reddit-poster

Python script to schedule a post in reddit. It includes a simple heuristic to schedule the best time to post.

What to install

pip any of these bad boys if any is missing:

import praw
import sqlite3
from colorama import Fore, Back, Style

Praw config

I put my PRAW configuration in ~/.config/praw.ini. Here's a example of the file:

[mybot]
client_id=
client_secret=
password=
username=

Fill the missing values with your own configuration. Don't forget to set the BOT_NAME in poster.py (for this example BOT_NAME='mybot')

How to use

1. Run ./poster.py and wait. The scripts watches the file postfile.txt for new posts. This script will run infinitely. Hit ctrl+c whenever you like, just make sure that there's no pending posts.

2. Add your posts to postfile.txt using this syntaxe:

   subreddit_name~title of the post~link of the post~schedule

symbol "~" is the field separator and "schedule" can be:

best     : heuristic to decide the best time to post.
anytime  : post as soon as possible
follow   : post after some post -- the one above it in the `postfile.txt`.
+t[smhd] : traditional scheduling. Post after "t" time have passed.

Example of postfile.txt:

dankmemes~The real firework~https://i.redd.it/k9bzcs5gou931.jpg~best
pics~The real firework~https://i.redd.it/k9bzcs5gou931.jpg~follow
dank_memes~The real firework~https://i.redd.it/k9bzcs5gou931.jpg~anytime
funny~The real firework~https://i.redd.it/k9bzcs5gou931.jpg~+5h

First post is "best" so it will be posted when it's the best time to do so (see below). Second post will be delayed to be posted after the first one. This is what "follow" means. The third post will be posted when the main loop hits it, that is, as soon as possible. Finally the last post will be submitted after 5 hours from current time.

Let's say the first post will be schedule 4 hours from here. The posting sequence will be: third post immediately, first post after 4 hours, second post after 4h and 2 minutes and the last post after 5h. Basically: 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 4.

Obs: There's a delay of 2 minutes between posts. This is to avoid "spam" errors from PRAW.

Dry run

Pass the --dry-run option to tell the script to not update anything or post anything. This option is for testing purposes.

./poster.py --dry-run

Nothing will be modified or posted to reddit except the creation of a database named redditdryrun.db. You can also use "fake" subreddit names here to test the script like "sub1", "sub2", etc.

More on Schedules

To schedule a post you have 4 options: best, follow, anytime, +t[smhd]. "Best" is explained below. "Follow" submit a post after the post above it. "Anytime" is the same as immediately.

"+t[smhd]" is the traditional time scheduling. If you put +1h the post will be submitted after one hour from current time. Suffixes are 's', 'm', 'h', 'd' for seconds, minutes, hours and days, repectively.

How "best" schedule work

The heuristic was created by observation. Most subs can only have a highly upvoted post in a timeframe of 15 hours. That is, when a post is being highly upvoted, new posts will not grow as much because of the algorithm.

Let's say r/pics have a post with 10k upvotes in 4 hours. If you post something new it will rarely grow but if you post the same thing after 11 hours, the post will get more karma -- or be the new "highly upvoted" post.

So the WORST time to post to a sub, if one wants more karma as possible, is to post when a "highly upvoted" post is growing between its post time (also called created_utc time) and 15 hours.

In other words, the BEST time to post is to wait a "highly upvoted" post to be at least 15 hours old. Again, this is a heuristic so of course it can fail sometimes.

The calculation is simple. Being "score" the amount of upvotes, IF created_utc [1] is below 15 hours AND the division score/created_utc is above 100 [2], which means 100 upvotes per hour -- the minimum rate for being considered a "highly upvoted" THEN schedule the post to (15 - created_utc) hours from now.

The best time to post is to wait a "highly upvoted" post to get at least 15 hours old. Of course if there is no "highly upvoted" at the moment the script will just post immediately. Also, if your post is competing with new posts, any of these new posts can grow bigger than yours. This can't be avoided -- except to delay the posting time even more, which the script doesn't do.

[1] : In reality created_utc is in seconds, but as an example consider it as time in hours.

[2] : This value can vary between subs. The 100 value is kinda low so it can produce many "false-postives", that is, posts that seem to be highly upvoted but they're not. If the sub averages 5k or lower upvotes for the most upvoted post in a day, the 100 value works great. Big subs that averages 20k or more, this value must be changed accordingly.

Options

-h, --help                : Show this help message and exit.
--dry-run                 : Execute script as a test. No post will be submitted to reddit.
--quit-after              : Quit script when everything is submitted.
--command-after=COMMAND   : Command to execute (only once) when everything is submitted.
                            Useful for "reboot".
--subreddit=SUBREDDIT     : Set the subreddit that the options will operate.
--print-best              : Print the "best" time to post in --subreddit.
--new  N                  : Get the first N new posts of the --subreddit.
--search=SEARCH           : Term to search in --subreddit.

Example:

./poster.py --subreddit natureismetal --search 'honey+badger+snake'

Database 'reddit.db'

The DB is a file under sqlite3 format. Its schema is simple, just type:

sqlite3 reddit.db '.schema'

To learn more about using sqlite3 in python just search it up in duckduckgo.