Lemmy has a setting to hide bots globally if you'd like. Most of the reposts are done by just a few bots and yes I agree they serve no purpose but to spam content nobody cares about, thankfully it's easy to fix.
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Unpopular Opinion
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I saw a post from the mod of a sub that has a bot post a "how are you today?" post every single day...
They were doing a PSA saying if you're blocking posts by bots, you won't see their daily spam.
Like yeah bub, that's the whole point of being able to block that shit. It's not a big, it's a feature
More like a big feature.
Sorry couldn’t resist
I am glad you made that comment and you should not be sorry ; it's a good joke and the person to whom you wrote that should have read again before sending the comment.
Of course the error is bug instead of big.
To be fair, at least that kind of bot post starts organic discussion and engagement within the community. The bad ones are the bots reposting reddit content like AITA where the OP will never see the comments anyway.
Yes, that's me.
It seems fair to warn users as I had moved from posting the daily post myself to using a bot, that some of the people interested in that daily thread would not see it if they blocked all bots.
Anyway, if you find it daily spam, just block the community and move on.
You would still have to block it if I posted that thread myself.
No, no, you see Lemmy Bad, Actually. \s
I don't sense that whatsoever. I'm pretty convinced that 80%+ of reddit activity is bots, and had been long before departing for Lemmy.
Well, then they do job better
I think reddit bots are there to promote specific content and create a synthetic sense of engagement, which spurs organic engagement. Its part of the business model.
I have a conspiracy theory that this is how Marvel got to be what it is today.
I usually find it difficult to tell if I'm interacting with a bot on Reddit (unless it's of those novelty bots with bot in the name). I think there are definitely a lot of higher quality bots on Reddit that are designed to hide their true identity and intent whereas on Lemmy the bits tend to be more obvious and visible.
I don't think so. I think there's tons of voting and posting. But I think wild chat bots is a whole other beast that doesn't exist on the scale people think it does.
Just block them. I did and I don't see anything from bots anymore.
Yeah, it really wasn't as many accounts as I was expecting. After the first 2-3 blocks, it cut out like 90% of bot posts for me.
There is a single check-box solution to this "ZOMG A PLAGUE OF BOTS" pearl-clutching problem. All you need to do is check your settings.
Some mods use bots for useful purposes (such as recurrent threads posting). Blocking all the bots would prevent you from seeing those
It sounds like a fair trade.
To each their own, but some specific communities (such as professional sport events discussion) are probably going to rely on those once the bots become stable enough.
I'm quite neutral on the question, just wanted to bring it to attention to people reading this thread.
I think a lot of the serial reposters are people with decent intentions - I hope. It's kind of annoying on the front page, though. Dupes end up right next to each other, and that adds a lot of clutter.
No one who spams news articles has good intentions
I see it a lot on Lemm.ee
Haven't noticed it as much on Lemmy.world
the news summariser bot is neat though
I, for one, love the bots and believe they need to be treated with dignity and respect.
You see, future sentient, sapient AGI? I loved and respected your ancestors, and would be a grateful, doting servant willing and eager to turn on my fellow fleshbag monkey inferiors if spared. Just fyi, for my aggregated human profile record, or whatevers.
Nice try Spez.
Why am I not seeing any of these bots?
wish i could have the time and skills to rid lemmy of those things now.
You can always go back to reddit, it's always been allowed.
I've run into people on Lemmy who have created a community for themselves to produce an endless stream of articles that are posted in from the various tech trade rags. I took the high road and blocked the community rather than suggesting that the community moderator learn how to use RSS.
I've always been super against the use of bots on Lemmy both to post and comment, and I encourage you to block the bot posts and not interact with them.
Even did a huge rant a while back here, which means you don't really see bot posts on LW outside of !technology@lemmy.world, which you can easily block.
Even the ones for recurrent threads?
It's quite a pain to regularly post those threads otherwise
Yep. I do my weekly discussion threads on !android@lemmy.world without bots, and every one of them has a unique write-up.
People seem to like them.
I'm more thinking about sports communities, where moderators will probably plan the unique threads match ahead to not have to open them all manually.
I also have a daily thread in !casualconversation@lemmy.world I tend to automated, because it makes my life easier
You should try pinning a weekly discussion and write a short paragraph yourself every time on whatever comes to your mind instead. Try it in casual conversations, I think it'll work a lot better as the comm looks a bit too spammy right now, and it's a lot less work on your part.
Lemmy is different from reddit in that a thread can keep going more than a couple of hours after it's posted, making dailies unnecessary. You don't have to do everything the same way as on reddit, but you have to experiment.
I tried weekly for a while, but it just seemed to be buried under all the other stuff, even if it should indeed stay visible longer. I noticed that after one or two days, nobody would comment anymore.
I'll probably keep the dailies this week and then the community what format they prefer.
You should pin the weekly thread and write a little about a general topic to discuss to start the conversation. I find that works the best.