I think the title says it all. Basically, when a new comment appears on your targeted post, it sends you a PM about it.

@PostWatchBot@lemy.lol

Usage

  • Subscribe to a post: just mention the bot in the comments or send the link to the bot via PM.
  • Unsubscribe from a post: send PM to the bot with stop text and link of the post like stop https://lemmy.ml/post/1234
  • Unsubscribe completely: Send PM to the bot and add stop text to your message. It will unsubscribe you from all subscriptions.

Note: the bot sends only one notification per post. It waits for the previous notification to be marked as read for new comments.

Made with @CannotSleep420@hexbear.net’s lemmy-bot project 🙏 Tomorrow I will publish the code publicly after adding README and self-hosting guide.

    • Nix@merv.newsEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Thanks! Its super convenient! Is it just me or does clicking the link it provides opens the thread but not the comment itself? Would be convenient since im guessing replies to comments dont cause a notification?

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Given the backlash against everyone who tries to make a reddit-lemmy mirroring bot then hopefully you’ve saved yourself a headache in the future!

    • Nix@merv.newsEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Is it possible to subscribe to a comment thread as well? So if anyone replies to your comment I get a notification?

      • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Yes it is possible and I want to implement it soon, but I can’t give a date. I’m thinking of making it so that when the bot is mentioned in a reply to a comment, make it notify comments only on that comment chain.

  • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
    9·
    11 months ago

    So every user that decides to get notified will add a comment to the thread?

    If 100 people trigger it, 100 comments will be the exact same response?

    Also, if people end up “deleting the comment to keep the thread clean”, will they get purged as well?

    • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      Valid criticism. I’ll try to clear it tomorrow 👍 Any suggestions are appreciated.

    • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      I don’t know about the options you’ve said but I agree this should be a built-in feature. But it’s not.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    How does it subscribe when lemmy doesn’t have subscribing or notification apps? Does it just poll the server? (As a server owner the amount of traffic there worries me, and that could cost me depending on implementation)

    If it’s polling, how do you know to stop polling? Will it just poll a post forever?

    • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      Its polling every 30th second only on my instance. So don’t worry, it will not make any difference for you ✌️

      • kopper [they/them]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        in theory as you operate both the server and the bot you could modify lemmy to tell the bot when a new comment hits a thread instead of polling, which would be more efficient (but definitely harder to do!)

        also does it handle the case where nobody from your instance is following a community? to make sure you get all the replies reliably the bot would need to subscribe to each community it’s watching a post from

        that said, great work. I may end up using it if I don’t end up forgetting about its existence :p

        • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          I’m using a library named lemmy-bot. To achieve what you say, I need to modify both library and lemmy server. As you can guess, I can’t afford time for these 🙂

          I think it’s not using much resources anyways. 2 requests per minute is nothing compared to hundreds of ActivityPub requests per second.

          I didn’t tested non-followed community, but the bot works with mention event instead of comment. But still not sure, I’ll test this one 🙏

          • kopper [they/them]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            I didn’t tested non-followed community, but the bot works with mention event instead of comment. But still not sure, I’ll test this one 🙏

            oh, I meant for the actual post watching part, summoning via mention should work without any subscription

            • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              I think to get mentioned comment, it needs to get parent post too. As I said, I need to test it. I can only assume right now.

  • donio@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    Subscribe to a post: just mention the bot in the comments.

    Not a huge fan of the noise this adds to the threads. Would be nice if Lemmy frontends could provide better ways to interact with bots. For example custom buttons that would PM the bot with the appropriate message to trigger the action.

    • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      This feature must be implemented by built-in in the first place. But your idea makes sense too. I’ll try to discuss this with UI devs.

      • Cynber@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        I might be able to set something up with the InstanceAssistant browser extension. It would be nice to have it in the main UI, but this could help temporarily.

        I’ll send a PM :)

      • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        I’d second the worry about the bot comments and bot-summoning comments becoming noise, I remember all the “remind me” comments on reddit clogging up comment feeds!

        • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          I’m moving bot messages to PMs right now. So there will be no bot message.

          • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            That’s good, though I’d imagine people would still rather not read 100 bot-summoning comments on a popular thread. Any way to activate the bot via PM too? Or maybe by sharing somehow?

            • iso@lemy.lolOPEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              I don’t think those would work TBH. Activation can be done by PM, but I don’t think anyone would want to do that.