Use the Yammer REST API to dump new thread starters. Requires a modern version of Python 3.

watchgroup.py

import requests

from dataclasses import dataclass
from time import sleep


TOKEN = ''
GROUP_ID = '15824708'


@dataclass
class YammerMessage:
    id: int
    thread_id: int
    body_text: str
    body_html: str
    excerpt: str
    web_url: str

    def __str__(self):
        return f'{self.id},{self.thread_id},{self.excerpt[0:30]}'

    def get_html(self):
        return f'<div id="message-{self.id}"><p><strong>Thread ID: <a href="{self.web_url}">{self.thread_id}<a></strong></p><p>{self.body_html}</p></div>'


def fetch_group_threadstarters(group_id, token, older_than=None):
    request_url = f'https://www.yammer.com/api/v1/messages/in_group/{group_id}.json?threaded=true'
    
    if older_than is not None:
        request_url += f'&older_than={older_than}'

    yammer_auth_header = {'Authorization': f'Bearer {token}'}
    resp = requests.get(request_url, headers = yammer_auth_header)

    messages = []

    for message in resp.json()['messages']: # messages not at the root of JSON
        ym = YammerMessage(message['id'], 
                           message['thread_id'], 
                           message['body']['plain'], 
                           message['body']['rich'], 
                           message['content_excerpt'],
                           message['web_url'])
        messages.append(ym)

    return messages


def dump_messages(group_id, token, older_than=None):
    messages = fetch_group_threadstarters(group_id, token, older_than=older_than)

    for message in messages:
        print(message.get_html())

    sleep(10) # respect the rate limits

    return messages[-1].id


# First set of 20
last_message_id = dump_messages(GROUP_ID, TOKEN)

# Next 20
last_message_id = dump_messages(GROUP_ID, TOKEN, older_than=last_message_id)

# Next 20
last_message_id = dump_messages(GROUP_ID, TOKEN, older_than=last_message_id)

# Next 20
last_message_id = dump_messages(GROUP_ID, TOKEN, older_than=last_message_id)