A few people are getting banned for flooding the bot. Let me explain a few things here:

Spamming a command is not some kind of magic. Hitting a command 40 times will not make anything magical happen. It's like the button on an elevator - pressing it multiple times is not a secret passcode or anything.

The spam detection is actually quite lenient. If you hit it, you were seriously spamming it. The bot also warns you before it bans you.

Here's the bigger reason why this happens though -
Everytime you hit a command, it's meant to get a response from the bot. Each time the bot has to send a command, it counts towards the API limit. So spamming a command reaches the bot towards API limits, and lags the bot for EVERYONE. This is why we are very strict about spamming the bot - if you do it enough for the bot to auto-ban you, that's on you. You were given a warning and continued to spam the bot.

NOTE: If you do get banned, as the bot says, you may appeal your ban in @werewolfsupport. Please do NOT PM the developer.

New command available for admins:
/killgame

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes a game will get stuck - no one can flee, the time doesn't move forward, nothing happens. When this does happen, use /killgame to force the game to end.

Ok, taking that last command back. Only Global Admins can run that command now, not group admins. Too many admins are abusing it already.

If a game in your group gets stuck, please join @werewolfsupport and ask for help

Werewolf Enforcer Update:

As you know we have our own group management bot called Werewolf Enforcer, @werewolfbutlerbot. Our team has worked hard to modify the group butler base for our needs as werewolf groups. Below are some of the recent additions to the bot.

We have added a /support command which send you a link to our support group so that you can share it and access the group easier. /user has been modified so that it shows the warns of a player if the has no global ban history.

We have made some design changes to the /help menu to have our support link right appear first. We have also improved the /kick command to be more reliable and added a global banning system to remove very unwanted people from your groups automatically. You will be notified in the group when this happened. An autobanning system has also been implemented for those pesky "join my mafia mob and take over the world" posts.

As always for more information and to get help please go to @werewolfsupport and you can look at our code at https://github.com/BladeZero/GroupButler

Update on spamming / flooding the bot:

Spamming the bot is a serious issue, as we have covered before. It affects all players, causing horrible lag.

As of this point, the automatic flood detection has been updated. If you spam the bot, you will be given a warning. After that, banning will set in.
First ban: 12 hours
Second ban: 1 day
Third ban: 3 days
Fourth ban: You are done. You are forever banned from @werewolfbot

When you get banned, the bot will no longer respond to you. It won't even say "You are banned" - this would just allow spammers to keep spamming the bot, which wouldn't solve anything.

There will be no more ban appeals for spamming - you get three temp bans, then that's it. If you reach the fourth ban, that is your own fault. Please do not come to support begging to be unbanned - you were given PLENTY of chances (oh, did I mention you will be warned before EACH ban, not just the first?)

I don't know how else to get the point across that flooding the bot by hitting /join 43627 times is not the way to go.

I have reset ALL spamming bans in the database. If you were previously banned, you are now unbanned. (if it was for spamming)

Ok, it's finally ready. There are now TWO Werewolf Moderator bots.
- You will need to /start the new bot (it will remind you)
- Both bots are the exact same, running on the same database, same server
- Being on the same database, you will NOT need to reconfigure your group settings
- The new bot is @werewolfIIbot
- This should help us get past the api rate limiting

PLEASE ONLY ADD ONE BOT TO YOUR GROUP, NOT BOTH!

By the way, this means you can play two games at once, one on each bot ;)

So far less than 10 groups have switched to @werewolfiibot ... Guess they won't have to deal with rate limits in 12 hours at peak time ;)

Werewolf Support chat has had it's public link removed so that international players (like Iran) can join. The new link is https://telegram.me/joinchat/B7EXdD81vmLflQfXcD6opg

@werewolfsupport is still active, but it's simply a channel with the new link posted

Reminder: switch to @werewolfIIbot for a better experience. Earlier @werewolfbot had 500 games running, while @werewolfIIbot only had 80. If some more groups could switch bots, it would help everyone out!

Remember, if you enjoy playing Werewolf, take a moment to rate us easily right here on Telegram!
telegram.me/storebot?start=werewolfbot

Official Werewolf Group (English) - Moved to a "private" chat because Telegram does not allow all countries to join public groups
https://telegram.me/joinchat/B7EXdD1l2nZnyyHrsP0ZYw

So, about the past couple hours -
The bot was running, everything on our end was perfect. However, Telegram almost completely stopped sending it ANY messages for over an hour (and I was still asleep, so I didn't notice). The bot was asking Telegram for updates, and Telegram was telling it that there were no messages for it. I.e. your commands to @werewolfbot were not reaching the bot, even though the bot was asking for them.

I've revoked the API token, replaced it with a new one, and started the bot back up. Everything should be good now.

If you'd like to see this mornings events for yourself, feel free to look at my log file. Check out 9:06:43 AM, which is when it went down.
Log file lines are as such:
Timestamp - Time for bot to run httprequest to get messages - how many messages Telegram sent the bot in that request.

Werewolf Enforcer Update:

Hello! As some of you might have noticed, the @admin cmand was unstable for the most part of the last 24 hours; this is because the team behind @werewolfbutlerbot has been tweaking and modifying the system to better suit the needs of the users and could only do it in a live environment so that we could test it properly.

As you know we used to have multiple reports coming in for just one item when different users report the same issue with the @admin tag. Enforcer will now recognise them as the same issue and only 1 report will be triggered to prevent multiple reports being logged for the same item.

Also on the @admin tag, we have added the /solved command which will enable the admins to recognise reports that have already been acted on. Usually when an issue is reported with the @admin tag, all the admins will receive the notification and be alerted, resulting in scenarios where multiple admins taking action for the same issue. This command essentially eliminates that possibility when the report has been marked as resolved and prevents the other admins from taking action on the same report. It also gives you piece or mind as to whether or not issues are being dealt with.

Please see below for a usage example and remember you have to reply to the message that contains @admin.

Note: This command does not work for admins in certain regions due to how telegram manages it's data.

As always, please go to @werewolfsupport for more information or if you need help; and you can look at our code at https://github.com/BladeZero/GroupButler

Werewolf Moderator Information

Seeing how many games are running on both @WerewolfBot and @WerewolfiiBot , it no longer makes sense to try to prevent bots from hitting api limits. (If a bot sends more than 30 messages per seconds, telegram delays all messages from the bot. Now realize that the bot is running enough games to have 3000 players at one time....) To solve that, we tried creating a clone of Werewolf Bot. @WerewolfiiBot, so now, we own two api-limits hitting bots. Lol, we're most certainly not going to make a third one.

Para spent a while writing a setup guide for devs who would like to offer their chatrooms a non api limited bot (If bot is in a small number of chats, it won't be delayed).

Now, if BIOS sounds to you like a Biological Vegetables brand, or compiler makes you thing of Wall-E, do not even bother to read on. This post is intended for devs, and people who know what they are doing. The software you use could break your computer if misused, and melt your brain if you get stuck on "Why the heck does it not want to work". Support WILL NOT be given on @werewolfsupport if you have no idea what compile or runtime or any of these things mean. If you are a serious developer, and we can tell you at least got most of it done, we can answer small questions (it is possible Para left something out of the setup guide) Cause if you try to set up a bot, you should have some basis (google IS a good place to start).
Check out the github readme for the setup if you are interested in creating your own clone. (Note that , yes, to run your werewolf clone, you do need windows.)
https://github.com/parabola949/Werewolf/blob/master/README.md

Note -
This does NOT mean development of @werewolfbot has stopped! Check the github regularly for updates that you can merge into your own fork

Another note - if you do spin up a clone, feel free to let us know!

Oh also.... good job everyone, we ran 33844 games yesterday, compared to 26973 the day before... @werewolfbot is growing fast!

Not sure what is happening, but @werewolfbot is receiving a 502 error from Telegram

Looks like the Telegram API is back online. @werewolfbot is running ok again

There it is, you did it! 1 Million Games Played!!! That's a lot of wolves.....