As described in an earlier post about problems with the bot, the ICYMI (ADN) bot has not been seeing a fairly large set of possible inputs for some time, has worked only as an aggregator of a (small) fixed set of accounts, and not worked with the wider range of possibly-relevant toots to amplify those as well. This is what I’m going to do to fix things.
Solution
We’re going to move instances, moving the account from @icymi_adn@botsin.space to @icymi_adn@c.im.
Steps
The new account has already been created and I’ve confirmed that it seems to do a better job of seeing a broader range of input toots.
I have replicated the code for the bot and run it manually on the new account.
I am going to turn off the bots as they are run on the old account.
I am going to replicate the set of followed accounts from the old account to the new account – for a while, if you are currently followed by @icymi_adn@botsin.space, you will soon also be followed by @icymi_adn@c.im.
I am going to run the bot code manually on the new account with the broadened inputs (all the other accounts it would be following).
If this works out, I’ll then automate that process.1 I may reduce the frequency of the bot’s tooting.
Once that’s done and seems to be working, I will try to do the the Mastodon account transfer. This should automagically transfer followers from the old account to the new, but some may be left behind.
The old @icymi_adn@botsin.space account will, as I understand it, remain static and archived – it won’t be able to post any more.
Something’s weird
If you have any interaction with the bot, it may be a bit odd for a week or two.
You may be followed by the account from two instances. This is normal.
You may be reblogged or boosted by the account from two instances. This is normal.
You may be reblogged by one instance’s account but not the other. This is also normal.
You may choose to follow both accounts for a while. That’s up to you.
I will make posts about transitions before doing the Mastodon account transfer, including when I turn off the bot on one account and as I slowly start up and then automate it on the other.
If you have questions, please ping me on @rmartinnielsen@mastodon.social. You may be seeing something which isn’t apparent to me, and you may have suggestions on how to make this bot more interesting and useful.
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Mechanically, this involves editing
plistfiles which telllaunchdwhat to do to refer to bot code in a different directory than where it currently works on. And then successfully invokinglaunchctlto get it to reload the new versions. My apologies if you didn’t need to know that. ↩