Glossary

Spam and automod

Heat

A score that rises when someone sends messages and falls when they stop. Too much heat means a timeout. Think of an engine. Rev it gently and it stays cool. Floor it and it overheats. A normal conversation never gets close to the limit. Spam gets there in seconds. See heat.

Heat limit

How much heat someone can build up before Bastion steps in. It's 100 by default. When a member reaches it, Bastion deletes the messages that caused it and times them out. Their heat then resets to zero. See heat.

Cool-down speed

How quickly heat drains away. Faster cool-down is more forgiving. At the default speed a single message is forgotten in under two seconds, so only rapid bursts add up. See heat.

Strike

One automod punishment. Each time someone overheats they get a strike and a short timeout. After a set number of strikes they get the long timeout instead, and it doubles every time after that. Strikes are forgotten an hour after the last one. See Automod.

Scam link

A link to a site built to steal accounts, such as a fake Nitro gift or a look-alike Discord or Steam login page. Bastion checks links against a public list of known scam sites and catches look-alike addresses. A scam link is a ban by default. See Automod.

Glitchy text

Text stacked with extra marks so it spills over the messages above and below. Also called zalgo text. Automod adds heat for it. See Automod.

Blocked anywhere in a word

A blocked piece of text that's caught wherever it appears, even inside a longer word. Add berry and strawberry is caught too. An ordinary blocked word only matches a whole word. See Automod.

Ready-made word lists

Two lists of words built into Bastion, one of slurs and one of common swear words. Switch on Block slurs or Block swearing and you don't have to type the words yourself. See Automod.

Ping flood

Many accounts pinging people at once. If members send 50 pings within 5 seconds, Bastion can lock every channel and unlock them 10 minutes later. See ping flood lockdown.

Discord AutoMod

Discord's own filter, which blocks a message before anyone sees it. It's separate from Bastion's Automod. You can manage its rules from the dashboard. See Discord AutoMod.

Manage Messages

A Discord permission that lets someone delete other people's messages. Bastion treats anyone with it as staff. Automod skips members who have Manage Messages, because they're moderators. See Automod.

Attacks

Nuke

When someone with power wrecks a server: they delete the channels and roles and ban everyone. Nukes are usually done by a hacked admin account, a staff member who's turned against you, or a malicious bot. They take seconds. See Anti-Nuke.

Raid

Lots of accounts joining at once to spam or harass. Raids are normally run with scripts and throwaway accounts that join within seconds of each other. See Anti-Raid.

Limit

How many times one person can do something before Bastion stops them. Limits are per person, and each has two numbers: one for a minute and one for an hour. Deleting one channel is normal. Three in a minute isn't, and neither is eight in an hour. The minute limit catches someone wrecking things fast. The hour limit catches someone doing it slowly to stay under the minute limit. See Anti-Nuke.

Attack score

Points that add up across different kinds of damage. Deleting a channel is 25, banning a member is 20, and so on. 100 points from one person within ten minutes sets off Anti-Nuke, even when no single limit was reached. See attack score.

Dangerous permissions

Permissions that can damage a server: Administrator, Manage Server, Manage Roles, Manage Channels, Manage Webhooks, Ban Members, Kick Members and Mention @everyone. A common trick is to quietly give @everyone or a low role one of these. Bastion reverses that and punishes whoever did it. It does the same when someone creates a new role that already has one, or gives a role that has one to another member. For those two, a permission only counts as dangerous if it goes beyond what @everyone already has. See Anti-Nuke.

Webhook

A link that lets an outside program post messages in a channel. Webhooks are how tools like GitHub or a news feed post into Discord. Anyone with Manage Webhooks can create one, and a stolen or malicious webhook can flood a channel without being a member. Attackers create them to spam. See Anti-Nuke.

Prune

A Discord tool that removes every member who has been inactive for a while, all at once. It's meant for tidying up, but it can remove thousands of members in one click. Bastion treats a prune of five or more members by someone who isn't trusted as an attack. See Anti-Nuke.

Custom invite link

A short invite such as discord.gg/yourname, also called a vanity URL. Boosted servers can have one. If someone changes or removes it, every place you've shared it stops working and someone else can claim the name. See Anti-Nuke.

Responses

Quarantine

A role that removes all access. Quarantine takes away every role a member has and gives them one role that can see nothing. Bastion saves the old roles so you can give them back, which makes it safer than a ban when you aren't sure yet. See quarantine.

Quarantine hold

The setting Keep quarantined people quarantined. If someone frees a quarantined member by hand or gives them a role, Bastion quarantines the member again and punishes whoever did it. See quarantine.

Lockdown

Stops everyone from sending messages until you run /lockdown end. Bastion remembers what it changed, so unlocking puts each channel back the way it was. See lockdown.

Panic mode

The emergency stop. When Anti-Nuke catches an attack, every channel locks, staff roles lose their powers, Bastion's moderation commands pause, and roles and channels that were deleted are recreated from your last backup. Everything is put back after 15 minutes. Pro. See panic mode.

Backup

A saved copy of roles, channels and permissions. Not messages or members. Discord doesn't let bots save or restore messages, and members can't be re-added. A backup rebuilds the structure of your server. Pro. See backups.

Joining

Account age

How long ago the Discord account was created. Raid accounts are usually days old. Discord IDs contain their creation date, so Bastion can read an account's age the instant it joins. See Join Gate.

Throwaway account

An account that looks like it was made to be thrown away. Bastion calls an account one when it shows two or more of these: under 7 days old, no profile picture, a random-looking username, no display name. The Join Gate, Verification and Automod can all treat these accounts more strictly. See Join Gate.

Batch of accounts

A group of accounts created within a day of each other. Raid accounts are usually made together, so several of them joining counts as a raid even if they arrive slowly. See Anti-Raid.

Verified bot

A bot Discord has reviewed. It has a tick next to its name. Any bot in 100 or more servers must be verified. A small unverified bot isn't automatically bad, but nuke bots are almost always unverified. See Join Gate.

Captcha

A short code shown as an image that a person can read and a simple bot can't. Bastion shows the code privately inside Discord. No links, no direct messages and never a QR code. See verification.

People and setup

Trusted people

People Bastion never punishes. They skip anti-nuke limits, automod and the join gate, and can use every Bastion command. They can also change the protection settings in the dashboard, which other admins can only read. If a trusted account is hacked, Bastion won't stop it, so only add people you'd hand the server to. Most servers need zero or one. See trusted people.

User ID

The long number that identifies a Discord account. Names can be changed and copied. The ID never changes, so Bastion uses it to be certain who you mean. To copy one, open Discord's Settings, then Advanced, switch on Developer Mode, then right-click a person and choose Copy User ID. See trusted people.

Moderator roles

Roles allowed to use Bastion's moderation commands. Give your staff these roles instead of Discord's own ban and kick permissions. They can still moderate through Bastion, every action is saved as a case, and Bastion keeps count of their bans, kicks and timeouts. See moderation.

Staff tiers

A named group of roles with exactly the Bastion commands you tick for them. Moderator roles get every moderation command. A tier gets only what's ticked, so helpers can warn and time out while senior staff can also ban. See staff tiers.

Alert roles

Roles Bastion pings when something serious happens: a nuke, a raid, panic mode or a ping flood. Without one, alerts are posted in your log channel and nobody gets a notification. See logs.

Warning points

What a warning is worth. A plain warning is 1 point, and a moderator can give up to 20 for something serious. Warn steps count points, so one heavy warning can lead straight to a timeout. See moderation.

Case

A numbered record of one moderation action. Every ban, kick, timeout, warning and quarantine is saved as a case with who did it, who it was done to and why. See moderation.

Appeal

A request from someone who was banned or timed out to have it lifted. They write why on the Bastion website, and your staff approve or deny it, in Discord or on the dashboard. A moderator can't approve an appeal against a ban or timeout that Bastion, the owner or a trusted person placed. Bastion sends the person a link when they're punished. They sign in with Discord, so nobody can appeal for someone else. One appeal at a time, and after a denial they must wait before trying again. See appeals.

Report

A member flags a message for staff. Right-click the message, choose Apps, then Report to moderators. Reports go to a staff channel with the message, who sent it and who reported it. Staff can delete the message, time the sender out or dismiss the report with one press. See member reports.

Server changes log

A running record of who changed what: channels, roles, members, invites and server settings. Discord keeps an audit log, but it's slow to read and it expires. Bastion posts each change as one plain sentence in a channel you choose. Pro. See logs.

Bastion's role position

Bastion can only act on members whose top role is below its own. Discord never lets a bot touch someone with a higher role, so drag Bastion's role to the top of the list. See the setup guide.

Security level

A starting point: Relaxed, Balanced or Strict. Relaxed forgives more, Strict forgives less. A level sets the limits and sensitivity for anti-nuke, automod, the join gate and anti-raid in one go. You can change any setting afterwards. See the setup guide.

Security score

How well protected your server is, out of 100. It adds up the protections you've switched on and the setup checks you've passed. The list below the score tells you what to fix. See security score.

Audit log

Discord's own record of who did what in a server, such as who deleted a channel. Bastion reads it to work out who is responsible for an action. See permissions.

Timeout

A Discord feature that stops a member sending messages or joining voice for a set time, up to 28 days. They stay in the server and keep their roles. See Automod.