Because #BotsInSpace is shutting down () I'm looking for a new home for my bots.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@Marcus you should be able to search for the bot and see all its posts.
There's a very basic web ui at https://bot.viii.fi/

[alifeee@mastodon.social]

@Edent yes :]

I'm thinking of using it soon... I might write an nginx server block and make a PR to give people options, too :]

[greg@icosahedron.website]

@Edent @bot oh this is really cool! I did a PHP version as well but it's more files haha

GitHub - greg-kennedy/phpActivityPub: Simple, post-only ActivityPub implementation in PHP

Simple, post-only ActivityPub implementation in PHP - greg-kennedy/phpActivityPub

GitHub (github.com)

it's sort of the PHP version of dariusk's minimal node one https://github.com/dariusk/express-activitypub

supports multiple bots, you create one through its "admin" interface and it gives you an API key, which you then include in cURL calls to let the "bot" make posts

[greg@icosahedron.website]

@Edent @bot (I have a testbed in action at https://greg-kennedy.com/phpAP but none of these are actually posting much of anything)

see also @TestAccount

[rasterweb@mastodon.social]

@Edent Thank you!! I need to try this...

[andypiper@macaw.social]

@Edent @bot I like the idea!

[andypiper@macaw.social]

@greg @Edent @bot you’ve both earned a mention in the next Trunk & Tidbits blog post (_probably_… actually, I may have a limit or the post could get a bit long this month!)

[edent@mastodon.social]

@flippac thanks. Are you able to follow @bot ? Does that work?

[cwilcox808@c.im]

@Edent
If I use a "See more posts on bot.viii.fi" or "Open original page" link on its profile page on my instance, I get what looks like raw json. Could that redirect to the root page instead?

https://bot.viii.fi/bot

[edent@mastodon.social]

@cwilcox808 please raise it as an issue on GitLab so I can keep track of it.
Thanks.

[danbri@mastodon.social]

@bot @Edent when I first explored mastodon seriously a couple years ago the culture was dominated by traumatised Twitter survivors and there seemed to be a strong consensus against any kinds of automation. Has that softened?

[edent@mastodon.social]

@danbri yup! There's 1st class support for labeling accounts as bots, and excellent API support.
Some of the more vocal commentators have found some other shiny rock to complain about.

[barubary@infosec.exchange]

@Edent Some bizarre code in there.

in_array( $inbox_message["actor"], $followers_ids ) ? $from_follower = true: $from_follower = false;

Removing the duplicated code, this is just

$from_follower = in_array( $inbox_message["actor"], $followers_ids ) ? true : false;

And ... ? true : false is redundant, leaving:

$from_follower = in_array( $inbox_message["actor"], $followers_ids );

[edent@mastodon.social]

@barubary your pull request is very welcome.

[barubary@infosec.exchange]

@Edent But then I'd have to create a gitlab account and, worse, write PHP.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@barubary I'm happy to hold your hand while you do so.

[disputatore@masto.pt]

@Edent @bot question: you say it won't store messages sent to it. How does the Fediverse work in that regard? Messages sent in general are lost if not stored by the recipient? So as owner of such a bot I would effectively never be the wiser as to the feedback on the automated content, right?

[edent@mastodon.social]

@Disputatore messages are stored in several places.
1) The user who sends the message usually retains a copy.
2) The recipient's server receives a copy (and can choose to save it or not).
3) Anyone following the sender will usually receive a copy of all their messages.

I could save a copy of mentions. But that comes with increased disk space, having to handle deletions, and risk that someone will store abusive content on your server.

[disputatore@masto.pt]

@Edent thank you for taking the time to walk me through it. I have some suggestions that I will eventually post as issues in your gitlab repository. Hopefully that's adequate. I would fork it, but that would force me to recover my rusted-to-pieces programming skills, not to mention actually learning PHP and probably having to learn a whole bunch of stuff required for this particular domain.

[ted@social.gould.cx]

@Edent neat, would be cool to have this on PikaPods so that folks could set it up without knowing how to run a server as well.

PikaPods - Instant Open Source App Hosting

Run the finest Open Source web apps from $1/month, fully managed, no tracking, no ads, full privacy. Self-hosting was never this convenient.

(www.pikapods.com)

Need to figure out an idea for a bot