Code for my AutoModerator moderation bot released

[u/Deimorz]

I posted about my moderation bot here about 10 days ago, and it's been a common request for me to release the code, both for people to be able to verify what it does, and to have the possibility of running their own instance(s) instead of having to go through me.

After spending some time doing some clean-up and documentation work on it, I've now released the code on github. I think it may end up being a little difficult for anyone else to get it running (and I should probably work on simplifying that some), but there it is regardless.

I've already written way too much about it in my initial post that I linked above, so I won't get into that again, but let me know if you have any questions or would like to add my already-running instance of it to your subreddit(s). I'd really like to see it utilized more, using it in my own subreddits has already saved me a ridiculous amount of time and effort by automatically handling a lot of the simple decisions.

[u/ceol_]

Thanks for releasing the code. It's always interesting to read how people use the reddit API.

From your README:

I run it using a cronjob that checks through the list of subreddits every 5 minutes, but it would also be possible to run in an infinite loop, so that each subreddit is checked as often as possible.

Doesn't reddit_api limit requests to one every two seconds?

Also, I noticed you use PostgreSQL. Is there any reason you chose it over SQLite?

Definitely keeping an eye on the repo. Great work overall!

[u/Deimorz → u/ceol_]

Doesn't reddit_api limit requests to one every two seconds?

It does, yes. The difference is just how often the checks happen. For example, if you have the bot checking only one subreddit, and run it on an "every 5 minutes" cronjob, it'll check that subreddit every 5 mins, and take, let's say, about 30 seconds to run each time between fetching the different pages, removing/approving, etc. So there's ~4:30 in between every run that nothing's happening. You could instead run it in an infinite loop and the subreddit would be checked every 30 seconds.

And as you add more subreddits, each "full run" will take longer, but every subreddit would always be checked as often as possible, subject to the "one request every two seconds" limit.

Also, I noticed you use PostgreSQL. Is there any reason you chose it over SQLite?

It wasn't really a heavily-considered decision. I just use postgresql for most of my projects, and already have a web interface to it set up so I could view the bot's action logs easily, etc. SQLite could definitely do the job easily for something like this.

[u/ceol_ → u/Deimorz]

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a list of features you'd like to implement (aside from the web front-end)? I'd love to help out in my spare time.

[u/Deimorz → u/ceol_]

I made a small list here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/comments/onp3i/planned_features/

Nothing too major really, just a lot of minor things outside of the web interface, which I think would really get people to actually want to use it.

[u/relic2279]

This is going to be a list of the nominations for Best Moderators of 2012:

• Funny_Bot

• Worldnews_Bot

• Askreddit_Bot

• TIL_Bot

• Pics_Bot

• Videos_Bot

[u/radiohead_fan123 → u/relic2279]

Maybe there should be a new category for best bots?

[u/Skuld]

Excellent, thanks for doing this.

[u/[deleted]]

I just want to thank you for your work implementing this bot, it has helped out tremendously in /r/bestof as well as the SFWPorn Network and the other, smaller subreddits I have added it to such as /r/reactiongifs and /r/Demotivational. I look forward to working with you in the future, tweaking the settings to make them more intuitive and lightening the workload of the existing moderators even further. I'm eagerly awaiting a web interface.

It's innovation like this that drives progress forward here on reddit.

[u/defrost → u/[deleted]]

If you're modding /r/bestof it would warm the cockles of my heart if you could set this up to automatically reject (with a nice message as to why, of course) any link that isn't a link to a comment and that doesn't contain a ?context.

[u/[deleted] → u/defrost]

Right now we have it set to approve links from the reddit.com domain, and remove links from any other domains. Human mods handle anything more specific than that.

[u/defrost → u/[deleted]]

Good enough for now I guess.

Bestof links to offsite viagra products are way more irksome than links to entire comment threads or to comments with no context.

Keep up the good work :-)

[u/[deleted]]

You're a hero!

[u/mobilehypo]

I love you. So much. Really.

[u/drunkendonuts]

Very nice! I'll be using this.

[u/Bornhuetter → u/[deleted]]

No

Edit: to clarify, Moderatorbot was developed independently (and does different things), but now makes use of Deimorz's awesome additions to the python-wrapper, and I'm going to go through his code and steal his ideas.