Flood^(ing) Assistant prevents users from making too many posts in a short span of time, thus flooding the subreddit feed. You can configure both the number of posts and time period.
App: https://developers.reddit.com/apps/floodassistant
Source: https://github.com/PitchforkAssistant/devvit-flood-assistant
This section summarizes the changes made for each published version of the app, unpublished versions are not listed, but you can always view the full changes to the code on GitHub.
- Fixed an issue where the app was unable to retrieve tracked posts in some subreddits with very high post volume or a very long quota period.
- Upgraded to Devvit 0.11
- Added "Check User's Quota" button to the subreddit context menu. This button will open a form that allows moderators to check a specific user's quota state. You will be able to see which posts are counted towards their quota and which are excluded and why.
- Added option to lock posts after removal.
- Posts that exceed the quota will now be removed on subreddits that have the spam filter set to "all".
- Added validation to removal reason ID field to ensure it exists on the subreddit.
- Simplifies the check that was used for avoiding double-actioning posts that were removed by someone else (automod, bot, etc) before we could action them. This was causing Devvit metadata to be lost in some mysterious cases, resulting in the removal failing.
- Upgraded to a newer version of Devvit to resolve an issue where the app would break if the subreddit used the new "channels" and "chat_config" moderator permissions.
- Fixed an issue where custom date placeholder options were not being properly validated before saving. This could cause the app to crash if an invalid date format was entered. I highly recommend hitting save on the app's settings page again to ensure those settings are valid.
- Minor performance improvements, especially for subreddits with a large number of posts. More specifically, getPostsByAuthor now uses the recently added zScan method.
- The app now uses Devvit's new Redis client for tracking posts instead of the old KV store. Due to serious issues with the KV store, older versions of the apps may no longer work and must update to this version or beyond. For the same reason, it was not possible to migrate existing data to the new system. Updating to this version, all existing quotas will be reset.
- Major rewrite of the FloodAssistant's code. This should improve the app's reliability and maintainability.
- "Ignore Auto-Removed Posts" no longer needs to be enabled for posts removed by FloodAssistant to not count towards the quota, they will always be ignored.
- New placeholders:
{{quota_oldest_id}},{{quota_oldest_url}},{{quota_newest_id}}, and{{quota_newest_url}}.
- The locale field is now a dropdown with all supported locales instead of a text box (previously very long dropdowns had issues). If you previously entered a custom locale, you may need to reselect it.
This app has configurable settings for each of its subreddits. If you have installed it on your subreddit, you can find its settings at https://developers.reddit.com/r/subreddit/apps/floodassistant or by going to Mod Tools -> Installed Apps on new Reddit and clicking the Settings button next to Flooding Assistant.
If you stick to the default settings, the app will limit non-moderators to 4 posts per 24 hours. I would suggest hitting the "Save changes" button even if you don't change anything, just to prevent any odd behavior.
These settings configure how many posts can be posted in a given time period.
This is the number of posts that can be posted in the configured quota period.
If a user posts more than this number of posts in the configured period, they will be removed. The user will be able to make more posts once the older posts age out of the quota period.
This is the time period in which the quota period is enforced. This field is a number of hours. The hours can be fractional, for example 0.5 is 30 minutes. The maximum is 744 hours (31 days).
Please note that increasing this value will not start retracking posts that have already aged out of the previous quota period. Decreasing it will however cause the app to discard posts that are older than the new quota period.
If this is enabled, posts made by moderators of your subreddit will never be removed by this app.
If this is enabled, users that have been added to the approved submitters list on your subreddit will be ignored by this app.
If this is enabled, posts that are removed within 60 seconds of posting will not count towards the quota, nor will removals done by AutoModerator. Posts that are automatically removed by this app never count towards the quota.
If this is disabled, all failed posts will count towards the quota, even if they are removed as soon as they are posted for any reason.
If this is enabled, posts that are removed by moderators will not count towards the quota. This effectively also enables the "Ignore Auto-Removed Posts" setting.
Posts that are removed and then reapproved will still count towards the quota.
If this is enabled, posts that are deleted by the author will not count towards the quota.
Please note that deleted posts will still count towards the quota if they were removed by the moderators before being deleted.
These settings let you configure what happens after a post is removed for exceeding the quota.
If your subreddit uses native removal reasons and you would like the app to use one of them, you can provide the ID of the removal reason here. If you leave this field blank, the app will not apply a native removal reason.
You can find the IDs of your subreddit's removal reasons by using the Show Removal Reason IDs Devvit app or by fetching them using the https://oauth.reddit.com/api/v1/subreddit/removal_reasons.json endpoint.
Please note that this is only visible to moderators. Devvit does not currently send a removal message to the author when a native removal reason is applied. If you would like to add a user-visible removal reason, you will need to use the Removal Comment or Removal Flair fields instead.
This is left as a stickied comment on threads that are removed for flooding. If you leave this field blank, no comment will be left.
This field supports placeholders.
These settings configure the flair that is applied to posts that are removed for flooding. At least one is required, if you leave all three fields blank, no flair will be applied.
This is the text that is displayed on the flair. This field supports placeholders.
This is the CSS class that is applied to the flair.
This is the ID of the flair template that is applied to the post. A templateId should look something like this: 099e12cb-6da5-4c9b-831d-7316dd18a3d6.
The easiest way to find a post flair template ID is to go to Mod Tools -> Post Flair on new Reddit and click on copy ID.
Placeholders are keywords surrounded by double curly brackets, they are case-sensitive. Placeholders are replaced with their values when an action is performed.
They are populated in no particular order.
Any placeholders that are not applicable to the post are replaced with an empty string (ie. removed).
Below is a list of all supported placeholders:
| Placeholder | Description |
|---|---|
{{quota_amount}} |
Currently configured Quota Amount |
{{quota_period}} |
Currently configured Quota Period |
{{quota_next_iso}} |
When the user will be able to post next in the ISO 8601 format |
{{quota_next_unix}} |
When the user will be able to post next as the unix epoch in seconds |
{{quota_next_custom}} |
When the user will be able to post next as defined by the custom date placeholder options |
{{quota_oldest_id}} |
ID of the oldest post that counts towards the author's quota. |
{{quota_oldest_url}} |
Link to the oldest post that counts towards the author's quota. |
{{quota_newest_id}} |
ID of the most recent post that counts towards the author's quota. |
{{quota_newest_url}} |
Link to the most recent post that counts towards the author's quota. |
{{author}} |
Username of the author |
{{subreddit}} |
Display name of the subreddit |
{{body}} |
Post's body (not recommended) |
{{title}} |
Title of the post |
{{kind}} |
Type of the post, always "submission" |
{{permalink}} |
Permalink to the post |
{{url}} |
Alias for {{permalink}} |
{{link}} |
The URL that the post links to, {{permalink}} for text posts |
{{domain}} |
The domain that the post links to, blank for text posts |
{{id}} |
Post ID |
{{author_id}} |
Author's User ID |
{{subreddit_id}} |
Subreddit's ID |
{{mod}} |
Username of the mod that set the flair |
{{author_flair_text}} |
Text of the post author's user flair |
{{author_flair_css_class}} |
CSS class of the post author's user flair |
{{author_flair_template_id}} |
Template ID of the post author's user flair |
{{link_flair_text}} |
Text of the post's flair |
{{link_flair_css_class}} |
CSS class of the post's flair |
{{link_flair_template_id}} |
Template ID of the post's flair |
{{time_iso}} |
Current time in the ISO 8601 format |
{{time_unix}} |
Current time as the unix epoch in seconds |
{{time_custom}} |
Current time as defined by the custom date placeholder options |
{{created_iso}} |
Post's creation time in the ISO 8601 format |
{{created_unix}} |
Post's creation time as the unix epoch in seconds |
{{created_custom}} |
Post's creation time as defined by the custom date placeholder options |
These settings are used with used for {{created_custom}}, {{quota_next_custom}}, and {{time_custom}} placeholders. If your removal reason doesn't contain any of them, you can completely ignore these options.
This date template is used for {{created_custom}}, {{quota_next_custom}}, and {{time_custom}} placeholders. The application uses date-fns to format custom dates, the patterns for these are different from the Python timeformat Flair_Helper used. It uses the date formatting specified in the Unicode Technical Standard #35 with a few extra options, view a full list of patterns supported by date-fns. The default value is yyyy-MM-dd HH-mm-ss, below is a list of some common patterns:
| Name | Pattern(s) | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Year | yy, yyyy | 23, 2023 |
| Month | M, MM, MMM, MMMM | 7, 07, Jul, July |
| Day | d, dd, E, EEEE | 1, 01, Sat, Saturday |
| Hour | h, hh, H, HH | 1, 01, 13, 13 |
| Minute | m, mm | 3, 03 |
| Second | s, ss | 2, 02 |
| Text | yyyy'y' MMMM 'text' | 2023y July text |
This is the timezone used for {{created_custom}}, {{quota_next_custom}}, and {{time_custom}} placeholders. The default value is UTC. This field can accept both timezone identifiers and offsets. View a full list of supported timezones or simply provide it in the format +HH:mm or -HH:mm (ie. +05:30 or -08:00).
This field is used for {{created_custom}}, {{quota_next_custom}}, and {{time_custom}} placeholders. It affects locale specific values such as the first day of the week, month names, abbrivations, etc. The dropdown contains a list of all supported locales.