I used code from a github repo to make a lemmy repost bot from a reddit sub.
I tested it out, it seemed OK. So I let it run over night.
When I got back I found out it had been posting the same thing over and over again every few minutes. The account was banned for spam. But in the meantime it was very annoying to people. Also, there are a bunch of posts that can’t be removed because it’s impossible to remove federated stuff.
Is there a responsible way to test this stuff?
I don’t want to make spam, be annoying, etc. I feel bad about the spam bot.
Yes. Host your own Lemmy instance. It’s not that hard and can be run locally with no federation.
There are communities specifically for testing. Maybe one of them would be willing to have you? Or make your own testing community?
It won’t fix the spam problem if stuff goes south though with things like repost bots. That’s a lot of excess traffic. OP definitely should host their own instance.
Can you make your own community? If no one is subscribed to it, it shouldn’t federate anywhere, right?
I think https://enterprise.lemmy.ml is specifically for testing. It’s not typically federated with other instances, so it won’t be a problem if your bot goes crazy again.
this page also mentions https://voyager.lemmy.ml/ and https://ds9.lemmy.ml/
voyager and ds9 are front ends for lemmy
Lemmy has an HTTP API for clients and frontends.
For others, see https://github.com/dbeley/awesome-lemmy
I don’t think they help anything here. But thanks :)
edit: I can’t tell what enterprise.lemmy.ml is for? anyone else?
Bots are clients that use the HTTP API
Voyager was set up to test the app, but that doesn’t mean other clients can’t use it.
Enterprise is full of random test communities that have many been populated by bots. I don’t understand how something like https://enterprise.lemmy.ml/c/mels_test (to pick a random one) isn’t useful for what you’re trying to do.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !mels_test@enterprise.lemmy.ml
good call asking for a proper venue to test this, but how do you mean you can’t remove federated stuff? i was under the impression (from lemmy’s homepage) that one of the features is 100% complete deletion by replacing post/comment content with ‘removed by user’. is this not the case?
