[Chapter-delegates] isoc-ams API released (for developing, geekish, and bugged out ISOC AMS Admins only!)

[Christian de Larrinaga]

very cool Klaus

best C

Klaus Birkenbihl <Klaus.Birkenbihl at isoc.de> writes:

> [adding Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> since assumed to be of general interest]
>
> Thanks Christian,
>
> Christian de Larrinaga wrote on 16.07.25 18:32:
>> Well done klaus.. looks like you did this despite zero help from the AMS
>> team. It will take a bit of work I guess to implement into a chapter
>> admin database and then as a web scraper any change to the AMS which
>> can happen pretty arbitrarily might be breaking.
>
> After looking at the code (HTML & Co) the risk of AMS changes seems smaller than it first appeared. If there are any they most likely will not be dramatic. But as I mentioned in the readme: the risk exists. So wait and see ...
>
> Members Administration in this context is a dead simple thing. AMS takes a lot of effort to make it komplex.
>
> isoc-ams makes it simple again. Nearly everything in members admin - that can be done with online AMS - can be done with a simple isoc-ams workflow - no programming skills required at all.
>
> 2 Steps:
>
> 1. Get lists of AMS Chapter members and pending applications:
>
>    	python -m isoc_ams
>
>    Delivers a list of AMS Chapter members and a list of pending applications.
>
> 2. Decide what operations are due (deny or approve applicants, delete entries from members list).
>    Then call isoc-ams like this:
>
>    	python -m isoc_ams -i <commands.txt
>
>    the file commands.txt file holds the required operations like this
>
>    	deny isocid1, isocid2 ...
>    	approve isocid10, isocid11 ...
>    	delete isocid20, isocid21 ...
>    	...
>
>    to deny, approve pending applications or delete entries from the AMS Chapter members list.
>
> And you are done. No need to wade clicking (and maybe typing) through lot of pages.
>
>
> For a fully automated process using the API (as we do it at ISOC.DE) it is also straight forward and simple to implement. (If I ever decide to build a next release the interface will provide the option to do this in any programming language you like - not only Python).
>
> It also can be grouped in 2 steps:
>
> 1. Apply your local rules how to treat pending applications e.g.
>     1. deny old ones that didn't make it to your local members list
>     2. approve those who made it to your local members list
>     3. leave the others as they are (maybe send an invitations to join)
> 2. Compare your local members list (assumed to be the up-to-date one) with the AMS Chapter list:
>     1. delete those from the AMS Chapter list who are no longer on your local list
>     2. send a mail to ams-help at isoc.org asking to add those who are not on the AMS list (since you are not authorized to add them).
>
> That's it. I admit I was surprised how simple it turned out to be - once you manage to hide the AMS Web interface.
>
> (Why is it a fairy tale by Danish Hans Christian Andersen: „Kejserens nye Klæder“ comes int my mind? 🙂)
>
>> Hope this isn't going to be a rod to your back - so to speak. But maybe
>> this will spur that strong sense of not invented here phobia at ISOC?
> Frankly, I'm rather curious if there will be any reaction at all 😉. I
> think that the AMS folks over the last ten+ years never understood how
> an API should look like. So they silently denied any effort to provide
> it.
>> Having said all that kudos and respect.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Klaus
>
>> Klaus Birkenbihl via Chapter-delegates<chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>  writes:
>>
>>> Dear AMS Chapter Admin,
>>>
>>> by today the isoc-ams API is released. Don't ask AMS-help for it.
>>>
>>> Just checkhttps://github.com/birkenbihl/isoc-ams/  for details.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>> Klaus

-- 
Christian de Larrinaga