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Anti-Spam Measures for Our Telegram Groups

We constantly get spam on our telegram groups, especially the larger ones. So we are discussing to bring some anti-spam measures to remedy this via telegram bots.

In short, it is proposed to add a simple new-joiner verifier bot at first. It will just verify new-joiners without interfering with messages from the present members. If the user doesn't verify himself/herself with a simple reply in time, he/she will be kicked out of the group. And new joiners will not be able to send anything other than plain text messages for the first 24 hours. Moreover, it can greet new-comers with a custom welcome message. It is completely reversible, and we can fine-tune or replace it at any time.

Please feel free to head to the test group to see it in action: https://t.me/joinchat/E0IDnBjmzkCx3mWYgqPOPQ

And please feel free to join us in the Marketing telegram channel to follow the discussion/status or give input about the topic: https://t.me/LibreOfficeMarketing

(The discussion originally started in the Documentation telegram group, by Muhammet Kara, with major involvement also by Emiliano Vavassori and Dennis Roczek. Because it was lengthy, and in a free-format talk form, it wasn't included in here. You may head to the Documentation group, and start reading from "Maybe we should add an anti-spam bot here.": https://t.me/joinchat/CVgtjA3dR0WEXM4Y5ihnZA)

Original post on the marketing mailing list: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/2020/msg00169.html

Current Status

Currently, the proposed bot (Shieldy) has been set up in the Marketing telegram group and being tested there. If everything goes well, it will be rolled out to the other telegram groups. Please see the table below for a list of the telegram groups along with their status regarding the anti-spam bot setup. Please feel free to add the missing ones.

Name/URL	Description	User Count	Proposed & Realized Bot Deployment Dates	Deployed?
LibreOffice	Telegram group for LibreOffice in English	1000+	2020-09-25 Friday / -	No
LibreOffice Design	Telegram Channel for the Design/UX team	125+	2020-09-20 Sunday / -	No
LibreOffice Documentation	Telegram Channel for the Documentation team	50+	2020-09-18 Friday / 2020-09-18 Friday	Yes
LibreOffice Marketing	Telegram Channel for the Marketing team	40+	- / 2020-09-16 Wednesday	Yes
LibreOffice QA	Telegram Channel for the QA team	120+	2020-09-20 Sunday / -	No

Bot Setup

Add the bot (@shieldy_bot) to the group.
Long-press on the bot's name on the members list of the group, and select "Promote to admin".
In the "What can this admin do?" section, make sure that only the "Delete Messages" and "Ban Users" rights are given.
Type "Anti-spam Bot" into the "Custom title" section.
Apply/approve the change by tapping the accept (check-mark) button/icon.
Setup the bot by issuing the proper commands in the group.

Preferred Settings & Setup Commands

/lock -> Bot responds only to admins

/language -> Eng (or whatever is the preferred language of the group)

/captcha -> Digits

/timeLimit -> 120 sec

no need to issue currently, defaults to no-nontextual-message-in-the-first-24-hours: /restrict

/deleteEntryMessages -> Whether to delete entry messages

/greeting -> Welcome users with an entry message. reply with:

Dear $fullname,

Welcome to $title group! You will not be able to send non-textual content during your first 24 hours in the group. Enjoy your stay, and please remember to be polite to others at all times.

no need to issue currently, defaults to not allowing users to send messages before passing verification: /strict

/deleteGreetingTime 120 -> Delete the greeting message after 120 seconds to avoid polluting the group

No need to issue currently, defaults to kick: /banUsers

/deleteEntryOnKick -> Delete entry messages of users who didn't pass verification

/cas -> Disable/enable combot antispam. We are currently preferring it disabled to avoid disruption for current users

About Shieldy

Shieldy is an open source anti-spam Telegram bot, built by Nikita Kolmogorov. We are currently using the hosted version, thanks to the author of the bot, but it can also be self-hosted. Source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/backmeupplz/shieldy