otl

My replies via Mastodon to Lemmy posts don't get distributed as expected. For example:

• Original post: https://lemmy.ml/post/11552444
• A reply via Lemmy: https://ttrpg.network/comment/4965852
• My reply to that: https://hachyderm.io/@otl/111887721960075860

It seems my reply only shows in these Lemmy servers:

• lemmy.ml (the server of the group to which the post was made)
• lemmy.world (the server of the post's author)
• ttrpg.network (the server of the comment's author)

From some other lemmy servers, my comment is not present:

• lemmy.sdf.org: https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/8124910
• lemmy.one: https://lemmy.one/comment/6912806
• aussie.zone: https://aussie.zone/comment/6414209

I expected that my reply would show on any other Lemmy server with subscriptions to [email protected]. Does that make sense? I'm hoping to help troubleshoot federation like this as I'm super excited about ActivityPub and what it means for the internet! :)

I recently wrote a command-line utility lemmyverse to find communities indexed by Lemmy Explorer. A quick count shows almost 14%(!) of all communities indexed by lemmyverse are junk communities created by a single user @LMAO (reported here):

% lemmyverse . | wc -l
  30376
% lemmyverse enoweiooe | wc -l
   4206

Here's a python script, using no external dependencies, which uses Lemmy's HTTP API to delete all communities that @LMAO moderates:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import json
import urllib.parse
import urllib.request

baseurl = "https://lemmy.world"
username = "admin"
password = "password"

def login(user, passwd):
	url = baseurl+"/api/v3/user/login"
	body = urllib.parse.urlencode({
		"username_or_email": user,
		"password": passwd,
	})
	resp = urllib.request.urlopen(url, body.encode())
	j = json.load(resp)
	return j["jwt"]

def get_user(name):
	query = urllib.parse.urlencode({"username": name})
	resp = urllib.request.urlopen(baseurl+"/api/v3/user?"+query)
	return json.load(resp)

def delete_community(token, id):
	url = baseurl+"/api/v3/community/delete"
	params = {
		"auth": token,
		"community_id": id,
	}
	body = urllib.parse.urlencode(params)
	urllib.request.urlopen(url, body.encode())

token = login(username, password)
user = get_user("LMAO")
for community in user["moderates"]:
	id = community["community"]["id"]
	try:
		delete_community(token, id)
	except Exception as err:
		print("delete community id %d: %s" % (id, err))

Change username and password on lines 8 and 9 to suit.

Hope that helps! :) Thanks for the work you all put in to running this popular instance.

lemmyverse: search lemmy communities from the command-line. Thanks to the data HTTP API from lemmyverse.net! This is not really as polished as I like but, hey, in the interest of having a lively Lemmy I thought I'd share anyway :)

Usage

lemmyverse searches community names and descriptions using a regular expression:

lemmyverse pattern

Find communities about motorcycles:

$ lemmyverse motorcycle
[email protected]      All Things motorcycles
[email protected]   All Things motorcycles
[email protected]     All Things motorcycles
[email protected] Community for BMW motorcycles. A place to share
[email protected]       A community to discuss all things BMW cars & motorcycles.\nFeel free to show off your new vehicle/parts
[email protected]       A discussion area for Buell motorcycles.
[email protected]        A community for pictures and videos of people using motorcycles to transport things in a creative manner.\n\nThis includes
[email protected]   This community is for all things motorcycle related. At a later point and with enough traction gained
...

Find communities for the Plan 9 operating system:

$ lemmyverse '(plan9)|(Plan 9)'
[email protected]     Discussions on the Plan9 operating system.

Why?

I run relatively slow hardware and I'm travelling in Bali, Indonesia at the moment. Loading lemmyverse.net in a web browser takes ages and gets the laptop fans spinning (it's hot here!). So I had some fun creating a tiny command-line program to find Lemmy communities using classic UNIX tools awk(1), tr(1), grep(1) etc.

More info

See the man page:

LEMMYVERSE(1)               General Commands Manual              LEMMYVERSE(1)

NAME
     lemmyverse - find lemmy communities

SYNOPSIS
     lemmyverse pattern

DESCRIPTION
     lemmyverse finds Lemmy communities indexed by lemmyverse.net using the
     given regular expression as interpreted by grep(1).  Both the names and
     descriptions of the communities are searched.

     On first run, a local community database must be generated.  The full
     community index is downloaded from https://lemmyverse.net using curl(1),
     transformed, then stored in the user cache directory.  To regenerate the
     database, remove the file and run lemmyverse again.

FILES
     communities
             Community database from lemmyverse.net.

ENVIRONMENT
     lemmyverse uses the following environment variables:

     XDG_CACHE_DIR
             The directory to store the community database.  If unset,
             $HOME/.cache/lemmyverse is used.

EXAMPLES
     Find communities for the Plan 9 operating system:
           lemmyverse '(plan9)|(Plan 9)'

     List all communities from the instance lemmy.sdf.org:
           lemmyverse '@lemmy.sdf.org'

EXIT STATUS
     The lemmyverse utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     grep(1), curl(1), https://lemmyverse.net