Telegram’s Bot API is experiencing issues again, and so HAL may be slow to respond or may not respond at all. Will update this message when it looks like the issue is resolved.

Update: Seems to be back to normal. The API has been unstable of late, so this may happen again soon. Luckily, the problems do not affect the apps, so sending messages works normally when they happen.

Updates:

1. When HAL deletes messages in bulk as part of a ban, it will now do so in one shot.
2. In smaller groups, HAL will now do ban-checks on accounts that react to messages.
3. New chat-locks: Forward, Channel Forward, Link, Formatted Code and Story.
4. Chat-lock announcements can now be muted using the /quietlocks command.
5. Quick-reply banning has been fixed, and will now auto-escalate for a global ban.

Happy new year! 🎉

Feature update:

Comment moderation now has a strict mode, which prevents group members from sending messages that are not in channel comment threads or in reply to other messages. This is useful for channels that have discussion groups intended only for comments on channel posts, not for chit-chat or random messages.

To enable this, send /commentmoderation strict to your discussion group or directly to HAL via a connected session (see /help connections if you’re not sure how this works).

Note: if your group is not linked to a channel, then strict mode will delete any messages from non-admins that are not replies to others, which isn’t really desirable. Remember, though, that comment moderation is designed to be used in channel discussion groups.

In addition, messages that are flagged for deletion are now announced (with a reason) by default, much like chat locks. You can silence these announcements with the /quietmoderation on command.

For more details, and to see other comment moderation modes, send /help comments directly to @thisishalbot.

We’re investigating an issue that is causing HAL to respond slowly to some commands. The problem may lie with the hosting provider, and so there is not much we can do at this stage. If you notice HAL is slow to respond, please be patient. If you find it takes longer than a minute to respond, please let us know in response to this update.

Update: The hosting provider identified an issue with their infrastructure and has fixed it. HALs response-times are now returning to normal.

HAL is currently offline for server maintenance. Once complete, it will catch up on messages.
Update: Complete

Feature update:

Chat Locks: New lock types have been added: Boost Link, Paid Media, and Animated Effects. You can see all available chat locks by sending /chatlocktypes to your group or connected private chat (recommended). Toggle them using the buttons in /chatlocks.

Auto Approvals: If you have enabled join requests in your group, HAL can now auto-approve members and decline known spammers. To enable this functionality, simply give HAL the admin permission to add/invite members.

Also added to chat locks: CJK (to delete messages containing Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters) and Cyrillic (to delete messages containing characters from Slavic languages, such as Russian, Bulgarian, Ukranian, etc). Note: these locks also look at user names, just like the Right To Left lock, which covers the Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew languages.

HAL is currently down. We’re investigating and will get it back up and running as soon as possible.

The server has been restarted and HAL is currently catching up (might be slow to respond for a little while).

HAL’s database is in need of some TLC, so that’s been scheduled for tomorrow morning at ~6am UTC. Down-time won’t be long, and the bot will catch up on whatever it missed during maintenance.

Maintence is complete and HAL’s back up and running.

A reminder that the /hban command accepts a reason for applying a ban. By default, we use “Spam” as the reason, but you can change this to “Scam”, “Bot”, “Pornography”, etc, as applicable. For example, if you want to ban for a scam/crypto message, simply reply to that message with /hban scam.

You can see a list of pre-defined reasons by sending /banreasons to your chat, or in DM to HAL when you are connected to one of your groups (using /connect). You can also provide any other reason, but we generally recommend sticking to one of the pre-defined ones. We see the reason when reviewing global ban requests, so providing one can help by giving us some context.

To familiarise yourself with the different commands and features HAL offers, send /help directly to @thisishalbot and navigate through the help menu that HAL sends back.

HAL is currently unavailable due to an outage with its upstream provider. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do at the moment, so we'll just need to wait it out. As always, the bot will catch up on anything it missed when the outage is resolved.

Updates (times UTC):
12:48 – We’re expecting an update from our provider at 13:00.
12:59 – Our provider is starting to bring services back up. We don’t know how long this might take.
14:00 – Services are starting to come back online and we are re-deploying everything on our end.

HAL is back up and running, catching up on everything missed for the last few hours.

HAL's unfortunately offline again, this time due to a networking issue at the provider's data center. Hopefully it won't take them too long to resolve. 🤞

The networking issue was resolved at 23:56 UTC, at which point HAL caught up what it missed.

HAL will be intermittently unavailable for a while as emergency maintenance is being done on the database.

Maintenance is complete.

We’re loosening up our beta requirements to any publicly accessible group, regardless of member count.

Previously, we didn’t onboard groups with fewer than 500 members into our private beta (unless connected to a larger public channel), with the thinking being that smaller groups don’t really get spammed much, if at all.

In reality, there are a number of factors that influence how spam gets into a group, and it’s not far-fetched to think that a group with 100 members (or less for that matter) could get more spam than a group with 500. While most groups with lots of spam are connected to channels (most of them large), we feel the 500-member limit is more arbitrary than anything else, and so have removed it. Keeping the limit would also mean that smaller groups wouldn’t be able to test and provide feedback on other features HAL has to offer.

So, going forward, the only requirement for private beta access is that the group is publicly accessible — either via a @username or through a connected channel. The request also must come from an admin or — better yet — the group owner.

We ask that groups don’t request access simply in anticipation of getting any spam at all. If you don’t get spam right now, you likely don’t need HAL. But, if you’d like to test-drive other features, like chat locks and duplicate detection, early on, then let us know up front and we’ll be happy to onboard you anyway. That said, we reserve the right to remove HAL from groups that do not use it in any way, shape, or form while it’s still in private beta.

For the curious: why do we still have a private beta after all these years?

Simply put: the bot and its infrastructure aren’t yet optimized to handle a large influx of groups and their messages. Since life comes first, I can’t dedicate as much time as I’d like to preparing for a full launch. For now, we have a working bot that’s been performing excellently, so we’ll remain in beta until we’re ready to make HAL available to everyone.

As always, feel free to let us know here if you bump into any problems.

—Mike