tootgroup.py - emulate group accounts on Mastodon and Pleroma

What is this?

Some social media platforms allow groups of users to post into a unified "group"timeline/instance/whatever you want to call it. This is currently not possibleon Mastodon or Pleroma without giving all members full login credentials to agroup. tootgroup.py is an attempt to solve this specific use case.

How does it work?

tootgroup.py has to be set up on a computer and run periodically. It reads thenotifications from the Mastodon/Pleroma account it is connected to and filtersthem for messages to repost. There are two methods of creating a group post. Oneor both of them can be enabled during the setup procedure.

1. Public mentions of group members are boosted if they preceed the group'sname with an Exclamation Mark like "!@mastodon"

2. tootgroup.py can also look for direct messages from group members. If thegroup is @mentioned at the very beginning, The message will be reposted asa new public toot originating directly from the group account. The statustext as well as media files are included. The originating user will not beshown publicly. (It can still be seen by all group and instanceadministrators tough!)

If both repost methods are disabled, tootgroup.py will still run but not repostanything.

But how to simply use it?

1. Write a message that should be boosted by the group: Just include"!@group_name" anywhere in the toot.EXAMPLE: "OHAI! just found that !@mastodon thingie!"

2. Write a message that should appear as a new post from the group:Put "@group_name" at the very beginning of a direct/private message.EXAMPLE: "@mastodon HERE BE THE MESSAGE TEXT"

How to set up?

The easiest way to install tootgroup.py is via PyPI, the Python Package Index.Use pip3 install tootgroup.py to install it as well as all its dependencies.

It is also possible to download the script manually from the GitHub repository athttps://github.com/oe4dns/tootgroup.py In that case the necessary dependencieshave to be provided too:

tootgroup.py requires https://github.com/halcy/Mastodon.py as well ashttps://github.com/ActiveState/appdirs to run. Install them via youroperating system's package manager, pip or even manually.

tootgroup.py will guide you through setup by asking all information it needswhen you run it from the commandline for the first time. Being somewhatcomfortable with Python scripting and the commandline in general might helpif difficulties should appear.

1. You need an account on any Mastodon or Pleroma instance that will act asyour group account. Think about if you should mark it as a "Bot".

2. Run tootgroup.py from the command line.

3. tootgroup.py will ask you for all needed setup data and try to get themright by connecting to the Mastodon/Pleroma server. If it cannot do so, itwill tell you and you can retry. When successful, tootgroup.py will writethe configuration to its tootgroup.conf file and read it from there nexttime you run the script.

   The place for storing configuration is operating system dependent but will beshown during the first-run/setup phase. A local tootgroup.conf file placednext to the tootgroup.py script will override these settings though and canbe used for development or testing purposes.

4. If you want to set up tootgroup.py for more than one group, you can run itagain while specifying the "--group GROUP_HANDLE" flag. This will thengenerate an independent configuration that will be read each time you calltootgroup.py using this name. If you don't specify any group name, thehandle "default" is created and used automatically

5. Test the funcionality by sending direct messages and "!@mentions" to yourgroup while running tootgroup.py manually. See if things work as expected.The script will print an according message after each successful run.If everything works, run the script periodically via cron and enjoygroop-tooting!

   Here is an example for a crontab entry that runs tootgroup.py every two minutes:

   */2 * * * * /path/to/tootgroup.py --group default

6. There is also the "-d" or "--dry-run" commandline flag that prevents any toots.You can use it to test what would be posted by the script.

   Use "-h" or "--help" for more information about all available options