Discord Consensus Bot

This Discord bot helps communities make faster and more efficient decisions using the Lazy Consensus process. Users can submit proposals and have them automatically approved if there are no objections. This approach, used by leading open-source projects, saves time by eliminating the need for explicit voting:

The key thing about lazy consensus is that it’s easier for people to agree by doing nothing, than it is to object, which requires them to propose an alternative. This has two effects: first, people are less likely to object for the sake of objecting and, second, it cuts down on the amount of unnecessary discussion.

To improve sustainability, the bot uses PM2. If the script or system crashes, PM2 will restore the execution and any pending proposals will be recovered from the database, preserving the timer.

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your machine.

1. Clone the project and cd into it:

git clone https://github.com/nisnevich/discord-consensus-bot

cd discord-consensus-bot

2. Create token file with your bot's token integrated with your server:

echo <TOKEN> > token

chmod 600 token # You should make it only readable by you

3. Run startup.sh to install dependencies and start the project.

./startup.sh # Made with Debian-based systems in mind

4. Use bot from Discord:

• !propose mention amount reason: Submit a proposal to give a grant. The grant will be automatically applied after 3 days (72 hours), unless a certain amount of members with "Layer 3" role react with ❌ emoji, which would cancel the proposal. Example:

!propose @ChangpengZhao 50 for leading the successful launch of Binance Coin (BNB) 

• !propose description: Submit a proposal that doesn't require a grant. The approval and cancelling rules are the same. Example:

!propose to schedule a community meetup next Friday at 18:00 UTC

5. To stop the bot, use shutdown.sh.

./shutdown.sh

Dependencies:

• Python 3.6 or higher
• Discord API 2.1
• SQLAlchemy 1.4.46
• NLTK
• PM2 (requires npm and Node.js)
• Google Cloud SDK

User Guide

List of commands available (all constants mentioned below in UPPERCASE are defined in const.py):

• !propose to submit a proposal to lazy consensus (it can be financial or not, depending on the syntax: !propose @user 100 reason for a financial, and !propose description for a simple one).
• !tips to send allocation from a personal pool (each members pool is limited by FREE_FUNDING_LIMIT_PERSON_PER_SEASON).
• !export to receive analytics (bot will send a spreadsheet with multiple pages, such as financial statistics, user activity, proposals history).
• !help to receive a message with usage instructions.

Here's a general description how the bot can be used:

• Each proposal submitted with !propose will be posted in the voting channel (defined by VOTING_CHANNEL_ID). The voting time period is defined by PROPOSAL_DURATION_SECONDS.
• In order to support or object a proposal, members should react with emojis to the message in the voting channel (emojis defined with EMOJI_VOTING_YES or EMOJI_VOTING_NO). Only members with certain roles defined in ROLE_IDS_ALLOWED list are allowed to vote.
• In lazy consensus, for a proposal to be cancelled, it has to reach a number of downvotes equal to LAZY_CONSENSUS_THRESHOLD_NEGATIVE. Otherwise it will be accepted (unless FULL_CONSENSUS_ENABLED is True). Read more about lazy consensus here.
• Additionally, if FULL_CONSENSUS_ENABLED is True, then in order to pass, each proposal has to reach a minimum of FULL_CONSENSUS_THRESHOLD_POSITIVE supportive votes. Otherwise it will be cancelled after a period of PROPOSAL_DURATION_SECONDS. Read more about full consensus here.

Other important constants not mentioned above:

• GRANT_APPLY_CHANNEL_ID - a channel where the finance will be sent by the bot (uses !grant command which can be enabled via accountant or another bot).
• BOT_ID - a Discord ID of the bot added to the server.
• RESPONSIBLE_ID - a Discord ID of a member responsible for maintaining the bot (used in error messages to instantly ping). And few more. Make sure to check "Critical application constants" in const.py and verify all values before running a bot. Adoption to each new server should involve editing text messages under the "Messages texts" section, for better user experience.

Contributing

Looking to contribute? Check out good first issues, or just issues. Also you can buy me a coffee. :)

The bot has been developed targetting Eco Discord community.

There are three primary branches (the main difference between them is some constants):

• main is used for development
• beta is for beta testing on Eco Discord Test Server
• prod is for the main Eco server