Auto Moderation

Auto Moderation is what somebody says, and the name they change it to. It never punishes anybody itself: a warn, mute, kick or ban from a filter runs through the same engine a moderator's command does, so it files a real numbered case in the same history. Arrivals are Security's job, not this system's.

1Setting it up

1. 1

   Switch it on

   Essentials → Auto Moderation.

2. 2

   Add two or three rules, not thirty

   Start from a ready-made rule (there are 18, five of them marked Recommended) or from the filter picker. Invite links, mass mentions and message spam cover most of what a small server sees. A server holds up to ten rules, and picking one opens it as a draft: nothing runs until you publish it.

3. 3

   Check the exemptions

   The Punishments tab leads with them. Bots, Administrators and Moderation's moderator roles are exempt by default; add the staff channel, the bot-command channel and anyone else who needs a pass. A staff channel tripping a rule meant for #general is the fastest way to lose faith in a filter.

4. 4

   Test it before you trust it

   Try a message on the Rules tab runs the same matching the live bot runs, and deletes and punishes nothing. If a message passes there, it passes in your server. Rules that count over time, or judge the member rather than the message, cannot be tested from one message, and it says so.

The eight tabs

2Filters

35 filters in 7 groups. A rule is one filter, its settings, its scope and its actions, so "no links, except in #media" is one rule rather than a global switch plus an exception list.

Rules are checked top to bottom. Stop after this rule fires is on by default, so the first rule that fires is the last one that runs on that message: put the harsh rules at the top. Check edited messages too is on by default as well, so a clean message edited into a rule break is caught.

#automod-log

ArcloBOTToday at 12:00 PM

Member warned

warned loud.tim

Rule

Discord invites

Matched

discord.gg/n3bula

Channel

#general

Case

#1283

ID

1301848870431326270

loud.tim · Auto ModerationToday at 12:00 PM

Rule triggered

loud.tim tripped a rule

Rule

Discord invites

Matched

discord.gg/n3bula

Channel

#general

Cases

#1283

What it said

come hang out in my server discord.gg/n3bula

ID

1301848870431326270

loud.tim · Auto ModerationToday at 12:00 PM

Scope and exemptions

Per rule

Where it applies names the channels and categories a rule covers or skips, the roles it ignores or is limited to, and optional account-age and time-in-server limits. A thread is judged by its parent channel. Exemptions on a rule are about that rule.

Server-wide

The Punishments tab's Who and what is exempt card applies to every rule: roles, channels, categories and specific members (the same list /automod bypass edits).

Bots

Bots are exempt server-wide by default, and each rule's Apply to bots is off by default. A rule can opt bots back in, which is rarely what you want: a bot posting links is usually the bot doing its job.

Administrators and moderators

Administrators are exempt and Moderators are exempt are on by default; the moderators are Moderation's moderator roles. Moderation's immune roles do not exempt anybody here.

What a hit does

20 action types, up to eight per rule, run in the order you list them: delete the message or the member's recent messages, reply in the channel, DM the member, alert staff, warn, mute, time out, kick, ban, softban, give or take a role, replace every role with one (a quarantine, done in one call so there is never a moment with no roles), react to the message, change their nickname, slow the channel down, lock it, or add to or reset a named violation counter. Staff alerts go out last, so they can name the cases the rest opened.

• Violation threshold is a filter of its own: “N violations in M minutes → do this”, so individual rules can be gentle and the pattern can be punished.
• The Punishments tab's shared ladder does the same across every rule: Enable the shared ladder (off by default), up to five rungs, counting violations until Violations stop counting after (60 minutes by default).
• Punishments go through Moderation's engine, so they file cases, send that punishment's DM and count toward Moderation's warning thresholds. A hit that only deletes leaves a log line rather than a case, unless File a case for every hit is on (off by default).

Word lists

A list is inert until a rule points at it. Make the list, write a rule, tick the list in that rule, and each list tells you which rules currently use it, or that none do. A list holds words and phrases, domains, patterns or file types, up to 2,000 entries, and a server keeps up to five, Arclo's own included. They sit on the Rules tab, under the rules that use them.

• Arclo ships seven built-in lists: Common profanity (English), Slurs & hate speech, Explicit sexual language, Scam & phishing domains, IP grabbers & loggers, URL shorteners and Executable file types. They are editable per server as a difference: click a word to strike it out for you only, and add your own on top.
• That way the shared list keeps updating itself. A scam domain added upstream still protects your server, around whatever you decided about the rest.
• Lists can be sorted A to Z, downloaded, and replaced from a file (a JSON array, or newline- or comma-separated text). Each list has its own Whole words only and Catch disguised spellings switches, and decides whether * works as a wildcard.

3Honeypots

A trap channel nobody should ever post in. Anything posted there is, by construction, a bot or somebody who does not read. No heuristic, no false positives, and the cheapest true signal in the whole system.

• Arm channels you already have, or press Create one for me. A server can run up to five.
• A designed pinned warning is the feature, not decoration: a trap whose channel does not explain itself catches your own curious members. The trap does not arm until the warning is pinned. Switching Post a pinned warning off arms it unmarked, which is a deliberate choice rather than a shortcut.
• Each trap has its own actions (delete the message and ban, by default) and its own exemptions: Ignore bots (on by default), excluded roles and members, Arm it this long after somebody joins, and Never catch members older than, a ceiling on time in the server.
• A honeypot is checked before any rule, so a post in a trap is handled as a trap even when a rule would also have caught it.
• A thirty-day trigger history records who, what they posted, what ran, and the two numbers that settle whether it was a real person: account age and time in the server.

4Slowmode manager

Slowmode that climbs when a channel gets busy and steps back down when it calms, for up to 50 channels, each with its own policy. Manage slowmode switches the manager on (off by default). A channel can also hold a fixed interval, or be managed only between set hours in its own time zone. Two modes, and they are different mechanisms:

The ladder climbs one rung at a time while the channel stays busy, and steps back down one rung at a time once it has been quiet long enough. Jumping straight to the rung matching the current rate would read its own suppression as more traffic and run to the ceiling. Leave the rungs empty and the ladder doubles the resting interval up to the ceiling you set.

5Auto Purge

A standing instruction to keep a channel clean. One rule can cover up to 25 channels, because “clear these six spam channels every hour” is one decision, and a server keeps up to five rules. A rule picks what goes with the same filters as /clear (everything, bots, people, named members, text, a pattern, links, invites, images, attachments, embeds, pings or emoji), and can delete everything except that instead.

• Exempt roles server-wide and per rule; Channels no rule ever touches makes sure a rule can never reach somewhere it should not. Keep pinned messages is on by default, and a rule can always keep the newest few.
• Never deleted, whatever the settings: Discord's own system messages, and the channel's sticky message.
• New rules arrive switched off, because a rule that started at once would delete on its next visit before anybody had checked it. Run purge rules is the system's own switch, off by default too; switched back on, it resumes from now rather than catching up.
• One visit deletes up to 500 messages per channel. A bigger backlog drains over the following visits, five minutes apart, and the card says it is still catching up.

6AI moderation

A local statistical classifier that scores a message across 12 categories (toxicity, severe toxicity, insults, profanity, threats, identity attacks, sexual content, harassment, self-harm, violence, spam & scams and unwanted flirtation) when no rule has already acted on it. Enable AI moderation is off by default; once it is on, seven categories start switched on. Each category has its own switch, its own threshold and, optionally, its own actions; the rest use the shared ones (delete the message and alert staff, to begin with).

Discord's own AutoMod, and thread notices

• Discord AutoMod rules stay in Server Settings. Arclo does not create or edit them, because two places to look when a message is blocked is worse than one. What Arclo adds, once you switch on Act on Discord's AutoMod, is its own action vocabulary on top: when Discord blocks something, Arclo can warn, mute, quarantine or DM, Count it toward Arclo's ladders and File a case for every block, as a default for every rule or per rule. Arclo needs Manage Server to list your Discord rules by name.
• Thread notices sweeps Discord's “started a thread” system messages out of the parent channel, the moment they arrive or up to an hour later, in every channel or only the channels and categories you pick, with a list it never touches.

Commands