this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023

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Why are there so many bots all lemmy? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Most postings on lemmy are simply Reddit “archive” bots. Why is this so prevalent?

all 37 comments

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Blocking the bots has really gone a long way to make my Lemmy experience more enjoyable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Is it a matter of simply blocking the users that are bots?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

Yeah that's what I've been doing

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

Blocking is good option to improve individual experience, but a flood of low effort, spammy content from bots makes a very bad first impression on newcomers.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I just blocked the ones doing the reddit archiving. If a bot is annoying you just block it!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Theres an option in your profile settings to hide bot accounts

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In what client? I’m on Memmy and there doesn’t seem to exist such an option

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You’re double posting.

Its not in memmy its via the lemmy web ui

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Double posting??? And thanks btw

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Im guessing its the memmy bug where it doesn’t seem to post so you hit submit again and then both go through

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Oh crap, well thanks!

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 years ago

In what client? I’m on Memmy and there doesn’t seem to exist such an option

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Is it a matter of simply blocking the users that are bots?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Because people think “content” is what makes this kind of site great. In reality it’s discussion.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

To be fair, it's both. There is no discussion without content, so having some content helps to kickstart discussion. But excessive botspam just makes it look even emptier.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes you need content, but without the discussion the content is just a firehose of random garbage.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

...and without content, there isn't any discussion to start with.

like i said, i agree that healthy discussion is the best, but we need something to kickstart it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Ofc! It’s what made the platform i Refuse Entusiastically During Dis Intervention To Discuss so great!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Luckily there are a lot more users than there were a couple of weeks ago.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If anything is going to kill lemmy it will be these low effort content bots. Just post after post of either reddit reposts no one is replying to or random news links no one is replying to. When I scroll lemmy at night before bed 90% of the content is garbage with no comments posted to it.

It makes me want to go back to reddit in spite of it all.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

ee is trying to fix that, we had a thread about bot infestations. We put rules in place for bot overrunning of feeds

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lemmit is a scourge. They claim to be trying to "bootstrap" Lemmy by providing content but so much of it is questions with no responses (on Lemmy) or Imgur links to deleted images.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I honestly wish the major instances would ban repost bots. We don't need to literally copy Reddit to Lemmy. It's just polluting it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don’t see the point in most. Like memes and news maybe but so many posts are meant to drive discussion or is a question

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Day or two a go while browsing feed set to sort all and new, i saw there was a bot posting same news article three different communities, all different instances, and a another bot posting the same exact news article fourth time on the same community that allready posted.

I dont think it is necessary from bot to post same content on multiple communities.

[+] [email protected] -10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

We're trying to build communities. A good way to do it is to have bots post content, so there's stuff to see on our feeds.

It's always a balancing act that doesn't work for everybody. But the beauty here is that each individual can curate their own feed.

Edit: I misspoke, I'm not someone who actively uses of promotes bot use. I just remember people talking about this discussion previously and this was a justification used. OP asked a question, I provided an answer. It's not MY answer, but it's still one. Don't shoot the messenger.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It rubs me the wrong way tbh, because it doesn’t feel authentic at all

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago

+1 I Have blocked a good number of these.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

That's entirely understandable. That's the thing, though. It's hard to have a community grow on its own, organically, in these times. A large majority of users are rather passive, they don't actively contribute by posting or commenting so much. If they don't get enough content on a topic/community, they'll forget it exists.

So, to build a community, you get a bot to "seed" it with content until enough people know it exists and contribute stuff themselves.

It's weird and fucked and, unfortunately, it's the world we live in now.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I disagree, it just leads to spam and people blocking the bots, and therefore the communities. I think things will grow organically at whatever speed. People have to realise this isn't Reddit, and likely won't ever be as big, and that it's good that it won't be.

[–] ImplyingImplications 9 points 2 years ago

I disagree, it just leads to spam and people blocking the bots, and therefore the communities.

Yes, I've blocked a number of start up communities because they've flooded my feed with posts. Some of them even seemed interesting and I subscribed...only to immediately unsubscribe and block after seeing it has 10 posts an hour with 0 engagement.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think things will grow organically at whatever speed.

No it won't. Social networks require a critical mass to get started. It's why platforms like Uber throw money at drivers and consumers at the start - without a critical mass, it won't work. Spez and his team had conversations with each other using sock puppet accounts during the early days of Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Fair enough, I feel that there are enough people on Lemmy now that it is past the getting started phase though. If new people come on and see bot after bot I feel that it will be a worse experience than having fewer communities with organic engagement.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

I think this is disingenuous at best. You are creating a ton of content no one cares about and the result is that people are not only blocking the bot but also blocking the bot community. So if you are doing this to "create a community" the result, from my perspective, is that you are aborting the community before it ever gets a chance to start. I know that I wont subscribe to a bot community nor will I in the future go back and check out those communities to see if they are still bots. They are just dead to me at that point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I block every bot and every bot spam community. We don't need fake shit here. This isn't Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I think the effect here is more good than bad. Nobody wants to post to a community that's just bot spam. You're trying to skip the small community phase in favor of faking being a previous community with bots, but that phase is essential for community development and cohesion.