Interacting with @dorabot on Steemit

_{Python code in action...}

One of @dorabot’s features is to pick a winner from users who upvoted a post or a comment.

This can be used as part of a contest or as a way to pick a visitor for a reward giveaway.

This feature has been available on the PALnet Discord server and can be used link this:

?winner steemit-URL

Please see an example below:

If the URL is a post, @dorabot will pick a winner from the upvotes, but will also take re-steems and followers into account. For example:

• Only upvote = 1 chance to win
• Post re-steem or author follower = 1 extra chance to win
• Post re-steem + author follower = 2 extra chances to win

If this feature is used on a comment, only upvotes will count. Everyone who upvoted the comment will have an equal chance to win.

In case you don't know how to get the URL of a comment, click the time indicator as shown below:

The initial idea for this feature came from a post from @benniebanana.

The original code only picked a winner if the user had upvoted, re-steemed and followed the author. I modified this part to make it work in the way I have described above.

I also modified the code to make it work on comments and not only posts.

Another modification was linked to a limitation in the “get_followers” function where only a max 1000 users could be retrieved. I modified that to take into account an “infinite” amount of followers.

I have now made this feature available directly on Steemit as well. Include the two words “@dorabot ?winner” in any comment and Dorabot will reply back with the winner. You don’t need to strictly use only these two words, see the example below.

@digitalking has been a great test user and was very keen to try this out on his various Steemit contests. See below for his first attempt to use @dorabot to pick a lucky winner. Please check out this link.

This is the only feature part of Dorabot available on Steemit at this moment. I want to avoid making her a spam bot, but for this function I think it makes much sense.

Below is the full python code for the function that will pick a winner. You call it with any Steemit URL and it will return the Steemit username of the winner. I call this function from a wrapper that listens to the Steemit stream for the words "@dorabot ?winner", and then replies back with the winner.

#call function with a Steemit URL in a string variable
def getwinner(url:str):
    #create steem and post instance
    my_nodes = ['https://gtg.steem.house:8090', 'https://steemd.minnowsupportproject.org']
    s = Steem(nodes=my_nodes)
    p = Post(url, s)
 
    comment = 1 #1 = comment, 0 = post
    followerList = [] #initiate empty list to store followers
 
    #store the post/comment author
    user = p.author
 
    #get all the people who upvoted
    voters = s.get_active_votes(user, p.permlink)
    #extract the names of all the voters
    voterList = [user['voter'] for user in voters]
    #In case of self upvote, remove the author from the list
    if user in voterList:
        voterList.remove(user)
    #get a list of all the people who reblogged the post
    reblogs = s.get_reblogged_by(user, p.permlink)
    #is the author in the reblogged list
    if user in reblogs:
        #then this is not a comment
        comment = 0
        #remove the author from the reblogged list
        reblogs.remove(user)
 
    #Only collect followers if it is a post, not a comment
    if(comment == 0):
        #get the author's follower count
        followerCount = s.get_follow_count(user)['follower_count']
        #initiate variable used to retrieve all followers
        followers = []
        followerStart = 0
        #loop is needed to handle values larger than 1000
        while followerCount > 0:
            #get up to 1000 followers
            temp = s.get_followers(user, followerStart, 'blog',  1000)
            if (followerCount > 1000):
                #set Nr.1000 follower as the start point in the next iteration
                followerStart = temp[999]['follower']
                #delete Nr.1000 as it will be added in the next iteration
                del temp[999]
            followers.extend(temp)
            followerCount -= 1000
        #create a list with the names of all followers
        followerList = [follower['follower'] for follower in followers]
 
    #initiate a list to combine all people who voted, reblogged and followed
    potentialWinnerList = []
 
    #loop through all people who voted
    for potentialWinner in voterList:
        #Add everyone who voted as a potential winner.
        potentialWinnerList.append(potentialWinner)
        if potentialWinner in followerList:
            #user is following us as well. This will give them another chance.
            potentialWinnerList.append(potentialWinner)
        if potentialWinner in reblogs:
            #user reblogged our post as well. This will give them yet another chance.
            potentialWinnerList.append(potentialWinner)
 
    #pick a random winner from the list
    #check if our list is empty
    if not potentialWinnerList:
        #our list is empty :(
        return None
    else:
        #we have some potential winners so lets pick a random one
        winner = random.choice(potentialWinnerList)
        return(winner)

Thank you for reading!
Stayed tune for future updates.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Click HERE to connect to MSP's Discord server.