Make Mastodon bot for "best of" feed.

[jessamynwest]

Make a bot for this feed on Mastodon.

https://mltshp.com/user/mltshp/rss

Use the logo and as close to the username as you can. Thanks!

[dphiffer]

Cross-posting what I wrote on Slack: I would like to work on this. Here is a loose proposal:

• it’s a Python script
• it runs on a GitHub Actions cron
• it uses the Mastodon API to post updates

[dieseltravis]

If all we need to do is post an RSS feed there's a fairly easy way to do that here: https://feedsin.space/

Otherwise https://botsin.space/about is a great place for bot accounts and there's a decent mastodon python thing here: https://mastodonpy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

[dphiffer]

If all we need to do is post an RSS feed there's a fairly easy way to do that here: https://feedsin.space/

Yeah, I did look at some existing solutions. The notice at the bottom sums up my reservations about running this on someone else's service: "This service is beta code and might break!"

Otherwise https://botsin.space/about is a great place for bot accounts and there's a decent mastodon python thing here: https://mastodonpy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Yeah, I like botsin.space! But the signup form kinda calls us out: "This instance is for bots, friends of bots, and other related projects. It is NOT for news bots, uncurated RSS feeds, marketing accounts, etc." Maybe at some point we could have a more sophisticated bot, but at least for the first revision it's more of an "uncurated RSS feed."

[dphiffer]

I just pushed my first pass at a bot here: https://github.com/dphiffer/best-of-mltshp-bot

It posts updates here (thanks @jessamynwest): https://mefi.social/@best_of_mltshp

[jessamynwest]

That looks just great.

[dphiffer]

Some next things it might need to do:

• Be responsive to NSFW flags (assuming those make it into the RSS feed)
• Rate limiting (but maybe running once per hour is infrequent enough, I should confirm)
• Tag the poster the way the Twitter bot used to, but there's a larger discussion about how to map MLTSHP users onto their Mastodon accounts

I should also move the repo to the MLTSHP org.

[dphiffer]

I got a request to post updates with "unlisted" privacy, which makes sense—I don't want to clutter up the mefi.social local timeline. There are probably other benefits as well, avoiding unwanted discoverability out in the broader fediverse.

I'll need to rework how the bot works though, since unlisted posts don't land in the public RSS feed. I'm pretty sure I just need to switch to using the Mastodon API instead. For now the bot is taking a break and should be back shortly.

[dphiffer]

I also noticed that something tagged as NSFW would probably show up in the Popular feed without any marking at all, if I'm reading the source code correctly. Those posts would violate mefi.social policies (that is, without a CW), but on the other hand I don't think NSFW posts tend to get into the Popular feed so it's a bit of a theoretical problem. Curious what others think.

[dphiffer]

Actually I think I'm wrong about unlinked posts not showing up in RSS, somehow my testing gave me that impression before but now I'm seeing otherwise. This is easier to fix than I thought.

[dphiffer]

The bot is back, and posting its updates as "unlisted." I switched it up so it checks every 5 minutes, but only posts one toot at a time.

[jessamynwest]

I don't think NSFW posts tend to get into the Popular feed so it's a bit of a theoretical problem. Curious what others think.

Unless there's a way to put them under a vague CW, might be worth leaving them off if there's a possibility we'd be going against mefi.social's policies. Either way it's not likely to have a big impact but I'd rather err on the side of being super considerate.

[jessamynwest]

Oh hey I noticed it's not pulling in the alt text. Is it possible to adjust that (and does that mean an adjustment of the RSS feed?)

[dphiffer]

I added some issues over on the other repo: https://github.com/dphiffer/best-of-mltshp-bot/issues

[macmanx2]

I think this can be marked as done by someone with powers: https://mefi.social/@best_of_mltshp :)

New repo is at https://github.com/MLTSHP/best-of-mltshp-bot

[jessamynwest]

I might have those powers, let's see....