Weather Syndication accounts hitting error code 326, pain unlocking accounts ensues

[akrherz]

Thank you for the response. Addressing your questions

do you have a single approved Twitter developer account as yet?

I am unsure what that means, sorry.

we would recommend having just one approved developer account and app, and having all of your other accounts auth’d through that

I don’t know what that means either, could you kindly link to something I can read about this?

but do ask that you work with us as the platform evolves to safeguard the health of the platform.

I am more than happy to, but all I have corresponded to so far is auto-responding emails with no actionable information. I still don’t know why I got most of my bots locked out in the past wee.

Tweeting from your bot accounts to point to this thread does not seem to offer much value to the developer platform discussion going on here on this site?

Well, I am desperate after a week of filling out captcha form after captcha form and still have not gotten any details on what is happening.

Your accounts are unfortunately seemingly being flagged by antispam measures. If we can help you to get to a good state we will aim to do so.

What actionable details are provided to me with that vague statement? What exactly am I hitting?

I will do whatever you tell me to do. Right now, they only thing I can do is hit pots and pans loudly attempting to get attention. People ask me why the bots are locked out, I point them to this thread. What am I supposed to do?

[akrherz]

Greetings, I still have 31 bots locked out and had an additional bot (iembot_lwx) get locked out Sunday evening. Strangely, I was able to get it going again as it allowed me to use my cell phone number with that account.

[IgorBrigadir]

oh, single approved developer account meaning you can log in to https://developer.twitter.com/en/dashboard with @akrherz or @iembot or whichever account you have that works there.

1 approved app meaning you have an application in https://developer.twitter.com/en/apps that works. If you have multiple ones for each bot, that’s bad - it’s better to not use them anymore - just stick with 1 main one, so you’ll have just 1 Consumer Key & Secret, and then you can authenticate each bot to that 1 app - either manually using https://github.com/twitter/twurl to make the https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/overview/pin-based-oauth calls or with your own code that uses the APIs https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/guides/access-tokens .

So each bot will then have the same Consumer Key and secret (1 Approved app), and it’s own unique Access token & secret (each bot has it’s own rate limits).

Just be aware that there’s an App wide post limit (all bots combined) of max 300 tweets per 3 hours, which you may actually hit with weather update data - see
New POST endpoint rate limit enforcement begins today for that.

In the worst case, you may need to register a brand new app (since your old app or apps may already be flagged for spam), get accepted, auth each bot to that 1 good app, and probably apply for the elevated post limits too - but then i imagine your problems with repeatedly getting flagged for spam should go away.

[akrherz]

oh, single approved developer account meaning you can log in to https://developer.twitter.com/en/dashboard with @akrherz or @iembot or whichever account you have that works there.

Yup, the @iembot user has access there and there is one App called iembot that is used by all my bots.

1 approved app meaning you have an application in https://developer.twitter.com/en/apps that works.

Yup.

Just be aware that there’s an App wide post limit (all bots combined) of max 300 tweets per 3 hours, which you may actually hit with weather update data - see
New POST endpoint rate limit enforcement begins today for that.

Thanks, I got an exception a number of years ago and even believe my server IP is whitelisted as well for increased API usage.

In the worst case, you may need to register a brand new app (since your old app or apps may already be flagged for spam), get accepted, auth each bot to that 1 good app, and probably apply for the elevated post limits too - but then i imagine your problems with repeatedly getting flagged for spam should go away.

That sounds like a lot of work to replicate what I already have set up I really do appreciate your detailed response though. I think you explained most of what @andypiper was asking me.

[LeBraat]

Hey @akrherz

I have an open conversation internally looking for ways to help you out. Please hold tight as I work through this with another team.

Thanks

[akrherz]

Thanks for the help @LeBraat, but of most urgency at the moment is to get my 31 remaining bots unlocked. I have updated comment 20 above with the listing of users and case numbers. I don’t understand how my cases opened on Thursday and Friday morning remain open, while cased opened Friday night and Saturday were resolved already.

[LeBraat]

Thank you for providing this information. I will pass this along to the team that I am working with to see if we can get this resolved for you.

Thank you for your patience.

[LeBraat]

Hello @akrherz - It sounds like we have unlocked all of the @handles associated with app #309129.

[akrherz]

thank you, but still two more remain

Case 0100660486 iembot_meg 2018/12/18
Case 0100660740 iembot_sto 2018/12/18

[akrherz]

Last night, iembot_bis got locked out, but I got it going again as it let me use my cell number for some reason. Tonight, I just lost iembot_iln and did not get as lucky with the unlock.

[LeBraat]

Hey @akrherz,

Our team would like to whitelist around 20 of the bots that you are currently managing to prevent this from happening again in the future. If you get me a list of 20 accounts, I can work with our team to get those whitelisted.

[akrherz]

Thanks for the response, but I don’t understand. Why only 20? I am unsure which 20 I should prioritize for this? I love them all equally, hehe

[akrherz]

Lost four bots so far today

Case# 0101078573 iembot_rnk 2018/12/23 2018/12/25
Case# 0101078669 iembot_jax 2018/12/23
Case# 0101078741 iembot_mrx 2018/12/23
Case# 0101079320 iembot_abr 2018/12/23

[akrherz]

Just got iembot_fsd locked out this Christmas evening. It was even associated with my tweetdeck account, so much for that being a potential workaround to this fun.

[IgorBrigadir]

Looks like you’ll maybe have to rearrange or merge some of the bots, given 20 whitelisted accounts, i’m assuming that means each account will have the full 300 tweets per 3 hour window https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/post-and-engage/api-reference/post-statuses-update quota

So to get the best out of that limit, it might be worth merging accounts, eg: all the Iowa ones into iembot_iowa instead of having iembot_xxx for each office. Or alternatively group them by message type? (this one i’m not so sure of, not too familiar with weather updates). Either way, your best solution here seems to be to take up the 20 whitelisted bots and rearrange the updates to balance out the tweets across all 20 accounts by grouping messages somehow.

[akrherz]

I would like to know where the ‘20’ number is coming from here, but even with a 20 limit, I am not willing to consolidate bots. The current organization is what people want to see. I’d rather just pull the plug on this entirely at this point.

[LeBraat]

Having a high number of handles that have a low volume of users is not providing much value to Twitter users. We are willing to whitelist 20 of your accounts to get you started and concentrate your efforts. Once you have proven that you have found a good strategy that is providing significant value to Twitter users, we can consider whitelisting more of your bots.

[akrherz]

I don’t understand, how does providing 20 accounts concentrate my efforts? What would I be concentrating on at that point?

These accounts have been around since 2008 and this has only been a problem over the past month or so.

I would rather work on making my tweets not trigger your spam algo, but I have gotten zero details on how my tweets are tripping the algo. Can I concentrate on that?

[jhomenuk]

All of these accounts are immensely valuable to the meteorology community. Each of them offer localized statistics, information, warnings, etc that are issued automatically and sometimes faster than other sources. They have been around since 2008 and are used quite a bit. Removing them or congealing them to 20 would be a huge mistake.

[WesternMEwx]

These IEMBots have relayed on critical weather information for a number of years now. If you look and see who these bots are followed by, you will see that the vast majority are meteorologists, forecasters, media, weather enthusiasts and the curious. What @arkherz has done over the years through the IEMBot program has likely saved thousands of lives through alerts that a relayed on to the public as a result of this service. I would like this entire service to be whitelisted. The idea of cutting back or eliminating this service is very troubling since it is designed for the greater good of public information and the safety of lives and property.

Thank you!