Telegram chat bot policy

From slack:
@cuevasm writes

Hey everyone, @clint @jb and I briefly discussed adding a welcome bot to telegram since 95% of the questions are about the token sale. It would welcome them and highlight token info/FAQs and point them to looking at the pin post for even more info. I think this would cut down on keeping up with it and focus the channel on questions and discussion beyond that. Any opposed? I know @larry has a thing against :robot_face:s :wink:.

Telegram chats are entirely public, so I’m not that concerned with 3rd bots collecting data.

My telegram bot concern stems from the automated messages they generate from commands and the eventual degradation of chat quality that happens. No problems with a welcome bot.

Fine with admin adding bots but I propose a blanket policy of removing any bots non-admins add because there’s simply not enough time to investigate what your bot does and whether or not it is going to be annoying.

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+1 admins adding bots / removing non-admin bots. @larry @cuevasm

If you look at it from the assumption the bot is an efficient tool to: acknowledge a new users presence, provide relevant information for the new user to find their way around the community and communicates the proper way for new user to begin engaging with others in the community - by definition the bot is doing its function.

If the bot was being used to solicit information in anyway from a user then it would be a misuse of this type of coding. Or is there something else less desirable about using bots? I understand its the equivalent of an IVR in the real world. However, those are very effective when used correctly.

I think the welcome bot as described is an excellent approach.

Thanks everyone, I’m going to proceed with this and see how it goes. My ideal world was one in which the bot could welcome them with a DM, however that is not possible with the Telegram API. Instead, it’s going to run one job per day to welcome new members and provide a link with key information about the group on it (and FAQ!) as well as a reminder to visit the pinned message - my hope is they will see this before posting questions that have been answered a bunch, while also keeping the noise down (not welcoming each person individually). We’ll see how it goes and improve as we can, thanks!

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