Last time I said that there wouldn't be anymore update post for @checky since I didn't know what more could be done. However, a few good suggestions on my last post ended up keeping me busy with this bot for two more weeks. The mention checking aspect of @checky has barely changed as you will see in this post, this update is more focused on @checky's comments and on its voting power. In the last post, I mentioned that I wanted to change the way deleted characters are displayed. However, after testing a few ways to display those, including the ways talked about previously, I decided to stick with not displaying deleted characters at all since all the ways tested were more confusing than anything. Anyway, you may be wondering why a bot that checks mentions has "upvotes" in its title so let's get right into that topic !
Upvoting corrected mentions
The problem with Resource Credits in their current state is that it isn't yet possible to delegate them directly to an account except by delegating Steem Power. This essentially means that I had no other choice than to delegate 500SP to @checky for it to not be limited by its Resource Credits. However, that also meant that those 500SP weren't used to vote posts and therefore were a waste of Steem Power (at least that's how I see it). In order to fix that problem, I decided to follow the suggestion of @mineopoly and start upvoting posts that got their mentions corrected at most one day after @checky's comment. A random aspect has been added to the upvotes to prevent users from gaming the system. Posts are rechecked one day after @checky's comment and added to a list of upvote candidates if they don't contain wrong mentions anymore. Every 2 hours and 40 minutes, a candidate is picked at random in the candidates list and upvoted by @checky. Once the upvote is confirmed to have been broadcasted, all the candidates for that upvote are removed from the list. An additional entry to the list is given to authors that upvoted @checky's comment on their post (as long as they also corrected their post) to thank them for financially supporting @checky. Following that logic, authors flagging @checky's comments will not be added to the upvote candidates no matter what. Since @checky relies on @fullnodeupdate's service to get a list of working nodes, one of its daily upvotes is used on @fullnodeupdate's daily post, hence why it upvotes 9 candidates a day instead of 10. (pull request)
Deleting and editing comments
Some of you may have already realized but @checky started deleting its comments about a week ago, this was already talked about in the last update post but at that time I had no clue how I was going to make @checky delete its comments. I ended up opting for automating the comment deletion without requiring any input from authors. Just like for upvotes, posts are rechecked one day after @checky's comment. If the mentions in the post have been corrected, @checky will try to delete its comment. As you may already know, comments can't be deleted if they have any reply or vote attached to them. For this reason, comments that can't be deleted get changed to a message thanking the authors for their quick reaction to @checky's comment. If the mentions haven't been corrected after one day, @checky will leave its comment for 5 more days before deleting it no matter what (as long as it can be deleted). (pull request)
Changing the mention checker case sensitivity
On the last post, a comment from @richatvns showed me why making the bot case sensitive for everyone without users being able to change its sensitivity was not a good idea. Thanks to this feedback, I decided to re-introduce case insensitivity but to make it optional by adding a command to the bot. This command is
!case [sensitive-insensitive], sensitive being the default behavior (only lowercase mentions) and insensitive being the old behavior (mixed case mentions). Be aware however that the whole reason I decided to make the bot case sensitive in the last update was because it mostly had usernames from other social networks in the supposedly wrong mentions it found (despite all the checks that are in place to prevent that as much as possible from happening). (pull request)Improved suggestions
While they haven't improved that much, suggestions should now be a bit preciser than before thanks to a few changes. The bot now checks if any of its generated usernames happens to be the username of someone following you or being followed by you. Talking about users that are in your follow circle is a regular thing on Steem and it's pretty common to make typos in such posts. The other change is more of a fix than anything. Before, the first generated username found in the author's mentions would be suggested to the author. I only realized how dumb this was a few days ago when it suggested to someone to replace @andarchy by @anarchy instead of @andrarchy. Now, the most occurrent generated username found in the author's mentions is suggested. The same goes for the suggestions found in the author's followers and followees. (pull request - commit 1 - commit 2 - commit 3)
Automatically powering up rewards
In order to avoid doing it manually, I decided to automate the whole process of turning @checky's author and curation rewards into Steem Power. Every 3 hours, the bot now claims its rewards and powers its Steem balance up. Then it either converts its SBD balance to Steem or attempts to buy Steem from the market (the order is cancelled after 10 minutes) depending on which option is the most profitable. Choosing between converting and using the market barely saves anything nowadays but it definitely will if the SBD price ever goes crazy again. (pull request)
Other changes
- Made the post rechecker and the upvoter's states crash-safe. (pull request)
- Created a steemer module for all interactions with Steem. (commit)
- Made use of the async/await syntax in the code. (commit)
- Fixed the bot not checking mentions in its replies made by advanced users. (commit)
- Added Smoke.io to the social networks regular expression.
What's coming next ?
Nothing, at least as far as update posts go this one was definitely the last. I just feel like there now is truly nothing left to do to improve @checky. I will obviously still make updates to @checky's code if bugs need to be fixed but that's pretty much it. @Checky just got to a reputation of 48 a few hours ago and while I'm aware that reputation doesn't mean much anymore it still shows that this bot is liked by most of this community. So once again, thank you all for the support you give @checky everyday. The profile picture contest I promised in the next post will happen as soon as @checky gets to a reputation of 50, hopefully it won't take too long. Well, that's it ! Time to stop looking at @checky's activity every hour and start working on a bigger project !
Contributions
If you want to contribute to this project or talk about an issue it has, feel free to visit its GitHub page. You can also clone it and follow the instructions written there to get it running (although not recommended since @checky already runs the script). My social medias are listed at the end of the README file. If you add me on Steam, tell me the reason why on my wall, otherwise I won't accept your friend request.
Thanks for the contribution, @ragepeanut! There's some really great updates in there! I really think the way you handle the upvoting and deleting of posts and comments respectively is very clever.
I've always thought @checky was a great, non-intrusive bot (and as you said with a reputation of 48 others probably think the same), and these updates just make it even better. It's unfortunate this means there won't be any more updates to @checky, but I guess it is also some kind of testament to how amazing it already is. Keep up the great work!
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Thank you for such a quick review (and for fixing my problem) ! And thanks for the compliments, it means a lot and is really encouraging !
I'm glad you find it non-intrusive, that's been one of my biggest goals since I started working on this bot. As I stated in a comment on my previous post, I don't want authors to look at @checky's comments as "another bot comment". Deleting comments was the last big step for @checky to become as non-intrusive as possible and now that it has been implemented, there is nothing more I can think of that would make it less intrusive. Well, turning it into an opt-in bot would truly make it non-intrusive but let's be honest here, hardly anybody would take the steps necessary to opt in. Hopefully Steem interfaces start integrating mention checkers soon, it should have been done a long time ago in my opinion.
Thanks a lot for such a positive feedback, keep up the great work too !
Thank you for your review, @amosbastian! Keep up the good work!
Hi
Thanks for creating this interesting application.
I have a question. Does the fall into the category of a “DAPP”?
I want to do an article on Blockchain based applications on Steemit versus DAPPS on etherium. Does Steem monsters qualify as a DAPP? How does it compare to Cryptokitties?
Thank you for your help.
Hi, sorry for the late reply, hopefully it's not too late.
Depending on who you ask, you will get a different answer to what a dapp is every time. My bot isn't a dapp since it saves its data (usernames, settings, state...) on the server it's hosted on and not on the blockchain. I don't know anything about Cryptokitties, I just know it by name and frankly find its concept quite stupid. The same concept but centralized would have been a big flop, in my opinion it just got popular for the fact that it was decentralized. Contrary to Cryptokitties, I like what Steem Monsters is doing (and not only because it's on this blockchain), it has the potential to be big. Steem Monsters is in my opinion a dapp, if the website shuts down one day, your cards will still exist since they are saved on the blockchain and someone will probably make another website so you can keep playing Steem Monsters using those cards. I'm sure that same concept applies to Cryptokitties. However, are those apps fully decentralized ? That's a question that I don't have the answer to.
You were probably expecting me to say the differences in terms of decentralization between those two apps but as I said, I only know Cryptokitties by name. Hopefully you still find something useful in this reply !
Hi
Thank you for the information, that is very helpful.
Hey @ragepeanut !
We love your bot and think it could bring even more value to the Steem Blockchain!
In the german part of our community we're at the moment thinking much of how to help the steem beam.
And your bot - a bit customized - could really help. Especially new steemians!
We are thinking of another checky who comments under introduction and help posts, with an interactive list of important and helpful links. (pretty similar to your !help command.)
We would be pleased about some feedback :)
Yours sincerely
@luegenbaron @afrog @remotehorst23
Posted using Partiko Android
Hey @luegenbaron !
I would be more than happy to help you guys with that project of yours. Just so we are clear, it would be some kind of welcome bot, right ? That shouldn't be hard to do, and I could add a way for you guys to update the list of links via commands (removing, adding, changing the description, etc...) so you don't have to ask me everytime you want to change the list, basically moderator commands.
You can contact me on Discord (RagePeanut#8078), I'm online most days from 8pm to 2am (UTC+1).
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 4 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 15 SBD worth and should receive 220 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePigThis post has been just added as new item to timeline of Checky on Steem Projects.
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Hi @ragepeanut!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.655 which ranks you at #5353 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 9 places in the last three days (old rank 5362).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 236 contributions, your post is ranked at #208.
Evaluation of your UA score:
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