This is the Meet The Staff Panel and AMA, which was part of our 6th Anniversary Celebrations and occured on 14th December 2022.

Speakers at this event were:

- nom, currently Moderator, former Contributor and part of the team for over 2 years!

- Spoder, a recent addition to our Bot Reviewer team!

00:00:00 - Welcome to the Meet The Staff Panel!
00:00:37 - Introductions
00:02:20 - The Format

Questions:

00:03:04 - How did you discover Top.gg?
00:04:45 - Why did you get involved in Top.gg?
00:06:50 - What do you like to do outside of Top.gg?
00:08:21 - What is the most interesting bot you've reviewed?
00:10:04 - How much time do you spend on Top.gg per week?
00:12:01 - Do you have any recommendations of tips for people who are interested in applying as a Bot Reviewer?
00:14:21 - Do you have your own bots?

Individual questions:

00:16:53 - [for Spoder] What was the interviewing and trialing period as a Bot Reviewer for you?
00:18:05 - [for nom] What is your favorite part of being a Bot Reviewer Mentor?
00:19:36 - [for Spoder] Where did your username come from?
00:21:38 - [for nom] What was mentoring Spoder like?
00:22:10 - [for nom] Can you explain what a Mentor does?
00:23:49 - [for Spoder] What is your least favorite type of bot to review?
00:24:53 - What is your favorite music?

AMA Questions:

00:27:05 - [Dominik] What is the most valuable lesson that you've learned during your time at Top.gg?
00:29:04 - [Depthify] How are you able to manage a so large community?
00:31:21 - [null] What are your opinion's on the Rust programming language?
00:32:07 - [Family friendly] What is your opinion on motor busses?
00:32:30 - [burbur] What is your opinion on Snuttig? (The IKEA polar bear)
00:34:05 - [Nicole] Who is the stinkies staff member?
00:35:07 - [big bun] What is your favorite musical?
00:36:07 - [big bun] What is your absolute favorite bot on Top.gg?
00:37:28 - [Potta] Best advice to get more users on your bot or server?
00:40:12 - [null] What is the meaning of life?
00:40:37 - [Nicole] Who owns the real Smulan?
00:42:33 - [Igor] What is your favorite food?
00:43:35 - The Pizza Tangent
00:45:25 - [Hixie] What is your favorite experience while being on the Staff Team?
00:47:36 - [Porta] What is your favorite emoji?
00:48:18 - [Green Dude 2H] What is the best suggestion you can give for future bot developers?
00:51:07 - [Hixie] What is your favorite food to eat on a cold winter's night?
00:52:59 - [Green Dude 2H] What are some things that inspire you to not give up?
00:54:13 - [Lai] What is one useful update that you wish Discord would do?
00:55:34 - [Special] Does Vote Locks even help or are they harmful?
00:57:12 - [Green Dude 2H] Do you have any places you would love to travel to?
00:58:44 - [Family Friendly] What was your dream job when you were a kid?
01:00:05 - Is soup a food or a drink?

01:01:15 - Closing Remarks

This is the third edition of our Top.gg Bot Developer Panel, which was part of our 6th Anniversary Celebrations!

Part of this panel were:

• Hoss, Owner of Bake.gg (25k servers)
  https://top.gg/bot/824029844496056364
• Kodyline, Owner of Chatsight (1.4k servers)
  https://top.gg/bot/957403656091746384
• NathanL, Owner of Double Counter (260k servers)
  https://top.gg/bot/703886990948565003 
• Crawl, Maintainer of the discord.js Libraray (17 million downloads/year)
  https://discord.js.org 
• LeMorrow, Owner of Needle (4k servers)
  https://top.gg/bot/878399831238909952

Due to technical difficulties, this recording is missing the first three minutes of the panel.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Introductions
00:08:39 - How today's event works

Questions:

00:08:54 - Tell us about your bot and why you created it?
00:15:12 - If you can't chose your own bot, what's your favorite bot?
00:20:29 - In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about being a bot developer?
00:25:07 - As a bot developer you have to do many jobs throught development, how has your personal experience been in doing so?
00:31:11 - Have you considered branching out to other platforms than just Discord?
00:37:34 - As your bot has grown, how has it been scaling your project?
00:43:50 - What do you think is the secret ingredient to your project's growth?
00:51:04 - What has been a challenging time working with your community?

Panelist-specific questions:

00:57:33 - [Crawl] How do you keep your library up-to-date without too many breaking changes on a short turnaround?
01:00:00 - [Hoss] What advice would you give to bot developers trying to improve their economy system?
01:01:48 - [Kodyline] What role do you think AI will play in Discord server moderation in the future?
01:04:55 - [Nathan] How do you see the future of keeping servers safe?
01:06:43 - [LeMorrow] What made you want to use threads in this way? Anything else you'd like to see from the Discord API in the future?

Open AMA:

01:10:28 - [Syjalo for Crawl] Will there be a official discord.js framework?
01:11:21 - [Family friendly] How do you consistently find motivation to support your bots for years over time?
01:13:37 - [Timeless for Crawl] Should you rely on discord.py for really big projects?
01:14:42 - [Fellintron for Nathan] What algorithm is being used by Double Counter in order to detect alts?
01:15:45 - [Past for Crawl] Do you think you have personally influenced young users to pick up developing bots as an hobby?
01:16:45 - [Johand] How well do you think Discord is communicating their changes and have they recently gotten worse or better?
01:19:27 - [Emir] Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
01:21:20 - [Official] Which advice would you give to users that want to start bot developing but don't know where to do so?
01:24:20 - [big bun] What is your opinion on the newest features on Discord?

01:29:10 - One last piece of advice for bot developers?

01:30:25 - Closing off / Shoutouts

This is the first part of our Build-A-Bot event, in which we allowed you to ask questions in a Twitter space.

Hosts of this panel were:

- iara, Creator of Mimu

- Mac, Creator of PixxieBot

Chapters:

00:00 - Introductions

01:30 - How hard is it to be a solo developer?

05:56 - Overview of the Build-a-bot Event

O&A:

07:46 - [Krypton] What would you do differently now, compared to when you had less experience?

13:04 - [Quintenvw] What's your biggest frustration when it comes to the Discord API?

14:44 - [DanielGolan] What are your recommendations with languages and libraries for Discord Bot Development?

18:09 - [Krypton] Why spend so much time developing Discord bots and not e.g. Twitter bots?

19:49 - [Jadejaguar] What is one of the biggest issues/bugs that you've encountered while developing your bot and how did you overcome it?

22:00 - [Goseale] How do you handle such a high amount of bot usage without it slowing down?

24:44 - [Goseale] On a scale from 0 (not painful) to 10 (extreme pain), how would you rate the switch to slash commands?

27:21 - [Artinis] Do you believe there will be a benefit to using both normal and slash commands?

29:40 - [Winfinity] How would you rate Ruby when it comes to building with the Discord API on a scale of 1 (hell no) to 10 (amazing, i love it)?

30:22 - [Krypton] When you started, was it more of a fun project to discover new technologies or did you want to be popular and successful from the get go?

35:11 - [Spoder] Do you ever get worried that the users of your bot get bored of it?

38:49 - [JbPlays] What are steps to gain intellectual rights to your property (e.g. bot assets)?

42:30 - [Spoder] How do you go about pricing premium features for your bot?

46:34 - [Spoder] What is your daily routine look like? How much time do you invest into yourself compared to your bot?

49:14 - [Igor] Do you like chocolate cake?

50:46 - [LV] How do you decide about which type of bot to develop?

51:14 - [Spoder] When would you suggest to start scaling your bot?

54:50 - [Pufferus] How would you suggest getting your bot more out there, if your SEO is non-existent and budget is limited?

59:17 - [Neo] What do you think about the statement "Most Discord bots are becoming useless" regarding Discord adding new features?

01:03:05 - Closing off

00:00:00 - Introductions

00:05:33 - Can you tell us about your bot and what inspired you to create it?

00:13:27 - What's your most favourite bot that isn't made by you?

00:18:10 - In your opinion, what's the biggest misconception about being a bot developer?

00:24:05 - As a bot developer you often have to wear many hats at the beginning of the project, from product design to community building over to actually coding - how has it been for you?

00:32:07 - As you've grown your business and its reliance on Discord, have you considered branching out in order to decrease the risks?

00:39:57 - As your bot has grown, how did scaling your bot go?

00:48:21 - As your bot is grown, have you ever felt the need to get extra help?

00:59:34 - What has been a challenging time for you as a bot developer working with your community?

Open Q&A:

01:10:40 - [Igor] How long did it take to develop your bots?

01:11:15 - [Yui] How did you come up with your bot name?

01:13:02 - [iThunder] What are some tips you could give to smaller bot devs in order to grow their bot??

01:16:55 - [Spoder] What is your best source of motivation?

01:18:19 - [Spoder] How do you manage a big bot community wise?

01:20:40 - [Spoder] When did you start monetizing your bot?

01:22:01 - [Ads] What advice would you give to someone trying to promote their bot?

01:26:37 - What is one piece of advice you'd want to leave for future bot developers?

01:35:01 - Closing off

• misa, Owner of Miso Pop!
• Litochee, Community Specialist at Corsair
• Moe, Owner of The Programmer's Hangout
• Sky, Owner of sky's café

This is our Bot Developer Panel which took place on January 21st, 2022. In this panel, we had developers of some of the biggest bots on Discord share a few details about themselves and their bot!

Participants in this panel are:

- Xavin, Developer of Hydra

https://top.gg/bot/547905866255433758

- BattleEye, Developer of TicketTool

https://top.gg/bot/557628352828014614

- Iara, Developer of Mimu

https://top.gg/bot/493716749342998541

- Veld, Developer of Miki

https://top.gg/bot/160105994217586689

00:00:00 - Waiting for Stage to start

Introductions

00:02:00 - Event Introduction

00:03:02 - Xavin [Hydra]

00:03:35 - Veld [Miki]

00:04:32 - Iara [Mimu]

Regular Questions:

00:05:10 - What inspired you to make your bot?

00:10:00 - What is the biggest misconception of being a bot developer?

00:13:20 - As a bot dev you often go through many stages of project management at once - How's your experience on this?

00:17:00 - How do you balance monetization?

00:20:30 - How did scaling your bot go?

00:25:55 - Have you taken on any extra help with your bot? How did this process go?

00:31:52 - How do you measure success? What's the secret ingredient to your bot's success?

Specific Questions to our panelists:

00:37:15 - Why did TicketTool succeed so well?

00:38:48 - How did the YouTube C&Ds affect Hydra and its Roadmap?

00:40:06 - Mimu is known for its strong branding, what advice would you give to someone who wants to build a strong branded community

00:42:35 - How has the discord dev landscape changed over the years?

AMA Questions:

00:44:30 - [Family friendly] What are your views on open source?

00:46:31 - [big.bun/Phoenix] What are the first steps you took to grow your bot? When did your bot start to grow on it's own?

00:51:11 - [Aurel] What were the most difficult steps you took?

00:52:35 - [big.bun] How does the process of implementing new features look like?

00:53:23 - [alec] Was there ever a point in time where you wanted to quit

00:56:43 - [Bubbly] Where do you get your inspiration?

00:58:37 - [Family friendly] How do you foster/retain a helpful community around your bot?

01:00:10 - [Siri - for Tickettool] How do you plan on handling the Message Content intent?

01:01:05 - [Innovator] What are your views on the Message Content Intent?

01:03:07 - [conqr] How do you feel about Discord adding their own in app bot discovery?

01:06:50 - [big.bun] What was your sanity / mental health like while managing your bot?

01:08:39 - [Mafineeek] Is your bot your main source of income?

01:10:55 - [pog] Have you ever thought about selling your bot/business?

01:14:10 - [big.bun] What's your background? What did you do before developing your bot?

01:16:20 - [Siri] When starting out, what coding experience did you have?

01:17:40 - [hyper] What feature took the longest to make? What made it difficult?

01:19:13 - [Igor] What is your favourite programming language / library?

01:21:20 - As your business heavily relies on Discord, have you ever considered branching out to other platforms?

01:22:49 - [Flare] What do you think of the current state of Discord as a whole?

01:24:08 - [SpaceDoggo] Stuff you wish you knew when you started out?

01:26:35 - [Mafineek] Do you listen to music when you're coding?

01:27:45 - [Mac] What's your favourite bot which isn't your own?

01:29:40 - Do you have one piece of advice to share with new bot devs? 

01:31:10 - Closing off