Could we automate the Welcome and Open Thread such that some cron job posts it on the first day of every month, applying the relevant tags and improving the wording?
Yes, and in principle “we” can be anyone (except you might want the cronjob to check whether the thread already exists before creating it).
Do you know where I can view the LW public API?
https://www.lesswrong.com/graphiql
https://github.com/ForumMagnum/ForumMagnum/tree/devel is the Github for the source code. GreaterWrong does use that to interface with LessWrong, so there seems to be a lot of public API room.
Could we automate the Welcome and Open Thread such that some cron job posts it on the first day of every month, applying the relevant tags and improving the wording?
Yes, and in principle “we” can be anyone (except you might want the cronjob to check whether the thread already exists before creating it).
Do you know where I can view the LW public API?
https://www.lesswrong.com/graphiql
https://github.com/ForumMagnum/ForumMagnum/tree/devel is the Github for the source code. GreaterWrong does use that to interface with LessWrong, so there seems to be a lot of public API room.