ICYMI (ADN) (In Case You Missed It (Arms Control, Disarmament, Non(-)proliferation1) is a Mastodon bot which tries to identify and amplify interesting toots about arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.
The bot is inspired by ICYMI (law) by David Colarusso, but based on mastodon digest code by Matt Hodges.
Current working
The bot is based on the botsin.space instance. This seemed like a logical place to put it (labelling it very clearly as a bot) but doesn’t work so well for having a fully-developed feed to draw from.
The bot follows several accounts of people who write, speak or toot regularly about ADN issues, as well as several ADN-related hashtags. Unlike it’s older cousin, there is no single ADN-focussed instance and there is not yet a vibrant ADN community of discussion.
As a derivative of the mastodon digest code, the bot looks at its home feed (toots from folks it follows, their bosts, and toots with matching hashtags), applies some filters (to remove those who mark themselves as #nobot or #noindex in their bios), and chooses several to boost. Where the Mastodon digest code creates a formatted HTML page, the bot just boosts the identified toots.
Timetable
This bot is a lot less automatic than it probably should be.
When I start running this more regularly, I will probably try to run the bot once in my morning (around 6 GMT), again in later afternoon (around 16 GMT) and maybe again in the evening (19 GMT).
I’m still working on the code and how it works, there will be “noise”, and I want to keep a fairly close eye on the bot for the first bit.
Adjusting the inputs
If you would like the bot to follow you (or suggest someone else), @ it. The process isn’t automatic.
If you would like the bot to not follow you, @ it. That process isn’t automatic either.
Editorial approach
This bot tries to focus on ADN – not all conflict-related boosts will fit in here. Boosting means “interesting, worth reading” not necessarily “my manager agrees”.
e.g., there are a divergence of views on TPNW – this algo won’t necessarily try to be even-handed, but won’t censor opinions. Consistent with server rules of many instances, disinformation will be blocked, and will be un-boosted (@ me if you have concerns).
Developer / Maintainer
I am Richard Martin-Nielsen. I am a Canadian diplomat who has in the past worked on ADN issues but they are not currently part of my regular work. This is a personal project.
Known issues
This could be a long list, but currently there are two main ones:
- There aren’t many accounts that I’ve identified to follow which would feed into the bot, so it currently functions a lot like just an aggregator or group. Solution: Please propose more, bring more friends to the Fediverse!
botsin.spaceas an instance isn’t over-populated by other bots with an ADN focus, so following hashtags doesn’t bring in much additional material. Solution: The bot might move to a different more generic instance (but possibly a geographic one) where there is a broader conversation and it is more likely to “overhear” and discover people talking about ADN issues.
Future development
I am pondering putting in code which would convert and boost items from a select few ADN-specific RSS feeds.
I may set it up so that the batches of boosts are echoed here as a daily or thrice-daily summary and archive.
Code
As a fork of the mastodon digest project, this bot’s code is available in a branch on github. Depending on how this develops, I may make a PR to suggest it be folded into the existing Mastodon Digest code.
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The bot takes no position on whether Non(-)proliferation requires a hyphen or not. ↩