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originally posted in:BungieNetPlatform
6/28/2014 7:23:15 AM
12
Thoughts on auto-posting external news to the forum
For the past month or so I've had a bot posting a topic containing the most popular (most viewed) [url=https://www.freebase.com/m/0h3mtz0]Destiny-related[/url] videos from "now" to "yesterday at midnight" each day. Apart from some edge cases where other gaming videos which have "destiny" in the title of the video (which seems to be a Freebase issue, really) and some less-than-desirable results (keygen scams, for instance) that are filtered pretty easily, the whole thing seems to have worked pretty well.
On the bungie.net side of things, the topics don't get that many posts, but I'd like to think that it's paying off because people are reading them and/or following the video links off to YouTube and getting something out of it. I do wonder if the low-perceived activity/usefulness is because of how the topics are presented in terms of the title I've given them, account mutes (which may be quite high due to previous use), and/or just because of the name of the account. Naming it something like "Destiny News Bot" might get a bit more attention.
At this point I think it would be great to start branching out a bit on what's possible, especially in terms of external news content. I did experiment with that a little when using Twitter's API and checking Bungie's feed, but because of how condensed the material is, it can be tough to justify reposting it as news in #destiny to let others know about it. At least, that was my impression. I didn't consider using @destinythegame at the time, though.
One alternative I was interested in looking at is actual [i]news[/i] that's posted on gaming websites like IGN, kotaku, etc... which will have a really high tendency to post about Destiny, but which also have a readership that thinks "IGN posted about Destiny, I'd better read it". That, in my opinion, is justification enough to want to inject it into the hub of users in #destiny as its own self-contained topic (eg. IGN: "DESTINY'S ACHIEVEMENTS AND TROPHIES REVEALED") and to do so as quickly as possible - new news is good news!
At the moment I'm looking into using feedly's API to be able to do that, but getting the topics might be somewhat involved to the point where I'd need to whitelist sources in [i]an[/i] account category and use the right service to just look at the feed from that [the category]. While that might be great from a "at least it won't include irrelevant stuff" point of view, it also possibly excludes any upcoming blogs or sites that post legitimate news which [i]should[/i] be circulated.
Just have to see what happens.
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Do it
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Nice.
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It would be interesting to see the direction you take this. Good luck!
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5 RepliesI now have this running. For now you can check its posts by looking through [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Topics?tg=%23bot7]#bot7[/url] or [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Topics?tg=%23DestinyNews]#DestinyNews[/url]. It runs every 15 minutes and checks a variety of different news sources for the latest Destiny-related news then posts a topic about it. The code is somewhat easy to break (pipes, WCF, etc...) at the moment so it could go up and down while I'm adjusting things. Feedback is much appreciated.
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1 ReplyI've never been a big fan on bots posting in the forums. From what I've seen, they're usually more spam and less topics of interest. If you can get them to work effectively, then more power to you! In general I just feel that if the news is out there, people will see it and spread it around. That's not always the case though, so there could be a call for this type of thing. I'm impressed at the effort put in Daz, and the fact that you've actually had it going for a while. If it helps inform more people about destiny and brings some interesting stuff to my attention, I'm all for it. Unfortunately I have no skills in this stuff whatsoever, so all I have to offer is my opinion.
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good idea - but most of the time the fans themselves will post news on here. if the fans arnt interested in seeking it out or poating it for others to share...whats the point of the community? but all the same not everyone see's the same posts and might miss out on valuable stuff if they can't come on often.
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I like the idea of it. If you can get it to work right than it wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
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I don't like it. Often, when one gaming news site posts an article... All the others will quickly read and rehash that same article, if they didn't have one of their own in the works already. I think this would lead to even more news article spam on the forums than we already have. A prime example is this recent "Bungie confirms 20 level cap" fiasco.
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1 ReplyEdited by Hatima BNG 117: 6/28/2014 4:40:13 PMI'm kind of 50/50 with this but whereas the technical side is intriging to me. I'm sure there are security measures in place but I could see users taking advantage of bots. For me, it's kind of iffy using/interjecting automated messages to produce more responses. Just my opinion though.
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2 RepliesEdited by Rothnihalias: 6/28/2014 4:25:09 PMYou've had a bot posting for you... Is this some kind of scandal? #Dazagate Anyway I usually enjoy the additional information and stuff that you Ninjas post. The only thing I'm not so sure about you doing is posting IGN news. I'm just about on the fence if I want to ignore 98% of what they say. The Battlefield Hardline review is going to settle that question for me.
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1 ReplyI believe this is a cool idea and would suggest a couple of things. First, I would make a group specifically for the bot so that everything it posts will be in there. I would also add the #Destiny to increase views. Bungie doesn't always tweet about news and when they do tweet it's normally short so I wouldn't consider that as a good target. Overall it's a great idea and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do.
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Edited by MickizM: 6/28/2014 9:14:53 AMI think all in all its working well and as intended. Adding an extra #destiny or #gaming tag would definitely help increase post activity though, as it stands I think its only getting viewed by #alltopics or #bot7 users. Impressive work mate.
