What is the meaning crisis? with John Vervaeke
April 24, 2019
One feature that really helps set our Discord community apart is Bloom, our custom bot. Bloom welcomes all new members, so it’s often the first name people will see when joining the server. While Bloom helps with a wide range of administrative tasks such as this, what makes the bot invaluable to our community members is the meditation tracking and stats functionality it offers. Bloom tracks meditation sessions, provides stats (with graphs!), and manages vanity roles for meditation streaks and total time meditated.
Keep reading to learn how to use these features, along with a handful of other commands that community members may find interesting or useful.
Meditation Tracking and Stats
Community Enhancements
Meditation Tracking and Stats
For many users, /add may be the only command they ever need. Adding session times allows Bloom to keep track of your streak and total time meditated. Based on this data, the bot will automatically award the following vanity roles.
To add a meditation session, simply type the /add slash command. Make sure the Bloom command is selected, then input the time in minutes and hit enter or tap send.
There are also options to set the privacy and a UTC offset. Setting the privacy to “private” will make the add anonymous. All adds use UTC by default, unless a custom offset is specified. For more information, see /customize, which allows you to set your own personal defaults for these settings. However, note that any settings specified when using the /add command will override your personal profile settings.
Note that when attempting to add more than 300 minutes at once, Bloom will ask you for confirmation, like the following.
One may wish to add large amounts of time on occasion, e.g., after a silent retreat. Time tracking is based on the honor system and members are welcome to track any legitimate time spent practicing. Vanity roles are purely cosmetic, so there is nothing to be gained from cheating. However, note that exceedingly large false entries will skew the server stats, which is unfair to other members. Please be considerate.
If you ever wish to view of list of your previously added sessions, simply use the /recent command, as shown below. Optionally, you may also specify a page number (not shown).
While there are several reasons you might want to review past session data, the most common use for this command is to retrieve an individual session ID. This is required to remove a session, which we will cover below.
If you ever need to remove a session, simply use the /remove command. You will need the session ID, which you can retrieve using the /recent command (see above). Shown below is a recently added entry, which we will remove as a demonstration.
Note the session ID: 26743. To remove this session, use the /remove command and offer this ID as input, as shown below. When asked for confirmation, click “Yes.”
To check your meditation streak, just use /streak. Optionally, you may specify the user whose streak you would like to see. If no user is specified, your own streak will be shown.
You can show the streak privately via ephemeral message by setting privacy to “private.” Also see /customize, which allows you to set your own streak to private or disable streak reporting. However, note that any settings specified when using the /streak command will override your personal profile settings.
Bloom can display stats for both individual users and the overall server, using the /stats user and /stats server commands, respectively.
All stats include graphs, with data displayed in orange on a black (dark mode, the default) or white (light mode) background, which can be toggled using the theme option. Stats for members who are monthly supporters on Patreon or Ko-fi will be shown using the member’s custom role color, which is a donator perk.
Below are examples of server stats in dark mode (left) and light mode (right).
Both user and server stats default to daily minutes. Optionally, graph data may be specified. You may choose either meditation minutes or session count, using a timeframe of daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.
Stats may be displayed privately by setting the privacy option to “private.” User stats always show the current streak, unless streak reporting is disabled in the user’s personal profile. For more information about these settings, see /customize, which also allows you to prevent others from viewing your stats.
Users can use the /customize group of commands to create their own user profile to personalize their meditation tracking and stats experience. Profile settings include: UTC offset, anonymous tracking, streak reporting, streak visibility, and stats visibility.
Note that slash command options take preference, allowing user profile settings to be overridden when running the relevant command.
To see your user profile, use /customize show. The default settings are shown in the user profile below.
To change the UTC offset, use /customize offset. Select the appropriate hemisphere and then choose the offset for your local time. Whenever you track meditations using /add, the time will be recorded using the offset specified in your user profile.
Note that UTC offsets do not automatically adjust for daylight savings time. You will need to update your profile or manually specify the alternate offset when using /add.
To enable anonymous tracking, use /customize tracking. When you add a meditation session with anonymous tracking enabled, an anonymous entry is displayed in the channel to motivate others, but any personal information (total meditation time, streak and role info) is displayed privately via ephemeral messages, as shown below.
To set the visibility of your streak information or to completely disable streak reporting, use /customize streak.
When you set your streak visibility to private, using the /streak command will display your streak privately via ephemeral message and other members will be unable to view your streak. You can override the display behavior by using the /streak command and setting the privacy option to “public”.
If you turn streak reporting off, your streak role will be removed, your stats will no longer show your streak, and you will no longer receive streak notifications or streak roles when adding time. However, your streak will not be lost. You can still view your current streak by using the /streak command and you will be given the appropriate streak role should you ever decide to turn streak reporting back on.
To set the visibility of your stats, use /customize stats.
When you set your stats visibility to private, /stats user will display your stats privately via ephemeral message and other members will be unable to view your stats. You can override the display behavior by using the /stats user command and setting privacy to “public”.
Community Enhancements
You may have noticed that Bloom provides a random quote each time a user adds meditation time. Members may also request random quotes using the /quote command, as shown below.
While the occasional quote in #the-lounge is fine, we ask that quotes and other bot fun generally be limited to #bot-commands to avoid interrupting member discussion.
Submitting a server suggestion is easy and anonymous. Simply use the /suggest slash command in any channel where you can type, as shown below. Note that you will not be able to type in the #server-suggestions channel, so you will need to use the command in a different channel. This is to keep suggestions anonymous and limit discussion to the automatically generated threads.
Bloom will post the suggestion in #server-suggestions on your behalf, add voting reactions, and create a thread for discussion. An example can be seen below.
Bloom also manages the server starboard. Any post that receives three five* or more star reactions will be added to the #
starboard channel. Below is an example of a message that has received three star reactions. (*As of Nov. 2023, star requirement has been raised to five stars.)
starboard channel. Below is an example of a message that has received three star reactions. (*As of Nov. 2023, star requirement has been raised to five stars.) 
As a result, the message has been added to the starboard, as seen below. A link to the original message is included, and the number of stars a message has received is updated dynamically.
Bloom also offers easy and anonymous reporting of messages, either using the context menu or by emoji reaction. While our moderators work hard to maintain a harmonious atmosphere, it can be difficult to keep an eye on chat 24/7. Community members can help alert moderators to potential issues, and reporting a message is the quickest way to do so.
To report a message using the context menu, simply right-click (or press-and-hold on mobile) and select Apps > Report Message. Below is an example of a message being reported for excessive adorableness. (Just a joke – we love adorable animals!)
To report a message by emoji reaction, simply react with the :reportstaff: emoji (
), as shown below. The reaction will be removed immediately by Bloom.
Both methods will notify the moderators immediately. For context menu reports, you will receive confirmation via ephemeral message (below, left); for reaction reports, you will receive confirmation from Bloom via DM (below, right).
Note that if Bloom is down, it will not be able to remove your reaction. This makes context menu reporting the safer choice, since anonymity will be preserved even in case of failure.
As you can see, Bloom adds a lot to the community, and it handles many other tasks behind the scenes, too. We are constantly working on not only improving efficiency and stability of the bot, but also adding new features, which will be added to this page as they are released. A big thank you to our talented developer, Zachary!
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