put this on hold for now while we continue to think on it, and in the meantime, we've added two more VCs, Presentation 1 and Presentation 2, with very low user limits of 10 people + 1 Audrey bot, that could be used for this in the meantime.

[thebalaa]

Thank you for the detailed issue write up @ablac.

We can revisit this with learnings from the 2 static breakout rooms @thewilloftheshadow has proposed.

[ablac]

In the commands you can set a limit to the max number of VC's also, adding a group role that people apply for that gives them the ability to create the rooms is key. The rooms are self moderated, with the default being only the creator of the room has speaking permissions. Let me know if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly on discord.

[ablac]

Also the channels should be self moderating, as the person that starts the VC would be able to kick, mute, ban people from there VC. This gives the user the ability to moderate there own VC chat directly, without having any additional permissions, within discord, as its all done through /vm commands