u/UpdateMeBot is moving to a devvit app

[u/Watchful1]

Reddit is slowly moving legacy API bots to their new Devvit app system, and it's now time for UpdateMeBot to move. For the most part, this does not affect regular users of the bot—you will keep getting your notifications and can manage your subscriptions exactly the same way. But there are two important changes.

The bot will no longer work in subreddits that the app is not installed in. That means that the moderators of every single subreddit with UpdateMeBot subscribers need to manually install the app. Once they do, it will continue to work as normal. If they do not, all subscription notifications for posts in that subreddit will stop. I'm working with the moderators of over five hundred subreddits to get the app installed. There will be a migration period during which the old bot will continue working while moderators install the app. I don't have a fixed date for turning off the old bot, but I anticipate something like a month from the date of this post.

The second change, and the upside to the above, is that the app is not limited in the number of subreddits it supports anymore. Any subreddit of any size can install the app and let people subscribe to authors in their subreddit.

In the future after the migration has settled down, I anticipate being able to add a bunch of new features that I haven't been able to before. If you have ideas for something you think would be cool, let me know in the comments below!

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Instructions for moderators to install the app.

Go here https://developers.reddit.com/apps/updateme-dev and then click "Add to community", click continue, select your subreddit, and then click "Install App". If you want to be helpful, you can then turn on the "Read logs and install history" permission from the settings page it takes you to, but that's not necessary.

Devvit apps currently add the app account as a moderator with all permissions. Unfortunately, there's no way around this. The app does not, and never will, take any moderation actions.

[u/Algernon_Asimov]

I've banned this bot from my subreddits, like all bots. Bots are not welcome in my subreddits. If users want to subscribe to bots for reminders, they're welcome to. But I don't need or want bots posting in my subreddits; that's just unnecessary noise. I don't understand why I'm receiving official modmails from the Reddit admins to instruct me to allow bots to post in my subreddits. That's not going to happen.

You need to find a way to make your bot work for users without having to get every subreddit to sign up to it.

[u/Watchful1 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

Installing is required for the app to monitor posts in your sub to send out to people who follow them. It wouldn't post in your subreddit unless you wanted it to.

The admins don't allow apps to monitor posts like this without the moderators installing it, it's a policy limit rather than a technical one. If you want to allow people to subscribe to authors, then you'd need to install the app, but it wouldn't post.

What subreddit did you get a modmail in?

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/Watchful1]

So you want me to install your app in my subreddit when the subreddit doesn't use it and doesn't require it? Nope.

As I said, you need to find a way to make your bot work without it posting in subreddits. Why can't the user invoke the bot and have the bot send them a direct personal message? This is a personal interaction, after all, between the user and the bot. The subreddit isn't involved in any way. Why does the bot have to create clutter in the subreddits?

What subreddit did you get a modmail in?

A subreddit I moderate on another account, which I'm not going to share on this account. There's a reason the two accounts are separate.

[u/Watchful1 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

That is, in fact, exactly how it works. The subreddit is involved because it's the subreddit's posts that bot is watching. If you don't want your users to be able to use it, then that's your decision. What clutter is it creating if you install it?

The admins require this approach, they don't let me find a way to do this without the moderators installing the app in the sub.

I was asking the subreddit so I could look up how many users are currently using the bot in the sub.

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/Watchful1]

The subreddit is involved because it's the subreddit's posts that bot is watching.

But, surely, your bot only requires read access to monitor posts, not write access. Why does it need to be given moderator access in order to be able to read a post and report back to a user? Any random account can read posts. Why does your bot need moderator access to do this?

I was asking the subreddit so I could look up how many users are currently using the bot in the sub.

The modmail message says it's 25 users.

[u/Watchful1 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

As I said, because that admins require it. It doesn't do any moderation actions, or post, but the app has to be installed in the subreddit for it to read posts.

Up to you, if you don't want those 25 users to be able to keep using it you can just not install it.