Banof: Group Voteban Bot

A spammer joins the chat while the admins are asleep. By the time one of them wakes up, the group already has a hundred ad messages. Banof hands the decision to the members: the bot starts a vote on removing the offender. 🗳️

The bot calls itself a usual voteban bot, which means a collective ban tool without extra frills.

How to start a vote

Reply to the offender's message with the bot's name and a vote begins. No complicated menus: everything happens right in the chat.

Members then vote for or against removal. If the required number of votes is gathered in the allotted time, the bot removes the user from the group automatically.

1. Add the bot to your group.
2. Give it the rights needed to remove members.
3. When an offender appears, reply to their message mentioning the bot.
4. Wait for the vote to finish.

Which groups it fits

Moderation by vote works well in large open chats where admins are few and troublemakers are plenty. The community cleans up on its own, and nobody has to be on duty around the clock.

It is especially useful in topic groups where newcomers arrive every day and some of them turn out to be advertisers.

Where the catch is

A vote is only good when the threshold is set sensibly. If it is too low, one person with several accounts can expel any member. Every bot of this type shares that weakness.

So check the threshold settings before you trust the bot with moderation. You can study the details in the project's source code, linked from the bot's profile. 🔍

• False bans. A crowd can vote unfairly.
• Vote stuffing. Fake accounts can replace the chat's real opinion.
• Bot rights. Grant exactly what removal requires and nothing extra.

The admin is still in charge

Voting does not replace moderators. An admin can bring back an unfairly removed member and stop the bot if needed.

A good habit: write the chat rules in a pinned message and explain how voting works. Then nobody will wonder why a person was removed.

When voting is not enough

The bot is good against obvious offenders: spam, ads, insults. Subtle conflicts between long-time members are harder for a vote, and they need a calm human moderator.

Combine approaches: let the bot remove clear spammers while admins handle disputed cases. That keeps the chat alive, and nobody feels that a crowd decided in five minutes.

Simplicity is the whole idea

The bot has one help command: /help shows what it can do. Setup starts with choosing a language, and there is no complex menu.

Support is listed in the bot profile. The audience is fairly big: catalogs show about 24 thousand users, with tens of thousands visiting monthly. 👥

If you want a minimalist bot for chat self-governance, Banof does that one job and nothing more. 🚫

Before launching in a big group, run a trial: warn the members and test a vote with a spare account to confirm that the threshold works as you expected.