Random comment picker | A simple use case for the Steem Comment Blacklist API

^{Source: GIPHY}

A few days ago, I wrote a post about The Steem Comment Blacklist API released for testing! Let me reiterate that whilst the list is titled a blacklist, being on it doesn't mean you are necessarily a "bad thing" on this platform. Rather, its primary purpose is to give Steem developers some idea of whether a comment was actually made by a human (and not a comment bot).

A real simple example I thought of is to create a random comment picker bot (yes...this bot is on the blacklist too!). You could use this to award some sort of prize to actual commenters on your post. Another use is for raffle draws and contests. Some people use https://pick.esteem.ws, but it doesn't discriminate comment bots:

^{Source: pick.esteem.ws}

Of course, you could also use a generic random picker like https://www.random.org/lists, but you would have to manually copy all the data in.

^{Source: random.org/lists}

These web apps work totally fine but become fiddly on mobile (or if you're just plain lazy!). So to create a simple demonstration using the The Steem Comment Blacklist API, you can simply comment $random-winner in any post to select a random winner. Supplying an optional number will pick 'x' number of winners. Hopefully no winners selected were comment bots 😉

I hope this is of some use to the community 👍

Yours truly,
@contrabourdon