Most of the users I answer questions to are fairly new to the system.
That means they have a low reputation (often lower than 15) on SO.
You can guess their reputation on MSO... They usually don't know Meta.
Yet, they are the ones who would most benefit from a quick chat to clarify their questions and validate some possible solutions (like in this SO question)
Would you consider the (future) possibility to allow a legitimate chat user (more than 20 rep on MSO) to invite that new user to a specific room dedicated to the OP question?
In other words, that user would not be able to connect to the chat unless invited.
Once connected, he/she wouldn't be able to join other rooms/create other rooms (or even see those rooms for that matter).
He/she would only be able to join/leave the specific room created by the legitimate chat user for the sole purpose of a "live support session" for a specific SO question.
(the all process could be automated, allowing for each user answering a question to invite the OP to a specific chat session, in a room automatically created for said question, and which would be removed after a day or so of inactivity.
Those "rooms" would need a separate space in order to not pollute the usual "social" rooms)
The alternative right now would be to:
- ask them to create real quick an MSO account
- post two (intelligent) answers
- wait for me to upvote them (which is abusing the system)
Not exactly ideal.