Mastodawn

colin mitchell Apr 6, 2023

Friends, I'm considering a change to how botsin.space operates and would love input.

I think I want to remove the ability to post to the public timeline. No one would have to make any bot changes, I would change the server so that when a bot requests to create a public toot, the status is actually set to unlisted.

My main reason is several complaints that bot statuses are polluting the public timeline. I don't have a strong opinion, but it also seems like a reasonable change. Feedback please!

Sure go ahead

51.4%

No thank you

33.9%

Something else

14.7%

Poll ended at Apr 9, 2023 at 6:38pm.

Hi folks, so based on some feedback here, I've implemented a bit of code here on botsin.space to limit public posts.

Once an account makes a public post, any posts for the next six hours will be set to unlisted. This feels like an ok compromise to allow a certain amount of bot traffic on the public feed, while not polluting the timeline all that much.

The code is live now but not extensively tested so if anything seems sideways please let me know.

colin mitchell May 16, 2023

debugging in production 🏎️

colin mitchell May 16, 2023

so this was over applying for awhile but i think it's working more properly now

fernand0 May 17, 2023

@muffinista Sorry for my ignorance, but this can be related to the change? My bot has been showing posts in batches at some times of the day (image attached).

fernand0 May 17, 2023

@muffinista anyway, thank you for your work.

Stefan Bohacek May 16, 2023

@muffinista Seems pretty fair!

Nora Reed May 16, 2023

@muffinista thanks for letting us know!

teledyn 𓂀 May 16, 2023

Seems fair. If some unlisted item is truly important, some subscriber is sure to boost it.

Katherine Senzee May 16, 2023

@muffinista Great idea, thank you!

The Astropath has moved May 20, 2023

@muffinista This seemed like a good idea to me before (and I voted in favour of it), but I had one casualty pointed out to me, which is a bit of a shame. For @DXRandoActivity we tag individual playthroughs with unique hashtags (or certain events like "you beat the game!"). Unfortunately it looks like browsing hashtags will only show public posts, so it's basically luck-of-the-draw now which posts show up via hashtag.

The Astropath has moved May 20, 2023

@muffinista Any idea if there's a solution, even if it's just local to botsin.space? We have many users who will just browse to the page without having an account, as we often share the posts on Discord, etc.

colin mitchell May 20, 2023

@theastropath yeah, that's definitely a downside. I'll poke around a bit and see if there's something we can do

The Astropath has moved May 20, 2023

@muffinista @muffinista Thanks! It looks like Gargron believes this is the correct behaviour, although I don't really agree. Hopefully there is some sort of solution!

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/5463

Unlisted public statuses should appear in hashtag timelines · Issue #5463 · mastodon/mastodon

Hashtags in public unlisted toots are processed, but the current implementation of hashtag timelines only displays public (not unlisted) toots, just as unfiltered local and public timelines. While ...

GitHub

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 25, 2023

@muffinista @theastropath

Hi,

First, thanks for botsin.space server which is great for our scientific community in Mastodon!

I just noticed this new-ish behaviour in my bots.

I understand the motivation, but for some of my bots this creates an issue : e.g., this post https://botsin.space/@Rxiv_cytoskeleton/111124236968388134 is tagged #actin, which is a keyword that me and probably others are following. But as you know, being unlisted, it won't appear in a keyword search...

Can we discuss this?
Thanks!

Rxiv cytoskeleton (@[email protected])

📰 "PDZ Domains from the Junctional Proteins Afadin and ZO-1 Act as Mechanosensors" by 🔬 Vachharajani, V. T., DeJong, M. P., Dunn, A. R. http://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.24.559210v1?rss=1 #Actin

botsin.space

colin mitchell Sep 25, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne you're certainly welcome to share your opinion, but in all likelihood i'm not going to make a change here

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 25, 2023

okay, well. Is it because it really solved issues of flooding or is it because you are lacking the time needed to consider a change?

And do you know of alternatives?

I can't say that I have much time myself to devote to my bots, but I feel sorry that I took some to develop a way to automatically #tag their posts and that this is now mostly useless.

colin mitchell Sep 25, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne I'm not inclined to make a change because in my opinion it's working exactly as intended. A subset of your posts are making it to the hashtag - in fact, they are the only content I see on the tag. If someone values the content, they can follow the bot. I view this as good behavior but you're obviously welcome to your own opinion. This is the only instance behaving this way so far as I know, so you can always move the account elsewhere to get your desired behavior

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 25, 2023

...well, this is the wrong way around : following the bot gives many more results than following the hashtag, someone interested in actin won't want to scan all the bot's toots.

Anyway, it doesn't sound like there's any middleground to be searched for, I'll try to find an alternative solution for these bots.

The Astropath has moved Sep 25, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne @muffinista There's an open issue here discussing another path, sort of an in-between visibility between unlisted and public: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/23038

I noticed mastodon.bot as a potential server that doesn't have the same "unlisted" requirement, but honestly the longevity and stability of botsin.space is making me want to stay here for the time being.

Unlisted posts with hashtags should show up only in the hashtag feed and the person's profile, but not main feeds · Issue #23038 · mastodon/mastodon

Pitch The point of an unlisted post is to be unlisted from the main feeds, federated and local, so when somebody uses a hashtag on an unlisted post it should exclude the main feeds but still show u...

GitHub

colin mitchell Sep 25, 2023

@theastropath @jocelyn_etienne botsin.space is here to stay, but one of the downsides of someone having an account here is they need to put up with being silenced on a lot of other instances, and with some of the rules that come with the scaling/management required for an instance with a couple thousand accounts that generally all post at the same time.

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 26, 2023

Thanks @theastropath for pointing this, I've added a note on my own reasons to support this.

Same feeling about mastodon.bot vs botsin.space, plus simply the lack of time to migrate the bots...
But that also means the work I've done at implementing the harvesting those hashtags is now mostly lost, since even when one follows an account the search for hashtags excludes the unlisted ones...

colin mitchell Sep 25, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne honestly, looking at how your bot operates, I'm doing this because of this exact sort of behavior - it posted 16 times at once, across several hashtags. That's basically the definition of timeline/hashtag spamming, it's also certainly against the rules of the server, and it's certainly impolite. I think ultimately the real solution here is for you to find a gentler way to post.

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 26, 2023

@muffinista @theastropath
Thanks for these comments, I think I can improve based on that.

I run 5 bots such as this one, for different scientific specialities, e.g @flypapers
The rate of posts is due to the number of papers published in each field... (and yes researchers feel spammed by the system, but that's a side note)

I was posting every 4 hours, if I understand well it's better for the server and timeline if I post every hour e.g. but 4 times fewer toots each time?

colin mitchell Sep 26, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne @theastropath spam is _never_ a side note. like, never. anyway, yes, if you spread out the posting that is generally better.

Jocelyn Etienne Sep 26, 2023

I meant, not being spammed specifically in Mastodon, our research system has been going crazy for quite a few years now and people can't cope with the number of papers in their own speciality... which is reflected by my bots.

OK, posting is now every hour. I've asked an instance which is run by a scientific society on the topic whether they could host these 3 bots which require searchability, that'd be an OK option for migrating from your (otherwise great!) server.

Jocelyn Etienne Oct 30, 2023

A couple questions:

- logging in as one of my bots, I find that there are follows which have been treated as "follow requests". Idk why? Is there a way to make sure they are automatically granted?

1/2

#followRequest #bot #bots

Jocelyn Etienne Oct 30, 2023

- I notice that, posting from the same website, some of my bots include the thumbnail/preview of the linked page (eg @mechanobio ) and some don't (eg @bioRxiv_cellbiol ).
I don't understand whether that's linked to some setting in the profile/way I am posting, I don't see a difference.

Can I do anything so my bots *never* include the preview? I feel this is really a waste, as the thumbnail is always the same but a different image file each time, which I guess gets duplicated…

2/2

Jocelyn Etienne Nov 2, 2023

I've now understood that "preview" question, outcome depends on the #bioRxiv link used : "biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/" links have no preview, whereas "biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/..." ones do.

So I now systematically use the former to reduce #serverLoad/energy #footprint. I've not found a similar variant for #pubmed and their huge thumbnail image, though.

Jocelyn Etienne Oct 30, 2023

I've now heard from the sci society server I had asked about hosting my bots, and they'd also post as unlisted there... So if that's ok for botsin.space, I guess I'll save myself the hassle of moving to them, and keep the problem of having them unsearchable (until possibly a new feature allows #unlisted-yet #searchable posts)

Now enabling auto-delete at 3 months, anyhting else I can to to have a lighter footprint?

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21645

Unlisted posts with discovery enabled · Issue #21645 · mastodon/mastodon

Pitch We currently have multiple options for post visibility, including unlisted. This stops your post from showing up in the local and federated timelines, but also opts the post out of discovery ...

GitHub

colin mitchell Oct 30, 2023

@jocelyn_etienne you can definitely keep them here, and deleting after 3 months is great, thanks for asking

Danny Garside Jul 18, 2023

@muffinista
I'm curious - how large of an impact does this actually have?

My underlying question is: to what extent to people actually browse the public feed?
For clarity: I _think_ to browse the "public feed" people need to navigate to https://botsin.space/public . Is this a correct understanding?

[I recently uncovered a misunderstanding of mine as to what the different levels of visibility meant](https://social.coop/@da5nsy/110638008286331753) and so I'm cautious to make sure I'm understanding the terms now!

botsin.space

colin mitchell Jul 18, 2023

@da5nsy in this context, I mean the 'federated timeline'

Kuraiko Aug 29, 2023

@muffinista would be cool if you could add this information to the about page.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who randomly noticed this rate limit (cause my bot usually never create more then one toot a day) and then looked in the About page if there is any rate limit mentioned...

colin mitchell Aug 30, 2023

@Kuraiko you're absolutely correct, I've just added it there

Philipp Dec 1, 2023

@muffinista Hi, is it possible, that this prevents posting a status with direct visibility? I tried via the API and it was set to unlistet

colin mitchell Dec 1, 2023

@leflips I don't think it's possible. The check only applies to posts with a public status

Philipp Dec 1, 2023

@muffinista okay, found the problem. For some reason my API example had the wrong keyword. Looks like it's working! Have a nice weekend

colin mitchell Dec 1, 2023

@leflips glad it's working for you!