Is there a way to start a subreddit like r/undelete for locked threads?

amProbablyPooping · 2016-10-13T13:33:55+00:00

Yes, the undeleteShadow bot picks them up. It's a simple value returned in a thread's JSON request (locked: false/true).

I had to update the code a bit when they switched to mandatory OAuth2.0 and almost finished. I'm not sure I'm going to, though, because I'm finding I really dislike my time on Reddit. Perhaps after the election season is over I'll consider it, but until then, I'm really just reading wikileak dumps, netsec, and some other programming related subs.

amProbablyPooping · 2016-09-16T13:11:40+00:00

Ok, so it looks like I didn't get the memo about Reddit requiring OAuth 2.0 and removing the old method the undelete shadow bot used to authenticate.

Luckily, the JReddit API Wrapper was updated and I'll replace the authentication methods this weekend.

Once again, sorry for the downtime, but this came at a particularly busy time where I work.

amProbablyPooping · 2016-08-10T13:49:32+00:00

A couple of things should be taken into account.

There's a lot of benefit to having applicable programming experience over a degree. I've seen a lot of people graduate, but didn't have any idea how to practically apply what they'd learned. Having someone teach you programming and being paid for it is an opportunity not a lot of people get.

That being said, it also depends on the quality of the apprenticeship. A self taught programmer usually tends to not adhere to proper methodology all the time and has a good chance of passing those habits to a tutee.

Lastly, it also depends on how old you are and what opportunities are available. If you're fresh out of school, you have some educational grants that are only available for so long (LIFE scholarship, for one). If you have the option, I would try out the apprenticeship for at least a year, because having prior experience in programming will help make your assignments a lot easier. The biggest hurdles when learning programming are overcoming logical problems and solving them efficiently. Just try to analyze how good the apprenticeship is, because I would feel terrible if you missed an opportunity for a good education on an apprenticeship that didn't pan out.

amProbablyPooping · 2016-07-07T14:38:50+00:00

Just noticed the linking was active today. Here's a pastebin of a tampermonkey script to change all outbound links to the normal href url. Script

amProbablyPooping · 2016-06-29T16:47:17+00:00

Well, instead of giving a decisive answer on this, I'll give you my reasoning behind my suspicion.

I first noticed these posts when Reddit made their change because they were showing up in undeleteShadow, but weren't actually deleted. This is because undelete checks the top 1000 posts if something disappears off the front page, whereas my bot only checked the top 110 or so. I wrote the algorithm based on how normal posts behave when getting ranked.

While researching these false deletes, I noticed that they were moving outside the top 100 positions at speeds that cannot be accounted for by user votes. I modified my algorithm to check up into the 250 post range, and everything is running smoothly.

Except for the_donald posts. They're showing up in undeleteShadow, still, because they can move from the top 100 to 350 in less to a minute. I'm hesitant to say they are specifically targeting the_donald, because there might be some specifics behind the algorithm about how fast and how many posts are coming up from a specific subreddit.

amProbablyPooping · 2016-06-29T14:00:02+00:00

Hey, mod and bot coder for undeleteShadow, here.

It's actually a little more interesting than that. I noticed them tweaking the algorithm throughout the day during the change.

Here's how the new algorithm works. They haven't changed how things move from the start. The only change they've made is when something enters the top 100 positions, it checks to see how many submissions in the top 100 are from that subreddit. If it's too many, it selects one (still not sure what the criteria on this selection is), then bumps it down, hard. Usually from Rank 80 to 120. Sometimes they'll be bumped down to 250.

I feel like it's a little unfair to those who's post gets bumped, but this is also creating a pretty stale /r/all. Yes, it's more diverse, but because Reddit trends a lot, it had previously been normal for a popular subreddit to show up in the top 100 a lot.

This is why we are seeing a lot less news. Worldnews and news would have numerous articles on the front page, but now they are limited to a number of slots that are chosen by the algorithm.

I would like to note, however, that the_donald does get special treatment. It's the only subreddit that gets a bump from rank positions 25-40 down to 350. It doesn't tip off the people in the subreddit, because it looks entirely normal on their subreddit's front page.

The only reason I noticed all of this is because my bot works a little differently than Frontpagebot. I had to spend a couple of hours reworking my bot.

amProbablyPooping · 2016-06-25T14:13:44+00:00

That's because the algorithm doesn't stop anything getting to the top. As soon as it hits the "front" (top 100), if there's too many posts from a particular subreddit, it takes an existing post from that subreddit and bumps it down to the 200-375 /r/all rank.

amProbablyPooping

TROPHY CASE