Api Question

[Alsace and Lorraine United]

If you were to use an api, are you allowed to use the telegram api to exchange endorsements

[Trotterdam]

Endorsements are not telegrams, so no.

It's not a matter of not being allowed. It's just a matter of that not being how the API works. It's like asking if you're allowed to use a hammer to cut a rope. Even if we let you try, it wouldn't work.

If you don't understand this, then maybe you shouldn't be meddling with the API.

[Alsace and Lorraine United]

Endorsements are not telegrams, so no.

It's not a matter of not being allowed. It's just a matter of that not being how the API works. It's like asking if you're allowed to use a hammer to cut a rope. Even if we let you try, it wouldn't work.

If you don't understand this, then maybe you shouldn't be meddling with the API.

i kinda meant a system in which you ask for endorsements through the API

[Alsace and Lorraine United]

Bump?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Endorsements are not telegrams, so no.

It's not a matter of not being allowed. It's just a matter of that not being how the API works. It's like asking if you're allowed to use a hammer to cut a rope. Even if we let you try, it wouldn't work.

If you don't understand this, then maybe you shouldn't be meddling with the API.

i kinda meant a system in which you ask for endorsements through the API

You don't seem to understand what the API is.

The API allows you to make requests for information from the site or interact with it, as the site allows, in a metered and controlled manner.

NS as a site decides what information they wish to make available/activities to allow.

Those are described here: https://www.nationstates.net/pages/api.html

Mostly you'll see shards, which allow you to request information. You'll also see private shards and commands, which allow you to access private information (such as you current issues, your notices, etc) and make certain actions that only effect your nation via the API (such as answer an issue). There's also the telegram API, which allows you to interface with the telegram system and unlike other facets of the API, make actions that effect the world beyond your nation (in this case, send a telegram). To use this function, there's an extra individual approval step by admins. There's also a little bit that basically allows other websites to confirm that a player owns the nation they say they do.

Notably absent from here is anything to do with effecting the game world outside your nation, i.e. moving regions, approving proposals, or endorsing other players. This is intentional, for a number of reasons I won't dive into in depth at the moment, but the point is thus:

It's not a matter of if you're allowed to or not, you physically cannot do such a thing unless the admins add the ability for you to interface with that part of the game via the API. You could ask that they add that, just like you can ask that they add a shard for <thingy>, but in the case you seek, the answer will be a quick and certain "no." Without the site creating an API interface for the endorsement system, you can't interact with it via the API. Period.

Hope that helps.

[Phydios]

Could the OP possibly be asking about sending telegrams through the API that request endorsements? I know that is possible.

[Alsace and Lorraine United]

Could the OP possibly be asking about sending telegrams through the API that request endorsements? I know that is possible.

Exactly what I was asking

[All Wild Things]

See https://www.nationstates.net/pages/api.html#telegrams

[Trotterdam]

The main question here is what telegram filter type you're supposed to specify when composing your telegram. Does asking for endorsements count under "WA Campaign", or is that just for talking about actual resolutions? If you're the current delegate asking for more endorsements to strengthen your position, then it would likely be considered "Region (official)". Otherwise "External" is a catch-all, but it's not advisable to use that for something that falls under a more specific category.

The fact is that, even if legal, mass telegrams for such a selfish reason ("I want more endorsements!") are annoying. Especially when sent to people who quite deliberately chose not to endorse you for some reason, and then repeated every few weeks so long as they're still not endorsing you.