The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Interfacing with the blackhole of the Intarwebs

Smirk called last night to ask me how I publish my blog to MyFaceMeLinked­ BookWeInSpace. I told him I do it by hand. When I post to my blog, I then go to FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace and manually post the link. It used to be an automatic feature but several years ago MeLinkedMyFaceWeInSpaceBook changed the API. He was curious because he was getting fed up with FaceMeLinkedMySpaceBookWeIn and their censorious ways, and wanted a way to post to both FaceMeLinkedMy­ Space­Book­We­In and another website. Here's what I found.

First:

The publish_actions permission will be deprecated. This permission granted apps access to publish posts to Facebook as the logged in user. Apps created from today onwards will not have access to this permission. Apps created before today that have been previously approved to request publish_actions can continue to do so until August 1, 2018. No further apps will be approved to use publish_actions via app review. Developers currently utilizing publish_actions are encouraged to switch to Facebook's Share dialogs for web, iOS and Android.

New Facebook Platform Product Changes and Policy Updates

For my usecase, I'm still screwed, unless I become an “approved partner:”

On August 1st, 2018, the Live API publish_actions permission, which allows an app to publish on behalf of its Users, will be reserved for approved partners. A new permission model that allows apps to publish Videos to their User's Groups and Timeline will be created instead.

New Facebook Platform Product Changes and Policy Updates

So, I'm still screwed.

You can do a “share dialog” which looks like it may work, but … it looks like it may require the use of JavaScript (a non-starter for me, so I'm still screwed) and the user has to be logged into FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace for it to work (another non-starter for me). This may work for Smirk, and more importantly, it doesn't require a FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace app to be written.

Then there's this Pages API thing that looks like it could work (not for me, because I don't think my “timeline” counts as a “page”—man this MyFaceMeLinkedInSpaceBookWe stuff is confusing) but it requires building an app. If what Smirk wants to publish to on FaceMeLinked­ MyBookWeInSpace is a “page” then this is probably what he wants. While it may look like “Instant Articles” is the way to go, especially since there appear to be plugins for popular web publishing platforms, but the kicker there is: “[t]he final step before going live is to submit 10 complete articles for review by our team.” That may work for The National Enquirer or the Weekly World News, but it won't work for me or Smirk.

And that's for getting stuff into MeLinkedMyFaceBookWeInSpace. As far as I can tell, there's no way to get stuff out! And that's probably by design—LinkedMyFaceMeSpaceBookWeIn is the Intarwebs, as far as it's concerned.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

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You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

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