soatok

Headless Lounge Bot

Added 2019-08-29 13:11:14 +0000 UTC

I've been working on a Telegram bot for the past week or so that, I hope, everyone finds extremely useful.

If you're an artist, streamer, etc. and you've ever said to yourself, "I wish I could have a Telegram group that only my supporters can access," then you'll love @headlesslounge_bot.

What it does: It allows Telegram users to link their Twitch/Patreon accounts. Once your accounts are linked, you can then invite the bot to your group, make them an admin, and then specify your enforcement policy.

Do you want to only allow Tier 2 or higher Twitch subscribers in your group? Go right ahead.

Do you want to only allow Patrons pledging at a $10/month or higher tier in? You can do that.

Do you want to allow anyone who meets either criteria (i.e. one or the other) into the same group? Headless Lounge Bot says: "Sure, you can do that!"

Exclusive Access

While Headless Lounge Bot is an open source software project that anyone is free to clone and deploy with their own hardware and credentials, the bot that I've setup is running on my own infrastructure.

A while ago, I indicated that I would only be giving exclusive access to any projects that require infrastructure to Patrons pledging $10/month or higher (the Brilliant tier).

However, I'm going to loosen the restriction on access to this bot to the $3/month or higher tiers (a.k.a. Dhole's Delight).

As this bot grows in popularity, it will definitely put an increasing strain on my infrastructure budget. Additionally, $10/month is a substantial amount of money to consider for many content creators. $3/month should be far easier to digest; it's roughly the cost of a Starbucks coffee every month.

However, if enough people find this bot useful enough (after all, it essentially lets you offer your supporters access to an exclusive club, without manually adding/removing users or writing your own bot), it might allow me to commission artists to spruce up some of my other software projects and make an all around better experience for everyone.

That's my rationale. If you're not happy with the Patreon requirement, I've included instructions for running your own bot in the README.