Forum Post: Suggestion for livefeed chat moderators: Automate input of rules.

Watching the live feed at http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution every day, I've noticed that excellent moderators are always there doing a great job keeping the chat in order. Some are there for several hours at a time, and the job involves repeatedly typing out the same list of rules manually, time after time.

My suggestion is to automate inputting the list of rules, to avoid unnecessary work. A simple program can be used to automatically input the messages. There are many options of programming languages to use--(python, java, c++, etc). Autohotkey (or autoit, which is similar) is especially easy & suitable. (I'm not trying to promote it--I'm just a user of it, & it's free, open-source anyway, so nobody profits from another user).

Just use Notepad (in Windows, or other plain text editor) save a plain text file as "AnyFileName.ahk" and include in the text file the following:

^!a:: Send, This is where your first message should go. It will automatically print when you press Control + Alt + A. Return

^!b:: Send, This is the second message. It will print when Control + Alt + B are pressed. Return

In this way, you can create as many hotkeys to automate outputting of as many messages as you want (^!c::, ^!d::, !^e::, etc.). Double click on the file's icon to run the *.ahk script and then the hotkeys will work (as long as autohotkey is installed--a free download).

Another idea is to just type all of your rules on an ordinary text file, and copy & paste them into the chat. This is more work than complete AHK automation, but still much less work than repeatedly typing in all of the rules manually.

Then again, maybe manually typing the same rules into the chat over & over again is not a problem, maybe it's meditative &/or relaxing. I'm just trying to help to reduce your workload, so you can better keep up the great job of moderating that you're doing, and to stay fresh & positive in doing so.