I’ve posted before about my fediverser project, and I am now looking to see who is interested in participating.
The short description is that it does the following:
- it runs a lemmy instance which will be the home of bots that mirror accounts on reddit.
- The admin of this instance can choose what subreddits are going to be monitored from this instance. Let’s say that these are the “source” communities.
- For these selected subreddits, the admin can define where the posts from these subreddits should be posted in the other lemmy instances. We can, e.g, map posts from /r/selfhosted to !main@selfhosted.forum or !selfhosted@lemmy.world .
- You can choose whether to mirror the posts only or the whole thread with comments from reddit. Each of these will be authored by the account that mirrors the original reddit user.
- (WIP, optional) responses to the reddit mirror accounts will create a comment on reddit with a link to original lemmy thread.
So, now I finally got to deploy the first lemmy fediversed instance, and I’d like to know the following:
- which subreddits you still follow but would like to bring to the fediverse?
- For instance admins and community mods, what communities you would like to be the destination of the mirror posts, and would you be interested in having the posts only or the whole thread?
Bear in mind that this is NOT advised to be done for the bigger subs. The idea here is not to create a huge army of bots and overwhelm the fediverse, but mostly to create a migration path to those who rely on the more niche subreddits.
Oh and please also add /r/manga
That’s the only thing bringing me back to reddit every once in a while. As someone who pretty much just reads from an app /r/manga was amazing for finding new series.
Honestly the fist thing i did after join Lemmy was to block any bot in the setting and filter off all “Reddit something” groups. Just my preference ofk.
Fair enough. One of the design reasons that I am working from a separate instance for the bots is that it makes it easy for admins to block in case they are worried about being flooded.
If anything, this is just going to make Lemmy look more dead.
Folks browsing All to get a sense of what content exists on the instance they’re using are going to be flooded with mirrored Reddit content that they can’t really interact with.
It’s an interesting idea, but I think it’s also a bad idea.
they’re using are going to be flooded with mirrored Reddit
Only if someone set this up to mirror some large subreddit, which would be frankly stupid: the service still requires a reddit API key and they would quickly go over the limits of the free tier if they pulled data from the larger subs, also instances that would be flooding other communities would quickly be banned.
This is why I am being very careful about setting this up. I am not going to set these bots to any community unless I get explicit approval from the admins and mods, and I am not going to create mirrors from any subreddit with more than 250k subscribers.
You missed my point.
It’s going to make Lemmy seem dead because the ghost-comments aren’t something someone can really reply to and get a response, like you can with Lemmy today. At best people would be commenting to the void.
Honestly, I like this idea, just because it means I could block your instance in my app and instantly filter out that kind of content, just like how someone can block lemmynsfw to get rid of almost all porn.
I hope this feature becomes included in all views soon. Some apps support it, others do not. Web view does not, AFAIK.
Even then, I think it’s concerning. Yes, advanced users have tools to deal with the problem. But not everyone is an advanced user. Most people will have to rely on their instance admin to take care of instance blocking.
We should consider the experience of newcomers, especially since the intent of this bot seems to be to increase activity in niche communities. Newcomers are the people who can increase activity. We should aim to make Lemmy more welcoming and interesting for them, out of the box, not expect them to tweak their settings to have a bearable experience.
That’s the spirit!
Why isn’t the focus aimed at creating more communities over here, that actually add to engagement & interaction…if I want to see what’s happening over there, I’ll go and take a look… I’m one of those that has bots blocked anyway, so makes little difference to me really…
Why isn’t the focus aimed at creating more communities over here, that actually add to engagement & interaction…i
Because it’s not mutually exclusive and we can do both.
if I want to see what’s happening over there, I’ll go and take a look…
Yeah, but what about those who do not want to go over there out of principle. I know I am not the only one in this case, and I’d also like to have a way those who want to migrate.
Subreddits id like to have mirrored with discussions so i dont have to visit reddit anymore.
/gakinotsukai /90dayfiance /pathofexile /linux /fcbayern /diablo /diablo2 /diablo2resurrected /diablo4 /hextcg
Great, thank you so much for the suggestions! Question now is, where should I point them to?
I can have /r/linux at communick.news, and the football ones I can gladly send to soccer.forum. What about the gaming ones?
@feddit.de if possible :) There is also @pathofexile-discuss.com for poe
Again, please notice that I’m only going to mirror anything on Lemmy if the community mods give explicit approval. Could you please post on the lemmy community to see if you can gather more support?
Which communities specifically? poe-discuss is dead, nobody answers anything anymore. feddit.de is not a community. The reddit communities block lemmy mentions.
Unfortunately the feddit.de admin is not on board. Would be happy if you could find a suitable instance at least for 90dayfiance and gakinotsukai which are dead communities on lemmy, the gaming ones can be skipped as not niche enough. I love what you did with the fcbayern one! Thank you so much!
Is there any gaming-specific instance that could be interested?
Ok, I will set this up. Is it okay if I fully automate this, or do you want a limited set of posts only?
i’ve now asked the feddit.de admin directly to comment here.
@feddit.de if possible :) There is also @pathofexile-discuss.com for poe
can you post links to all communities you create when you finish please :)
r/okbuddyretard would be nice
I like it, seems like a good way to get to critical mass on the small subs here. Can’t really offer any help, but good luck and thanks!
Interesting initiative!
FYI, there is already https://lemmit.online/
Yeah, I know of lemmit but AFAIK it has the opposite ideas in many cases:
- It seems to be archiving the most popular instances, not so much the niche ones
- It is going to mirror posts only, not the discussion.
- All posts are created by the same bot account, so we lose information about the original content.
I wonder if the dev from lemmit would be interested in being the host of some of the “fediversed” communities, so that we can have comments as well.
You have it follow whatever instance you want it to follow. There’s a request community that you post to and it’s then added to the queue.
I don’t understand the point of this at all. Might be a fun project for you to do, but nobody wants a bunch of communication set before them that you can’t interact with. It doesn’t help this grow at all.
There’s a request community that you post to and it’s then added to the queue.
But only the posts, while I want to have all of the conversation, comments included.
Might be a fun project for you to do, but nobody wants a bunch of communication set before them that you can’t interact with.
What if I told you that I started working on this precisely because some of the people who were active on /r/emacs wanted to leave reddit but would also like to support those coming with questions? With this tool we can see the content on Lemmy, respond on Lemmy and (WIP) end up notifying the original asker on reddit.
I’ll definitely check it out if you follow through with it. I just can’t envision wanting a link to Reddit at all anymore.
And in case you want to help, everything is open source and on Github.
And if you really want to help, consider becoming a sponsor.
Wait, you’re intending to use multiple bots, so users have to block multiple spammers?
You are fixated on the bots. Don’t worry about them. The bot accounts are only needed to have a way to get people on reddit to migrate.
The real point here is that this tool is as spammy as the admin of mirror instances. It’s the admin that sets:
- which subreddits to pull data from
- which lemmy communities to push data to
- what posts from what subreddits to push to.
What people are failing to understand: the last point is not automated. The idea is not to get the firehose from reddit and unleash it on Lemmy. The idea is mostly to bring some automation to the process that I’ve been doing on all the different lemmy communities already where I was (a) browsing reddit just to seed content here and (b) sending DMs to people on reddit to let them know about the lemmy alternative.
Let me repeat: you will not see a flood of posts from bots coming from alien.top or any “fediverser” instance.
The real point here is that this tool is as spammy as the admin of mirror instances.
I agree that technically the person using the bots is to blame, while I only ever see the bots, and never a person behind them. I don’t see what that changes about their behaviour though. You clarified the bots are not acting autonomously, a human decides how much they spam. I still have a problem with too much spam.
Let me repeat: you will not see a flood of posts from bots coming from alien.top or any “fediverser” instance.
How can you be so sure? We have precedent of bots making 800k posts per month. Apparently, bot admins exist who use these tools indiscriminately. Numbers go up, I guess.
What measures do you as the creator take to prevent abuse? How can you prevent abuse, once another person gets their hands on it?
What measures do you as the creator take to prevent abuse? How can you prevent abuse, once another person gets their hands on it?
It’s free software, I am not going to pretend that I have any power to prevent abuse from motivated actors or if someone tries to weaponize it. But there are deterrents, mainly (a) the fact that accessing Reddit’s API has a cost for those trying to do high-volume of requests and (b) all the bots are in the same instance which makes it very easy to be defederated.
It’s free software, I am not going to pretend that I have any power to prevent abuse from motivated actors or if someone tries to weaponize it.
Ok, so your previous assurances were completely unfounded. Maybe even worse, your reluctance to see how your tool could be misused gives little hope you would take steps to prevent that.
all the bots are in the same instance which makes it very easy to be defederated.
It’s still an action thousands of people need to take just to undo the harm of one bot, or one instance. And some will not know how to, and leave Lemmy instead, which is exactly the opposite from your intent. Please run these bots in instances which are not federating their content to the fediverse. Make the newsletter opt-in. Don’t force people to opt-out. Even more so since for each user who might enjoy that service, many more will suffer from it.
Also, since you just clarified it’s free software and you have no power to prevent abuse, “all the bots are in the same instance” is nothing but a hope. From my point of view, it does not matter so much anyways. More spam bots / spam instances are added to the network, which is bad.
But there are deterrents, mainly (a) the fact that accessing Reddit’s API has a cost for those trying to do high-volume of requests
Since we already have a solid problem with spam bots, this does not seem to deter effectively. It’s strange but apparently it’s what people do with these bots.
It’s still an action thousands of people need to take just to undo the harm of one bot,
No, it’s an action that an instance admin can take quite easily.
Please run these bots in instances which are not federating their content to the fediverse.
No. That completely destroys the intent of having a tool that is meant to bootstrap communities.
More spam bots / spam instances are added to the network, which is bad.
You and I seem to have very different ideas of what is “spam”. We have bots like @L4s@lemmy.world that take RSS feeds from tech sites and post them to relevant communities and they seem to be well received. The posts are interesting get upvoted, the ones that are not get downvoted. Do you think that these bots should be considered “spammers”?
Let’s leave at this: if you ever see any flood of content coming from alien.top, then I’ll have no qualms in revising the policies and making adjustments to the system. But for now your arguments are inching closer and closer to concern trolling.
Something a bit similar to what lemmit is already doing, but more powerful with your addition of comments: read-only, best-of archives of really old content from popular subs.
10-5 year old askreddit posts for instance would be interesting blasts from the past to read today. Isn’t there already a ‘best of Reddit’ convention on Reddit itself that resurfaces such content from time to time?
I think it took me less than a minute to block the lemnit bot.
We want to grow beyond just being a Reddit clone/replacement - mirroring active discussions here just feels like stalking an ex on Facebook.
That said, in a previous discussion about about archiving good answers from Reddit, I did suggest that this would be a great use for a wiki that was integrated into Lemmy. Being about to semi-automate the retrieval and formatting would be useful. I think starting new threads for them isn’t the way to go.
mirroring active discussions here just feels like stalking an ex on Facebook.
I am not sure if that is the best analogy. We didn’t break up with the communities in the subreddits, we broke up with Reddit, Inc.
Thank you for this. Don’t listen to the haters, by bringing reddit’s content over here you’re still adding more content to the fediverse. I would love it if you brought over meme communities
Thank you for the kind words, but I’m probably not going to do this for meme communities for the following reasons:
- lots of images means hosting a lot of content and a big storage bill.
- lots of users with lots of comments/submissions, will be hard to mirror those without hitting API rate-limiting ceilings.
- if the mirrored instance gets lots of bot accounts who post nothing but low-quality content, it will make the people here on Lemmy associate it with spam.
But if you really want those, you can get a domain name and I could perhaps host it for you on https://communick.com ?
This is my first time looking into this service, but I would be willing to pay to have the service hosted. Does your link above include a way to get started with running the software you coded?
At the moment I’m only offering managed hosting for Lemmy, but I can work on adding the fediverser admin as well. If you give a day or two I can have it set up.
You can host it, that’s fine. I just want my memes however they happen lol. I’d I just have to buy a domain I’ll do so
If you are doing this PLEASE do it on your own instance, so we can just block the instance if we want to and you don’t waste someone else’s bandwidth
Yes, all bots will be running on the same instance, and I will only send mirrored posts to communities if I get explicit approval from the mods.
thank you
Let’s say I have a favorite sport and there exists a sub_ named: r/.
Let’s also say there already exits a Lemmy community and that community is struggling to get off the ground: !@lemmy.world
I can see a value add if your project directly helps !@lemmy.world get started; but I don’t see how it does. If anything wouldn’t your project compete with !@lemmy.world and therefore hinder it?
It might be different if your project directly tied r/ to !@lemmy.world but it doesn’t.
Yeah, check !main@soccer.forum, I am using the tool to post some content that I find on /r/soccer. I am working to do similar things with /r/NBA and /r/NFL.
Did you check with the admins on lemmy first or are you bot posting without permission?
So, like /r/soccer and !main@soccer.forum?
Checking out !main@soccer.forum I saw very few posts by bots. Mainly saw posts by you. I saw one post coming from alien.top .
What’s interesting is that only posts by bots have any comments. So maybe this could be a good way to get communities started.
Therefore, if it’s okay with the admins at the following community, I’d nominate !tennis@lemmy.world
There’s almost nothing happening there.
Do keep in mind that the comments on the soccer threads are also likely to be from bot accounts, but I’d expect that as more people start subbing to the community, there will be more “organic” participation.
As for the inclusion on the bot on a lemmy.world community. Please get in contact with the community mod, but I really doubt that the instance admins would be interested. If they don’t go with it, I might set up a Lemmy instance specific for tennis (matchpoint.zone was available for cheap. ;)
Yes
What an interesting idea. As this project scales, how would you think of getting around the Reddit API limit problem? This sounds pretty API intensive. I also wonder if Reddit might see this as a TOS violation (particularly when the bot was posting comments) and killing it without even reaching an API limit.
That said, I applauded you for trying to think of creative ways to increase content on Lemmy. One thing in particular that I miss are the questions on niche subreddits, particularly hobby subreddits. You can learn so much just by reading others’ questions. Lemmy doesn’t have the user base and reach to support stuff like that yet, so I like that you’re trying to think of ways to increase that content here.
As this project scales, how would you think of getting around the Reddit API limit problem?
The first idea is to scale horizontally. More instances run by different people, each of them running for different communities.
The second idea is a bit crazy but I would only be able to do it with some serious financial support and the help of a mobile app developer. Basically it would require a mobile app that could work as a client of both reddit and lemmy.
I also wonder if Reddit might see this as a TOS violation.
I do worry about it, but if it gets to this point, it would mean that this project would have started to make some noise. If it has started to get their attention, it would mean that the fediverse would be already reaching some critical mass.
I miss are the questions on niche subreddits, particularly hobby subreddits.
That’s exactly the type of community that I want to bring via alien.top. I started !makers@communick.news, but it didn’t catch on. Can you give me a list of specific subreddits you want?
I’m not a fan of mirroring Reddit, but I can’t stop you. Make sure it is easy to block (such as one bot user posting all posts but not comments) if you don’t want to be defedded from a bunch of instances.
Actually, the idea is to have all bots users on the same instance precisely to make it easy for unwelcoming admins to block or defederate it.
Edit: ignore my post below. I see the point of your project now (help bootstrap niche communities.) I just hope admins use it as intended.
You’re giving choice to admins but not to instance users with this.
Blocking nsfw communities from nsfw instances was already annoying and tedious (and I’m far from being a prude, I just don’t want to see “cum in my creampied pussy” when I’m browsing while having lunch.)
Reddit content is mostly rage bait these days. This is why many of us fled that cesspool.
Why not use some other website instead of reddit?
Just wanted you to know, I read this comment while browsing and having lunch.
Are you going to foot the bill for the Reddit API fees?
Have you considered what you will do if Reddit cuts you off? IANAL, but it’s fairly clear from the TOS that they will likely shut you down.
Except and solely to the extent such a restriction is impermissible under applicable law, you may not, without our written agreement:
license, sell, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or otherwise commercially exploit the Services or Content;
modify, prepare derivative works of, disassemble, decompile, or reverse engineer any part of the Services or Content; or
access the Services or Content in order to build a similar or competitive website, product, or service, except as permitted under any Additional Terms (as defined below).
https://www.redditinc.com/policies/user-agreement-september-25-2023
I am not mirroring all of reddit, and the idea is that each “fediverser” instance pulls only enough data to stay under the 600 requests/ 10 minutes, which is free.
If they decide to go after these fediverser instances, they will have to play whack-a-mole, because anyone can get new keys and start anew.
It’ll be easy enough for them to block
fediverser/0.1.0user-agents, so perhaps that’s not a safe default value since it’s an easy target.I’ll be honest, I saw a previous post of yours and was sceptical, but I think based on the idea, you’ve taken the best steps to make this a reality. Having the communities be part of instances where they fit in and can be maintained by moderators who care about the subjects is a challenge, but it does set it up for longer success.
As others have pointed out, there’s still an imbalance where people don’t realize they’re replying to shadow accounts (like this for example). Maybe a good solution would be to DM someone who replies to a comment by one of the bot accounts explaining what’s going on. Maybe asking the person who commented to reach out to the user on Reddit directly, and asking them to join the Fediverse would be a good solution and would bring in the human element to the process. This would avoid you having to build that feature (and likely appear to be a spammer) which might have a higher conversion ratio.
I’m not sure if you have a plan for it, but somehow allowing the Reddit user to take over the shadow account would probably achieve your goal of getting more people to convert, and would be a benefit to niche instances looking to grow their organic members. However you do this, it should be seamless to the new member, with the minimal number of hurdles.
Good luck!
Thank you! I really like the idea of getting the people already on Lemmy involved in the process of “fediversing” the people. I will definitely try to find a way to work this into the tool.
