(attempt to cross-post from /c/programming )
Idea: Scrape all the posts from a subreddit as they’re being made, and “archive” them on a lemmy instance, making it very clear it’s being rehosted, and linking back to the original. It would probably have to be a “closed” lemmy instance specifically for this purpose. The tool would run for multiple subreddits, allowing Lemmy users to still be updated about and discuss any potential content that gets left behind.
Thoughts? It’s probably iffy copyright-wise, but I think I can square my conscience with it.
Update: as per the feedback, I have acquired a separate instance, and started coding. Just tonight I managed to clone some posts from a subreddit to it. - I’m intentionally being vague because I will probably wipe and reset the communities on there a couple of times, and that messes up federation.
The goal is to have all the communities be read only for non-mods (and the only mod will be the admin and bots), but to also have a separate request community where anyone can request subreddits to be cloned. I’ll keep updating this post here - still figuring all of this out as I go along :)
I get that, and the whole point of a tool like this is to make itself redundant.
I hope it will help people make the journey over to Lemmy, knowing they don’t need leave anything behind. Once here, they can start contributing here.