Lecture/Infodumping module

[gdude2002]

After a long discussion in a suggestion on the community server, we devised an idea for a user-managed discussion thread system. A system like this would have the following requirements:

• The ability to set up a thread to be claimed, or in some channels, set up and claim your own threads
• The ability for the person that claimed the thread to set up a list of co-lecturers, and initially restrict thread participants to themselves and that list of co-lecturers
• The ability for the person that claimed the thread to set up a "raise hand to speak" mode, whereupon users not currently participating in the thread would be allowed to request the ability to do so, including the ability for the claimant to list other users who may approve those requests, and the ability to revoke the approval later
• The ability for the person that claimed the thread to fill up the start of the thread with messages about a given subject, and then use the bot to notify the users watching the thread that they may now interact, explaining what forms of interactions are expected
• A set of timeouts to prevent threads from being claimed (or sticking around) when they become inactive
• In the case of self-created threads, the ability for the person that claimed the thread (or their co-lecturers) to temporarily unlock the thread later in order to add extra information to it

A sample thread might look something like this:

• User A claims a thread for themselves, locking participation and adding User B to the co-lecturers list for that thread, and enabling "raise hand to speak" mode
• User A and User B begin talking about whatever the subject of the thread is, across multiple messages
• At some point, User C raises their hand, is approved to ask a question and does so, has the question answered, and has the approval revoked so User A and User B can continue
• When User A and User B have finished, they open the thread to everyone, specifying that they're looking for a respectful discussion on the positives of the thread topic
• When the conversation dries up, the thread is automatically locked (if self-created) or set up to be claimed by someone else

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This has a few use-cases:

• A safe way to initiate or take part in info-dumping, something which is relatively common, but is specifically quite important to many neurodivergent people
• A way to have actual lectures on Discord, without relying on voice channels, and in a way that can be archived long-term
• Probably other things I haven't thought of yet