Ghost Chats

@Evlin I think those of us who take general requests have been experiencing this for a long time.

You're right, it's possible that some members are not receiving messages from listeners because of a bug.

Another reason could be that there are members whose first message is censored, so they think the listener has blocked them and the chat never gets started.

Yesterday I asked my computer to monitor the queue for a few hours, and I found that nearly two-thirds (706 out of 1,154) of the requests were repeats—that is, the member had been in the queue only minutes before. This suggests that someone gets blocked or ghosted in about two-thirds of general requests.

One determined member returned to the queue again and again over a period of about 1 hours, making more than 50 requests.

I did notice this happening the last time I monitored the queue a couple of years ago, but it wasn't this bad.

I was shocked at the scale of the problem yesterday.

By the way, this could be cured by modifying the general request process, but I believe it will require the application of what @GlenM called in his recent leadership video "HHA". We're not seeing that happen just yet, as it will take a while to roll out training and for the ideas to gain traction.

Charlie

I know am late for the party, but I think members see it but don't want to respond. For them, it's something new, and it can be tough to text someone who they don't know at all.