SoundFlow - making large pings in rooms easier

[double-fault]

Name of the bot: SoundFlow
General topic: Chatroom pings
Problem, the bot is supposed to solve:

In rare cases when we have to ping a number of users, say all the ROs, or the developers of a bot (where a number of people are collaborating), we need to think to remember all names, or check out the bot's page to see all its developers; instead of this, with SoundFlow, just write something like @Team/BotName, and all devs of that bot will be pinged.

Ideas for implementation:

Preferably, all the teams should be stored in a file on GH; commands manipulating them will just add unnecessary complexity, which is not needs as teams don't change everyday. A privilege system should be important, especially for some teams like all ROs.

The bot will need to listen to two different name, @SoundFlow, and @Team/blah. Some basic commands like stop, reboot etc. will be useful. Redunda integration is also a very useful step IMHO.

Once the @Team/blah has been used, the bot should recognise the team, and post a message pinging all the users.

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Pinging has been a very controversial idea in the past, especially mass pings. If anyone has objections, please post a comment.

[Filnor]

You mentioned a privilege system. I think that should be used to prevent abuse (because mass pings would be a perfect bait for trolls and such).

[Bhargav-Rao]

Perhaps restrict pings to Room Owners/Moderators, but have the name display to everyone?

[double-fault]

@pbdevch @Bhargav-Rao I do agree that a privilege system is extremely important. Maybe allow all ROs/mods, and a specific set of users who are regulars in the room? I also like the idea to have the names display to everyone.

[Bhargav-Rao]

This would be a good addition. Anybody has any thoughts on developing it?

[Filnor]

I would throw in myself for developing it, but I have some objections and questions before I could start:

Account

Done.
I think it's good idea to create a new bot account (called SoundFlow), but for development, I could use CheckYerFlags' account for the start.
Maybe a mod/RO wants to help out doing the required edits for the bot account?

User storing

Done.
The easiest way to ping the users would be by storing their name plaintext in the file, something along:

"users": [
    "Filnor",
    "CheckYerFlags"
]

But that would raise problems if a user changes their display name, so I think it would be better to store the user ID's and then fetch the display name/pingeable name using the chat lib.

Initial team/bot list

Done.
For the start and testing, it would be nice to have a list of teams and users.

Privilege system/trusted regulars

Done. Created a list with users I'm very confident to be trustworthy.
As previously discussed here, the access to the bot should be restricted to ROs, moderators and a specific set of regulars in the room. Who exactly would that regulars be?

Other things

• I would propose Thunder integration alongside Redunda, as Thunder wasn't a thing back when this was created (IIRC)
• I know Python for bot programming (CheckYerFlags and ChatCradle) and would go with that again, if that's OK.

[double-fault]

What do you mean by thunder integration?

I have a slightly different method of implementation, but I’m very busy right now, sorry. Thanks @Filnor for taking the responsibility to develop this!

[Filnor]

@Fortunate-MAN By Thunder intergration I just mean we add the bot to Thunder, like we do with most others. Am Di., 3. Juli 2018 um 14:10 Uhr schrieb Fortunate-MAN < notifications@github.com>:

…

What do you mean by thunder integration? I have a slightly different method of implementation, but I’m very busy right now. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AG-cjGUY2E0vaHTycBKDAgRK0iIWt1wMks5uC18ugaJpZM4Tisif> .

[Filnor]

Please redirect any further discussions & comments as issues in the SoundFlow repository, so we can close this issue here.