Suggestions

A board is a channel plus its rules. Feature requests, event ideas and bug reports can each have their own board, their own voting style and their own statuses.

1Setting up a board

1. 1

   Switch it on

   Community → Suggestions.

2. 2

   Use Quick Setup, or build it by hand

   Quick Setup is four short steps: the channel and how members suggest, how a suggestion looks and how members vote, who manages them (with an optional approval queue and decision announcements), then a summary. It can create the suggestions channel, a decisions channel and a private review queue for you.

3. 3

   Create a board and pick its channel

   Up to 3 boards, one per channel: two boards in one channel would make channel submissions ambiguous.

4. 4

   Choose how members submit

   Members suggest with: The command (/suggestion create, the default), Channel messages (Arclo turns each message posted in the board's channel into a suggestion card), Both, or A button on a sticky message that opens a popup.

5. 5

   Choose the voting style

   Buttons or reactions.

6. 6

   Publish

   Publish opens the board. A board has no panel message of its own: Arclo posts each suggestion as it comes in. Save draft keeps a board closed while you work on it.

#suggestions

ArcloBOTToday at 12:00 PM

Nebula Collective – Suggestions

User

@Mira

Suggestion

Add a channel for sharing what everyone is playing this week.

Votes

Yes: 24 (80%) | No: 6 (20%)

Suggestion Status

Waiting for staff

Suggestion #142

Yes · 24No · 6View VotesStaff Options

Suggestion #142See Thread ›

There are no recent messages in this thread.

Suggesting with a button

Pick A button and the board keeps a sticky message at the bottom of its channel with one button on it. Pressing it opens a popup: the suggestion itself, the anonymity choice when members choose, and a file upload when the board takes files. The sticky, the button and every word on the popup are designed in the board builder, with a live preview of each.

• The sticky moves back under the newest suggestion about seven minutes after the last new message in the channel (every new message restarts the wait). Any sooner and Discord would draw it as part of that suggestion's card, since Arclo posts both. When the button comes back, in the builder, changes the wait, and can bring it back after a number of new messages instead, for a busy board where suggestions keep arriving inside the wait.
• It belongs to the board, not to Sticky Messages: it isn't listed on that page, doesn't count toward its limit, and keeps running while Sticky Messages is off. A channel holds one sticky, though, so a channel that already has a Sticky Messages sticky can't take a button board.
• /suggestion create points members at the button instead of taking a suggestion itself.

The discussion thread

• Open a thread for every suggestion is on by default, public or private. Archive the thread after a decision closes it a while after the suggestion is decided (off by default, so threads stay open).
• A welcome message can open each thread. Mentioning {user} in its text pings the member and adds them to the thread; an anonymous suggestion pings nobody.
• With Members can attach files on (it needs the thread), the files from the popup, a channel post or /suggestion create are posted in the thread by Arclo, where they stay, up to 10 per suggestion. A suggestion waiting for approval keeps them under its review card until a manager lets it through.

Voting

• One vote per member (on by default) means Yes or No, never both, with Confirm before switching sides asking first.
• Pressing your own side again removes your vote, while Members can change or remove their vote is on (the default).
• A Voting cooldown per member per board (off by default, up to a day) limits vote spam, and Who can vote and Roles that can't vote limit who takes part.

Statuses

Every suggestion carries one of 9 statuses, each with its own color and emoji: Waiting for staff, Waiting for approval, Approved, Denied, Considered, Implemented, In progress, Duplicate and Custom status, where staff type the label. The first two belong to Arclo (posted, and held for approval); staff set the rest from Staff Options or /suggestion status.

• Auto-mark as Considered at and Auto-deny at set a status from the net score (“net +20 becomes Considered”, “net −10 becomes Denied”) but only while the suggestion is undecided.
• Announce the decision as a reply to the suggestion or in a decisions channel (off by default). Post the decision in the suggestion's thread and DM the member who suggested it are both on by default, and Require a response makes staff give a reason.

The review queue

With Staff approve suggestions before they go up on, a submission is held and posted as a card in your review channel (Arclo can create a private one for you). Post it publishes it as a normal suggestion; Reject asks for a reason the member sees and is an ordinary denial.

Who manages suggestions

Suggestion managers, on the Settings tab, are the roles that can decide, edit, reopen and delete suggestions, use Staff Options and block people from suggesting, on every board. Administrators always qualify. Each board also has its own Who can suggest, Roles that can't suggest, a Suggestion cooldown and length limits (up to 1,900 characters).

Placeholders

{user}, {suggestion}, {suggestion_number}, {yes_votes}, {no_votes}, {yes_percent}, {approval_bar}, {suggestion_status} and {status_emoji} are the ones the default card uses; the { menu in each editor lists the rest, from {reviewer} and {staff_response} to {thread} and {message_link}. The last two of the first list are split deliberately, because the default design prints the status inside a code block, where a custom emoji's raw form would show through.

Logging

The Suggestions logger, on the Settings tab or in Logging, records suggestions posted, held for approval, let through, decided, edited, deleted and rejected from the queue, members blocked and unblocked, and boards closed and reopened.

Commands