[Discussion] Fallback for not using API?

[ghost]

We kinda chatted about this briefly once in IRC, but figured I'd open an issue for discussion, anyway.

<xnaas> ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ twitter api key
<xnaas> I don't want to have a twitter account for a useful bot feature :P
<+dgw> no amount of Sponsors money could get you that lol
<xnaas> 😢
<+dgw> use a throwaway email
<xnaas> I just keep asking around randomly, hoping someone will love me someday 💔
<+dgw> love you enough to risk their own stuff getting blocked if/when Twitter finds out the keys have been shared? 🤔
<xnaas> that's true love, yes
<xnaas> I mean, personally, I only use nitter anyway, but lots of other people post normie twitter links :(
<+dgw> could make an alternate plugin that fetches from nitter? "Uses Twitter's unofficial API (no rate limits or developer account required)"
<xnaas> eh, url gets the gist of it
<xnaas> example: https://nitter.actionsack.com/NWSSanAntonio/status/1448738672040419331
<+Sopel> [url] NWS Austin/San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio): "A much quieter evening is expected, however patchy dense fog is possible over the Coastal Plains and portions of the I-35 corridor by the early morning hours | nitter.actionsack.com
<xnaas> gud enough for someone to decide to click or not, I guess
<xnaas> :P
<+dgw> I meant an alternate plugin that sees twitter links, pretends they're links to the configured nitter instance, and fetches the full data that way
<xnaas> I know what ya meant, just saying url plugin is "good enough" :P
<xnaas> see: my laziness
<+dgw> though it �should� be possible to have sopel-twitter just use this "unofficial API" they say there is
<xnaas> that would be m.twitter.com I'm pretty sure lol
<+dgw> Is it? https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/blob/52a0b530cc35c4a8ab28b58994d8c07322a58a51/src/consts.nim#L6
<+Sopel> �[GitHub]� [zedeus/nitter] src/consts.nim @ 52a0b530cc35c4a8ab28b58994d8c07322a58a51 | L6: �  api = parseUri("https://api.twitter.com")�
<+dgw> Things that make you go hmm https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/blob/52a0b530cc35c4a8ab28b58994d8c07322a58a51/src/consts.nim#L20-L23
<+Sopel> �[GitHub]� [zedeus/nitter] src/consts.nim @ 52a0b530cc35c4a8ab28b58994d8c07322a58a51 | L20: �  graphql = api / "graphql"� […] (to L23)

Feel free to close if this is something that would never be considered or PRs accepted for. :P

[ghost]

<+dgw> use a throwaway email

In regards to this, btw, I actually tried recently. Twitter will not allow a signup without a phone number now, as far as I can tell. It acts like it'll let you skip it and then forces the issue as the final step of signup. 🤮

[dgw]

You know, we're at a pretty good crossroads on this assuming #23 (comment) is true.

Now would be the perfect time to just kill API use entirely and switch to scraping, instead of dealing with rewriting the API logic to work with v2 endpoints and continuing to make potential plugin users slog through the now-tedious application process. Question is whether Twitter has lax enough anti-scraping measures in place that an API-less approach would be reliable. We know how well that went for the defunct instagram plugin.

[dgw]

Closing speculative discussion in favor of #40, which is about Twitter's hard deprecation of any free read access.