Reddit Secret Santa Bot
This is a Reddit bot that allows for "pseudo-anonymous" messaging to aid in a "Secret Santa"-style gift exchange. The bot will check its inbox at an interval you define on setup. When it receives a message, it will copy the message verbatim and send it to the designated recipient. The bot uses the PM title in conjunction with a list of Redditors to determine who to send a message to, and it will also provide links for pre-formatted PMs in every PM it sends. If a user receives a message from the bot, they do not need to use the links and can instead simply reply to the bot and the message will be forwarded.
To discourage offensive behavior through this bot, each message is saved to the local disk. If a user feels threatened or offended, each message can be reported to the moderators of the sub. The moderators will receive a copy of the message along with the usernames of both users involved and a <1000 character reason for reporting from the user who reported. A pre-formatted link is provided at the end of each message that allows the user to easily report any message they receive.
This does raise legitimate privacy and security issues for the users of this bot, as it falls on the bot maintainer to not only protect this information, but also respect it and delete it when appropriate. This, however, is the nature of the beast for these kind of events. It is recommended to run this bot on a computer/server behind a firewall, on a system with only local SSH capabilities at most to minimize the risk of information being obtained by nefarious methods. Furthermore, it is suggested to set the bot up with a very strong password, since Reddit doesn't allow for sent messages to be deleted. It would be best practice to inform your userbase to be mindful of the information they send through this bot (and the internet in general).
Before anything, the usernames of Redditors participating in the event must be collected. It is left to you to decide how best to do that. Once a finalized list has been determined, Redditors must be assigned a Secret Santa through santaList.csv. A template has been provided, but the structure of the file is as follows:
| user | santa |
|---|---|
| Redditor 1 | Redditor 2 |
| Redditor 2 | Redditor 3 |
| Redditor 3 | Redditor 1 |
In this example, Redditor 2 will be buying a gift for Redditor 1 and will be receiving a gift from Redditor 3.
This file will be read by the bot on first boot and be used henceforth. If you need to change how the users are assigned, stop the bot and either delete Objects/santaList.pkl, or run it with the --force argument.
- Python 3.5+
- Python Standard Library
- PRAW 5+
Before the bot will work, you will need to edit Modules/secret.py. The file contains instructions on how to do that and what information is needed.
Optionally, you may provide a Objects/fortunes.list file to have a random message displayed on each PM the bot sends. The file should be structured as one "fortune" per line. As an example, let's assume you want your bot to give a link to a random Christmas song on YouTube. You could create a Objects/fortunes.list like so:
[It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OATi34PKNPw)
[Have a very merry TUBACHRISTMAS!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SzUijd2fq8)
[All I want for Christmas is frosted tips to come back in style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKj92352UAE)
...
If this file existed, then the end of the bot's message might look like this:
Send a message to your santa | Send a message to your gift-recipient | Have a very merry TUBACHRISTMAS!
The bot is designed with two modes in mind: running continuously on a server using a program like screen, or by executing it at predefined intervals using a program like cron. Both modes operate identically, and they are toggled through the sleepTime variable in Modules/secret.py.
When you start the bot, it will print markdown links for messaging a gift-giver and a gift-recipient. Because of how the bot works, these links are universal and work for everyone involved in the exchange, so these can be posted on the sidebar or a stickied post. Note that these links are also provided by the bot on every message it sends, so users do not need to come back to the thread/sidebar for every message they send.
Future releases of this bot will likely have in-reddit functions available through PMs. Possible functions might include:
- Moderators to add/remove/reassign users in the exchange
- Moderators to reshuffle the exchange assignments
- More when the ideas come to me