Automatic Leaderboard Maker

Scrapes, saves, and publishes a leaderboard on the Top 100 Posters, round 2 topic.

This tool (further called ALM) scrapes the TBG's memberlist, and posts the results as a leaderboard of the aforementioned "Top 100 Posters, round 2" topic. The current leaderboard is also saved as a reference for the post count difference on the next run of this script.

Dependencies

Automatic Leaderboard Maker requires these two modules:

• pandas 2.2.3 or similar
• tbgclient-rewritten

Simulation

In case where you want to see what the leaderboard looks like without publishing or saving anything, you can simulate them with the --simulate switch.

Messages

You can attach/include a message to the generated leaderboard. ALM will read the file message.txt if present, and includes its contents below the leaderboard.

You can choose another file with the --message switch.

Exclude list

ALM can exclude TBGers that chooses to be opted out on the leaderboard. The exclude.txt file contains a list of user IDs that ALM will not include on the leaderboard.

You can choose another file with the --exclude-file switch.

Leaderboard Maker 2 Specification

ALM generates a leaderboard under the Leaderboard Maker 2 format. The leaderboard consists of several lines. The lines are formatted as such:

TTT DDD AAAA xxx. Name #Post (Diff)

Name

Name is the user's name. They are left-justified so the #Post values after it are aligned.

Position

TTT is the user's position/status. Their possible values are:

• TEA for the TBG Teams
• RET for retired TBG managers
• TBG for TBGers and New TBGers
• BAN for banned TBGers (note that the memberlist doesn't show banned TBGers)
• OTH for other TBGer positions.

Rank

xxx represents the user's current rank. Higher rank (lowest number rank) means a higher post count compared to TBGers of a lower ranking.

DDD represents the user's change of rank from the previous leaderboard. They are represented by an arrow (showing direction) and a number (showing amount). One example is ↑ 1 (meaning rank up 1, e.g. from third to second). A special case === is used when there's no change of rank.

Post counts

#Post is the user's current post count, at the time of scraping.

Diff is the difference of the current post count and the previous leaderboard's count.

AAAA represents the user's activity. It is a visual representation of the Diff value. It is comprised of 3 Braille symbols, and one symbol being a space, a dot, or a two-dot. These are picked because they're all comprised of dots.

For the first character, a single dot represents 10 posts per month, where 1 month is the distance between the current and previous leaderboard. (the update interval is 1 month) For the later characters, a single dot represents the full capacity of the previous character.

Here's an example of them:

⡀⠀⠀  : 10 ppm
⡄⠀⠀  : 20 ppm
⡆⠀⠀  : 30 ppm
⡇⠀⠀  : 40 ppm
⣿⠀⠀  : 80 ppm
⣿⡀⠀  : 160 ppm
⣿⡄⠀  : 240 ppm
⣿⡆⠀  : 320 ppm
⣿⡇⠀  : 400 ppm
⣿⣿⠀  : 720 ppm
⣿⣿⡀  : 1440 ppm
⣿⣿⡄  : 2160 ppm
⣿⣿⡇  : 3600 ppm
⣿⣿⣿  : 6480 ppm
⣿⣿⣿. : 12960 ppm
⣿⣿⣿: : 19440 ppm
(ppm means posts per month)

A special case ⣏⣉⣉] is used when no past activity is found. (that is, Diff = N/A)

Scheduling ALM

When run, ALM only makes a single leaderboard. It does not run continuously, making leaderboards monthly. To do that automatically, you need a job scheduler to run ALM monthly.

Most OSes offer a built-in job scheduler. Here's how you can set them up to run ALM.

Windows

(warning: untested)

Windows offers Task Scheduler as their job scheduler. To make a task for ALM, do the following:

• Open Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler.
  • On older Windows versions, you may find Task Scheduler on "Accessories and System Tools".
  • Alternatively, you can run taskschd.msc on the Run prompt.
• On the Actions bar, select Create Basic Task. Give the task a name, then click Next.
• On the Trigger section, choose Monthly. Choose the first day of the month.
• On the Action section, choose Start a program. Click Next.
• Supply "Program/script" with the location where you stored scheduler/autolm.bat.
• Supply "Start in" with the location where you stored ALM. Click Next.
• Confirm the summary, then click Finish to accept.

Linux and other Unix-likes

There are two ways to schedule ALM on Unix-likes. One uses cron and the other uses systemd timers.

Using cron

cron (and others like them) is a simple job scheduler that is available in most Linux distributions and other Unix-likes. To set up a job for ALM, do the following:

• On a terminal, run crontab -e to edit your crontab.
  • You may need to install cron or similar if this command is not available.
• Add this line: 0 0 1 * * /usr/bin/env -C /path/to/alm USERNAME=Leaderboarder PASSWORD=opensesame python main.py
• Save and exit the editor.

Using systemd timers

If your system has systemd (which includes most Linux distros), you may add a timer to start ALM. To add it, do the following:

• Using root, copy the files scheduler/autolm.service and scheduler/autolm.timer to /etc/systemd/system.
  • You may instead copy them on ~/.config/systemd/user/ if you want to run ALM under the current user. Just note that you have to add --user on the command to target the unit.
• Edit the service by running systemctl edit autolm.service under root.
  • Change /path/to/alm with the location where you stored ALM.
  • Change the Environment values as well.
  • You may change the location of the Python executable in ExecStart.
  • Save and exit the editor.
• If desired, you can add Persistent=true to scheduler/autolm.timer. This will start ALM immediately when it missed the last start time. This is useful for machines that doesn't stay on.
• Enable and start the timer unit by running systemctl enable --now autolm.timer.
  • Enabling autolm or autolm.service will instead run ALM, instead of scheduling it.