We’re launching @[email protected], a new community bot that attempts to serve racing videos from series around the world. The bot tries to curate a YouTube feed of auto racing focused channels before posting the “best” content available to the community, focusing on racing and on-track content while filtering out filler and fluff pieces using our “Track Limits” system - we’re still figuring out those limits before we start throwing the black and white flag.
Please note: BlueFlagBot is fresh off the sim and just bolted on the aero rakes. The bot may have some handling issues as we continue fine-tuning the setup and working out mechanical bugs.
What BlueFlagBot Is (And Isn’t)
What it is: An attempt to curate racing content for the community
What it isn’t:
- Not a replacement for user posted content - the bot will be reconfigured as needed to better support users posting similar content
- Not yet interactive - no good bot/bad bot style recognition yet, maybe in the future if needed
- Not a finished product
Launch Features
- Monitors 40+ auto racing classifications from around the world
- Covers diverse events to interest long-time and casual fans alike
- Prefers posting live events and on-track content over other video types
- Tags all videos by series or classification for easy identification
- Uses a content scoring system that scales with video availability to keep content interesting and on-topic
- Configurable posting habits and series weighting to fit community needs
- Attempts to avoid double posting content already shared by itself or community members
The bot uses a content filtering system designed to be flexible and adapt as the community grows and changes. We’re learning the racing line as we go - it can limit videos to only live racing and full race replays, favor certain series over others, allow more casual content through, and adjust based on community needs as we dial in the setup.
What You Should Know About Today’s Release
- Early beta will likely contain bugs and require adjustments to fit the community
- Bot availability may change without warning - disappearing and reappearing should be expected
- Series being posted are always up for discussion and open for suggestion
- Adding new series may take time but shouldn’t be a problem
- Feedback on any aspect of the bot is welcome
Help us improve: The bot scores each video out of 100 points to help tune content during the racing season and off-season periods on YouTube. The scores help us learn when track conditions are poor versus when a wheel nut hasn’t been tightened properly. We’re still working out the kinks in our pit strategy - leave feedback about series you’d like added, tagging system modifications, series you don’t want to see, or other suggestions in the comments below.
Thanks for your patience during testing!
Currently Monitored Channels
Asian Le Mans Series, British F4, BTCC, Dakar Rally, DirtFish Rally, DTM, European Le Mans Series, F4 Brasil, F4 Indian Championship, F4 Spanish Championship, F4 U.S. Championship, FIA World Endurance Championship, FIA World Rally Championship, FIA World Rallycross Championship, FIA-F4 Japanese, Formula 1, Formula E, Formula Regional European Championship, Goodwood Road & Racing, GT World, IMSA, INDY NXT by Firestone, INDYCAR, Italian F4 Championship, Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, F4 CEZ Championship, Super Formula, Super Formula Lights, Super GT, Super Taikyu, Supercars Championship, TCR South America, TCR World Tour, USF Pro Championships, Winter Series, World Rally-Raid Championship
I’m working on updating the bot to properly handle streams on youtube, posting them closer to when they go live. The difference in publishing date and when the videos actually go live causes problems for the current bot logic, so it’s taking a bigger re-write than I expected to get it working properly. Hoping to have a new build of the bot running sometime today.
Pushed a major update out for the bot.
Major changes- Proper handling of livestreams on youtube, updates to posting logic.
Minor updates- The Porsche, Lamborghini, and some other channels are now being monitored and I fixed some tagging issues with some channels.
The bot is back to running full time again.
Updated the bot config to scan/post more often to help with live event posting. The goal is to post them while they’re still live, not necessarily right when they start. I also reduced the number of posts per run so the posting won’t be too ridiculous when there are multiple events running at the same time. Hopefully. ™️
This change led to the discovery of a new bug- The bot doesn’t identify live streams as valid videos to post if they were posted days ahead of the event. There’s a DTM practice going on now that the bot isn’t able to see. I’ll work on a fix for this, hopefully it won’t be too big of a deal.
EDIT: I figured out the issue here. The api calls are different for livestreams, oops. Working on adding that in now in the same build that I was working on the Porsche series additions and whatnot. I’ll try to get a build out with the livestream fix and the new channels sometime this weekend.
Interesting concept!
Thanks! I really hope it can be a jump-off point for racing enthusiasts on Lemmy to start chatting.
Tbh my experience is that video posts on the threadiverse have difficulties with gaining traction and conversations, probably because some people come here to quickly look at posts and dont want to watch entire videos. But hopefully yes!
So far so good after a little more than 48 hours running here. The only error in the logs was a connection error and it was handled correctly by the bot. Looking ahead there are lots of live events coming up on the channels the bot follows, so we should see a nice uptick in content as the weekend approaches.
I’m working on adding support for the Porsche series and some other channels now. Realistically it’ll probably be next week before those changes get pushed to the live version of the bot. I’d like to see how the api quota holds up when the channels get busier with content before adding anything new. The current config is using less than 30% of it’s daily quota so we should have plenty of room for expanding and more frequent posting before I have to worry about things like multi api support, but I’d rather start slow and build on success and stability.
Technically the bot isn’t active here just yet but it will be very shortly. I thought this was as good a time as any to make the announcement, hopefully you found it funny and informative.
Once the bot is migrated from it’s test environment it will begin posting content to this community. I thought about letting it pull in several days worth of content at once to show the range of what it can do, but I think a slower, less spammy launch is probably preferred by most of our federated neighbors. Like everything else I’m open to feedback on how much and how often the bot is posting. I suspect it will take a few active race weekends full of events to get things dialed in.
I hope to see you all in the comments of the upcoming bot posts! 💚
The bot is now active, scanning and posting hourly with a content score cut off of 65. For now it’s not configured to persist through sessions so I can keep an eye on it during early public testing. Let me know what you think.
