jiwon0001 / ban-appeal

Project Status:

Inspired by sylveon

Demo

Support Discord Server

Table of Contents

1. Deploy on Netlify
2. Deploy on your own web server
3. How to block users
4. How to create your own custom questions
5. Differences between this repo and sylveon's
6. Feature Roadmap

How to use this project:

REQUIREMENTS

• Have a server where you are able to:
  • Make channels
  • Create Webhooks
  • Invite bots

Easy Way: Deploy on Netlify

• Click the "Deploy to Netlify" button.
  • You will be asked to link your GitHub account then enter values for all the environment variables.
  • Most of the environment variables will be provided by the Discord Application Dashboard

NOTE: If you already have a custom bot in your server and access its credentials skip the next step

• Create a custom bot inside this server. You can register/invite one here

• Choose a channel (or create a new one) where you want all the ban appeals to appear.

  • Edit Channel -> Integrations -> Create Webhook
  • Name it whatever you'd like and make sure its "channel" is set to your designated ban appeal channel
  • Copy the Webhook URL and paste it in the REACT_APP_WEBHOOK_URL variable on Netlify

• Copy the required keys/secrets from your Discord bot application to the Netlify page.

• Deploy your application

• Lastly we'll want to make sure users can login using Discord

  • First make any changes to the netlify.app deployment URL you wish, or set up your own custom one!
  • From the Discord Developer Application page Select the OAuth tab
  • Click on Add Redirect and enter https://[site-url]/callback where [site-url] is the site name netlify assigned you, or the one you changed it to.

Environment Variable Information

Environment Variable	Description	Optional?
REACT_APP_CLIENT_ID	Client ID of a Discord Application	No
REACT_APP_CLIENT_SECRET	Client Secret of a Discord Application	No
REACT_APP_DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN	The Bot token of a Discord Application	No
REACT_APP_GUILD_ID	The Server/Guild ID where you are accepting ban appeals	No
REACT_APP_JWT_SECRET	A really long string of characters used to establish a secure line of communication with the API of this app. I would recommend using a password generator to create this. You don't have to remember what its set to	No
REACT_APP_SKIP_BAN_CHECK	If set to "true" the application will not check if a user is banned before allowing them to fill out an appeal form	Yes
REACT_APP_BANNER_URL	Add a custom banner behind your server icon. Must be a direct link to an image (usually ends in .jpeg or .png etc.)	Yes
REACT_APP_SITE_TITLE	Use a custom title for your site (defaults to {server_name}'s Discord Ban Appeal Application if none is set)	Yes
REACT_APP_SITE_DESCRIPTION	Use a custom SEO description for your site (defaults to {server_name}'s Discord Ban Appeal Application if none is set)	Yes
APPEALS_CHANNEL	The channel where you want appeals to appear in	No
REACT_APP_ENABLE_HCAPTCHA	Do you want to use hCaptcha in the form? (true	false)
REACT_APP_HCAPTCHA_SITE_KEY	The hCaptcha site key generated by hCaptcha	Yes
REACT_APP_HCAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY	The secret on your hCaptcha profile	Yes

Hard Way: Deploy on your own web server

This if by far not the prettiest way to do this which is why I recommend you use netlify, but if you're smart enough to deploy this on your own then go for it!

Requirements:

Be aware this project uses serverless functions as its API layer. All the API requests are directed at /.netlify/functions because support issues with netlify's redirect rules. To deploy this yourself you will need to create a serverless API using AWS Lambda or an equivalent from Azure or GCP. I will go into specifics below.

Web frontend

• Fork this repo
• Copy .env.example to .env and fill in each value
• Run yarn install to install the dependencies
• Run yarn build to compile a production build
• Direct your webserver to serve the ./build/ directory

Serverless backend

• Create a new serverless API in your cloud provider with 4 endpoints.
  • Each File in /functions will be an endpoint, and most of them will require both the files in the /functions/helpers folder
• Make sure all the packages from package.json are installed and available for each function
• Find and replace all occurrences of /.netlify/functions/ with your endpoint for each function

I've oversimplified a lot of the serverless portion here since it will vary based on your cloud provider but this covers the jist of things.

Adding hCaptcha (like reCaptcha)

See Wiki article

How to block users from abusing your ban appeal form.

See Wiki article

How to create your own custom questions.

See Wiki article

Differences between this repo and sylveon's

• Server icon and custom banner on landing page
• Only allow users who are actually banned to submit an appeal
  • Ability to disable this check
• Custom meta tags for better SEO and visibility.
• IMO a cleaner approach to custom questions.

Feature roadmap

• Allow users to be blocked from submitting a ban appeal
• Add better meta tag support
• Custom Questions defined by the user
• add hCaptcha/reCaptcha
• Integrate some means of alerting users who are unbanned
• Additional Actions such as "Deny Ban appeal".
• Optional Google Analytics tracking