What to do about ZodiacFacts and #zf on Twitter?
The Twitter hashtag #zf has been used by the Zend Framework for several years now. The Twitter user @ZodiacFacts began using it some time ago, polluting the #zf stream with all that medieval nonsense. Zend Framework Project Lead Matthew Weier O’Phinney tweeted a reply to @ZodiacFacts politely requesting that he/she refrain from using the hashtag and @ZodiacFacts seems to have politely complied.
So, what’s the problem?
As of this writing, @ZodiacFacts has over 170,000 followers - a lamentable indictment on the state of human rationality. It is no surprise that some of them continue to retweet into the #zf stream.
There are not many of them, only a few each day. So, it’s only a minor annoyance. Still, life is filled with enough of minor annoyances that it’s desirable to remove/minimize them when we can.
The solution, perhaps
A Twitter Bot could be built that polls Twitter for tweets containing both @ZodiacFacts and #zf and then sends a politely worded reply to the Twitter user requesting that he refrain from using the #zf hashtag.
I have actually built a class on which such a bot can be based. And I have registered the Twitter account @zfisforzend to function as the sender.
But since the #zf hashtag should rightly be regarded as a community resource, I don’t really feel that it is my place to deploy the solution on my own. The “community” or even Zend HQ should make the decision about whether to deploy, the phrasing of the message, etc. After all, both of these things affect the public face of the project. Hey, it might even inflame the legions of @ZodiacFact fans to spam the #zf stream, just out of pique.
So, I am posting my current code so that if one of the project leaders wishes to use it - or to develop their own, which would no doubt be better than mine - then they can do so with little effort. I’d be happy to pass off the ownership of the @zfisforzend Twitter account to whatever community member wants to use it for this purpose.
/**
* Access Twitter API, do twitter search, then reply
*
* @author David Weinraub ( david@papayasoft.com )
*/
class PS_TwitterSearchAndReplyBot
{
/**
* @var Zend_Service_Twitter
*/
protected $_twitter = null;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_reply = null;
/**
* Path to the file containing the id of the tweet to which we have replied
*
* @var string
*/
protected $_sincePath = null;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_userAgent = 'PapayaSoft-SearchAndReplyBot/1.0';
/**
* Constructor
*
* @param string $username Twitter username for the acct sending replies
* @param string $password Twitter password for the acct sending replies
* @param string $query the query we use to find tweets.
* @param string $reply the text of the reply we wish to send
* @param string $sincePath path to the file where we save the last replied tweet
*/
public function __construct($username, $password, $query, $reply, $sincePath)
{
if ('' == $username){
throw new Exception('User is required');
}
if ('' == $password){
throw new Exception('Password is required');
}
$this->_twitter = new Zend_Service_Twitter($username, $password);
$this->_twitter->getHttpClient()->setHeaders('useragent', $this->_userAgent);
if ('' == $query){
throw new Exception('Query is required');
}
$this->_query = $query;
if ('' == $reply){
throw new Exception('Reply is required');
}
$this->_reply = $reply;
$this->_sincePath = $sincePath;
}
/**
* Get the matching tweets
*
* @return array the matching tweets
*/
public function getTweets()
{
$service = new Zend_Service_Twitter_Search();
$service->getHttpClient()->setHeaders('useragent', $this->_userAgent);
if (null == $sinceId){
$sinceId = (int) $this->readSince();
}
$params = array(
'since_id' => $sinceId,
);
return $service->search($this->_query, $params);
}
/**
* Send the reply to a matching tweet
*
* @param array $tweet
* @return void
*/
public function sendReply($tweet)
{
$target = $tweet['from_user'];
$reply = '@' . $target . ' ' . $this->_reply;
$result = $this->_twitter->statusUpdate($reply, $tweet['id']);
if ($result->isSuccess()){
$this->writeSince($tweet['id']);
return true;
} else {
throw new Exception('Failure posting status reply to target');
}
}
/**
* Save the id of the last tweet to which we have replied
*
* @param int $sinceId
* @return
*/
public function writeSince($sinceId)
{
@$fp = fopen($this->_sincePath, 'w');
if (!$fp){
throw new Exception('Unable to open since-file for writing');
}
fwrite($fp, $sinceId);
fclose($fp);
return $this;
}
/**
* Get the twitter id of the last tweet to which we have replied
*
* @return int
*/
public function readSince()
{
return file_get_contents($this->_sincePath);
}
/**
* Entry point. Do it all.
*/
protected function run()
{
$tweets = $this->getTweets();
foreach ($tweets as $tweet){
$this->sendReply($tweet['from_user'], $tweet['id']);
}
}
}
Usage would be something along the following:
$bot = new PS_TwitterSearchAndReplyBot(
'zfisforzend',
'thepassword',
'#zf AND @ZodiacFacts',
'The ZF hashtag has been used by http://bit.ly/dlRih0 for 2+ years. Please do not use it for ZodiacFacts. Thanks! ;-)',
dirname(__FILE__) .'/data/since.dat'
);
$bot->run();
Then set up a cron job to run this script with some polling frequency.
Note that the message we send should not contain either of the terms “#zf” or “Zend” directly. After all, those are search terms we all use in our Twitter clients. The last thing we want is for all these bot-generated replies to further pollute the targeted hashtag stream.
As you can see, it is general enough to serve as the base for other Twitter Reply bots. I confess that the code is only partially tested, but I think it conveys the idea.
So, whaddya think?
