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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Well, in case someone has the same idea, I just checked and the string kbinBot does not appear anywhere in the lemmy git repo.
I also must say the whole conspiracy nonsense in the comments over in that kbin link you posted really doesn't look good for their user base. Most likely this is some sort of bug or compatibility problem.
Web developer here. This type of blocking based on user-agent would be easier done though the server configuration than in the Lemmy code anyway.
Returning "403 Forbidden" makes it seem like it's not a bug or compatibility problem. The lemmy.ml server only appears to return 403 when the user-agent contains the exact string "kbinbot" (not case sensitive). That makes it seem deliberate.
I'm not saying it's done with malicious intent, mind you. It could definitely be some kind of WAF or other automated blocking happening, maybe simply a misclick when blocking a flood of other bots, but that's anyone's guess until the admins respond.
I'm not particularly concerned with how "the kbin user base" looks or any silly tribalism like that tbh. I'm just wondering if/why the issue might be happening. If the string doesn't appear in the git repo, that's a useful data point for sure. But plenty of people are confirming that something is going on, so the questions as to 1) what is causing it and 2) why are still out there.