Changes Upcoming for @lottobot's Weekly Lottery!

Hello, all! This is an announcement post to let everyone know that certain changes are going to be made to @lottobot's weekly lottery. As I mentioned in my last post on the subject, the first weekly lottery was numbered as "#0" because I considered it a trial run of the system.

I am happy to report that everything went fairly well! Though there were a few hiccups along the way, the weekly lottery concluded Saturday as expected. Congratulations to the winner, and thanks to all those who participated!

Following are the changes that are about to be made to @lottobot's weekly lottery.

First up is, obviously, that the timespan of the weekly lottery is being moved. The lottery will now start on Mondays at 3:00PM US Central Time and end the following Monday at Noon (12:00 PM) US Central Time. This move is to hopefully bring more exposure to the weekly lottery. The previous start time (3:00 PM UTC on Saturdays) was actually statistically one of the worst times to start something on social media. The new timeslot should drastically increase the number of people that will see the weekly lottery begin, and thus bring more people along to participate. The more, the merrier, I say :)

Second, and perhaps most noticeably, the grand prize amount is going to be reduced from 25 SBD to 10 SBD. I debated for a while about this change, but ultimately I am forced to make it. @lottobot currently simply doesn't earn enough from its lotteries, posts, and curation rewards to make 25 SBD every week sustainable. 10 SBD is much more within the ballpark of what @lottobot can expect to earn. In the future, I hope to return to a 25 SBD prize (and even go beyond that), but until @lottobot begins reaching a bigger audience, it is simply not realistic. I hope you all are not too heavily disappointed by this change, and that you will continue to participate in the weekly lottery.

The remainder of the changes are mostly minor. @lottobot's weekly announcement post and winner declaration post have been redesigned. Also, some changes have been made to make @lottobot more efficient in its checking for weekly lottery entrants. Other than that, most of the changes are internal-workings-related. You can check out the code on GitHub to see the changes for yourself.

Those of you who follow @lottobot may have noticed that the service was down all day yesterday. This was to sort out those "hiccups" I mentioned previously. All should be good now! @lottobot is back online and accepting entrants for the lottery. Give it a shot!

Currently, the next lottery is scheduled to begin tomorrow (Monday) at 12:00 PM US Central Time. Please check it out and enter @lottobot's weekly lottery #1! Good luck!

See you all next time!