Synopsis

Bernard J. Ortcutt is a Reddit moderation bot. Moderators send it commands by reporting posts or comments. The bot reads these commands and automates moderation, based on a customizable configuration.

Setup

You can install the latest development version with:

pip install https://github.com/leviroth/bernard/archive/master.zip

Your subreddit must be configured for toolbox's usernotes module, or else the built-in commands will fail.

The database should be set up by reading create_tables.sql with SQLite3, as in:

sqlite3 bernard-database.sq3 ".read create_tables.sql"

The bot requires access, config, posts, and wiki permissions. While not strictly necessary, mail permissions keep replies to ban messages from going to your bot's inbox. That makes it easier to isolate the messages sent to your bot, which would be missed otherwise and which are very occasionally useful.

Login information should be configured with a praw.ini file.

Usage

python -m bernard [config_directory] [database]

Configuration

The bot is configured via YAML files, one per subreddit. You can find an example file in the examples/ directory; given a directory containing the file thirdrealm.yaml, the bot loads a configuration for the subreddit /r/ThirdRealm.

A configuration file consists of a series of YAML documents, each one generating a rule.

A rule configuration is a dictionary with three keys: info, trigger, and actions.

info configuration

Sample:

info:
  name: Removed
  details: Question

The info block accepts name and details strings that summarize the rule.

trigger configuration

Sample:

trigger:
  commands:
  - question
  - q
  types:
  - post

The trigger block accepts a list of commands, which are strings that match reports, and types, a list that can contain post and/or comment. In this example, any post (but not comment) that is reported with the strings question or q will be targeted for the action.

actions configuration

Sample:

actions:
- remove
- notify:
    text: 'Questions are best directed to /r/askphilosophy,  which specializes in
      answers to philosophical questions!'
- usernote:
    level: abusewarn
    text: Removed (question)

The actions block contains a list of action configurations. An action configuration is either the name of an action, or else a dictionary wherein the key is the name of the action and the value is a dictionary of parameters. The parameters vary according to action, as described in the following section. If the action is given as a string, then the parameters default to empty.

In this example, our rule performs three actions. The post is removed, a notification is added explaining the removal, and a Reddit Moderator Toolbox usernote is added to the submitter.

Actions

Bernard understands the following basic actions, which can be composed into more complex actions via a configuration file. A target can be a comment or a submission.

Removing targets

Set via the remove configuration key. Please note that the target is approved otherwise; this is necessary to prevent repeat actions.

A submission that is removed is locked.

Notifying authors

Via a comment, distinguished as a moderator. This comment is stickied if the target is a submission.

Automod update

Adds the author's username and/or post's domain to a list in the AutoModerator configuration. This requires that the list include a placeholder name. I put exclamation marks in my placeholders to ensure that they can't match a valid username.

Example uses: Automatically report a problem user's comments for review; automatically flair posts by bots or other specific-purpose accounts; automatically remove spam domains.

Ban authors

Bans the author from the subreddit. Can set a duration, but only on a fixed per-command basis. That is, it isn't currently possible to make a report-command take duration as a parameter. If no duration is set, the ban is permanent.

Nuke replies

Removes all descendants from the comment tree. Does not affect the target; use the remove key if it should be removed. Does not affect distinguished comments.

Currently only works for comment targets.

Add toolbox usernote

Adds a usernote for the author.

Logging

Bernard logs its actions to a database. bernard-logs is a simple Flask app providing a web-based view for these logs. reddit's OAuth is used for login: a user can view the logs of a specific subreddit if and only if she is a moderator of that subreddit.

Namesake

Bernard J. Ortcutt is a character who appears in W. V. Quine's classic paper "Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes." This doesn't have anything to do with what the bot does; I was just reading the paper back when I began this project, and I needed a name.

License

MIT