Hello! I wrote a simple bot that periodically checks for new reddit posts and posts them to lemmy, so that people migrating from reddit to lemmy can still be able to see their favourite posts, but familiarizing with lemmy.

currently the coments are not synced, but this may change in the future (perhaps)

Yes, it uses the Reddit API, so it will stop working on the 1st of July, but I think that then I can implement a sort of web scraper to access Reddit posts without the official API, so this may eventually keep working for a while.

this script is currently on my laptop so it will be offline most of the time, but if I get the approval I may host it somewhere to get it running 24h/24.

now the question… Is this allowed? having this bot running 24h/24 on large subreddits will mean a very high quantity of posts. will this cause any problem to Lemmy?

if you want a preview check out https://enterprise.lemmy.ml/c/reddit_memes, where I started syncing a few posts from r/memes

let me know your opinion on this!

==== EDIT

here’s the bot source code

The bot is now running in https://sh.itjust.works/c/reddit_memes, let’s try to see if it work (I hope that shit just works)

I’m a bit concerned about the legality of this, if anyone has any info please tell me!

  • hapax@sh.itjust.works
    15·
    2 years ago

    I would create a separate instance for this, I don’t think anybody wants their instance to be flooded with automated posts.

    • Jeffrey
      3·
      2 years ago

      100% create a separate instance, and allow anyone to add subreddits to your import list. I think this would be hugely helpful!

      OP, you’ll probably want to block NSFW content, though.

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 years ago

    Not an opinion, but a question - would syncing content from Reddit potentially overwhelm both Lemmy’s servers and its organic content? If posts madenon Lemmy are mixed in with the tidal wave of Reddit material, might that put people off posting on Lemmy at all? Possibly not, just wondering.

    • synthllama@lemmy.sdf.org
      5·
      2 years ago

      I wondered this a bit too and share your concerns. On one hand I like the idea of populating Lemmy with more content, particularly for niche communities, but there’s also a good amount of unique posts here that might get drowned out.

      • Senseibull
        2·
        2 years ago

        Maybe create a specific community that aggregates all the syncs so it doesn’t drown out the original content from lemmy, dunno not the best idea from me but I am slightly concerned if it just ends up a Reddit clone post for post

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
    5·
    2 years ago

    This may be against reddits TOS and may have legal consequences. But I guess mostly for the person operating the bot, and not the Lemmy instance, as long as they block the bot on request.

      • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
        5·
        2 years ago

        I have no idea, but at least in EU you may be violating copyright by copying someone else’s database (i.e. collection of data). I am not a lawyer though…

        • tubbadu@lemmy.oneOP
          2·
          2 years ago

          I Read the terms of service and what I understood is that the intellectual property of the content is the users’, not reddit’s, but I asked on r/legaladvices for security (there is no equivalent community on lemmy yet)

          • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
            4·
            2 years ago

            Yeah database protection is even for stuff that you don’t own. You have then spent effort to compile the database. Which in this case is the collection of people’s posts. But maybe asks lawyer if that applies in this case.

      • seirim
        4·
        2 years ago

        Given their recent posture and actions, I would think yes it could be an issue for you, for sure. You’d want to check their terms of service as it may violate them. If you’re doing this for fun, add a step in the middle and get ChatGPT to rephrase every post to obfuscate their source :-)

  • usernotfound
    4·
    2 years ago

    Ha! I have been working on the same thing this weekend, except it uses the rss feed for posts and scrapes old.reddit.com for the details. It’s written in python, but not quite finished - scraping works, automation not yet.

    My plan was to have a separate Lemmy instance for this, where people can also request for new subs to be included. This would reduce the spam in bigger communities, and allow instances to block it all together if they wanted to.

    Beside that, I’d pre- or postfix each post with a message it’s a copy and a link to the original for copyright reasons. Moderation would be a separate story - Not particularly looking forward to that. Could make it so that if a post were flagged, it would re-aync with the original. Let reddit do the moderation :D

    • Ben
      1·
      2 years ago

      Waiting for this - though I think any ‘mirror’ community recreated from Reddit should just get the reddit feed anyway… it’ll be a while before parity, followed by superiority…

  • awdsns@feddit.de
    4·
    2 years ago

    I was thinking of something like that too, but probably never would’ve gotten around to implement it myself, so thanks! Could you put your script on Github or something maybe?

    Also it would be great if it could copy at least top-level comments by OP, because that’s often used for linking to a source.

    • tubbadu@lemmy.oneOP
      4·
      2 years ago

      Yes I’ll upload the code very soon!

      Also it would be great if it could copy at least top-level comments by OP, because that’s often used for linking to a source.

      Great idea! Thanks!

  • Die4Ever@programming.dev
    3·
    2 years ago

    maybe you should open source the bot?

    it could also have filtering rules like only import posts with a minimum score or only the front page of the sub, could be configurable for each subreddit separately

  • Noved@lemmy.ca
    3·
    2 years ago

    I thought about this yesterday but definitely don’t have the skills to make it happen. Tbh I would go ahead with it, but know you will be required to moderate the posts. I wouldn’t set it up to post on a community that isn’t yours.

    • tubbadu@lemmy.oneOP
      3·
      2 years ago

      No of course I would create a specific community for each subreddit I want to sync

      Are you referring to moderating the comments? I was thinking of restricting the post privileges to only the bot

      • Noved@lemmy.ca
        2·
        2 years ago

        Naw just the posts, I guess it depends on if the Bot is scraping all posts or just the top ones.

  • wiki_me
    2·
    2 years ago

    IANAL but i am pretty sure it is illlegal, copyrights prevents copying and iirc reddit users retain copyrights to what they write and you don’t have their approval (in the form of a Term of service) to copy it.

    Maybe you could automate that approval (e.g. users could have a pinned post on their profit with a copied message).

    There are some non profits for open source that might have full time lawyers , maybe you can contact them.

  • Die4Ever@programming.dev
    1·
    2 years ago

    for some reason I still can’t find this community from my instance, neither searching method works, and I waited hours and tried again and still nothing

    https://programming.dev/search/q/https%3A%2F%2Fenterprise.lemmy.ml%2Fc%2Freddit_memes/type/All/sort/TopAll/listing_type/All/community_id/0/creator_id/0/page/1

    https://programming.dev/search/q/!reddit_memes%40enterprise.lemmy.ml/type/All/sort/TopAll/listing_type/All/community_id/0/creator_id/0/page/1

    I made a post about it here so maybe it can be debugged https://programming.dev/post/14560