Ok, imagine this, you are on reddit (say, a slow hobby focused subreddit), everybody there is nice and knowledgeable, and one day, the mods there announced that since there is not enough “content” on the sub, they are going to use a bot to repost content from 9gag in order to “bolster engagement” and “grow the community”.
How would you feel about that?
If you feel upset and grossed out, you’re exactly right.
I don’t think there is a single non-spam subreddit where that kind of behavior would be tolerated without being called out for blatant mod abuse. No community in the world would ever tolerate automated reposting from another website, not reddit, not 4chan, not any forums of any size, even 9gag, I repeat, BLOODY 9GAG, was tired of being called out for reddit reposting and started making original content.
So why exactly should this kind of behavior be tolerated here?
Now, I’m sure some mods here did it with good intentions, but again, the road to the hell that is modern reddit is PAVED with good intentions. Content for the sake of content is bad, and we already knew it is bad, which is why Gallowboob was so thoroughly disliked, he generates “”“”““content””“”“”, in other words, spam that drowns out the normal people who can’t compete with a professional marketer, much less a bot, which is exactly the reason why “Just block the bots” doesn’t work, because it ruins the genuine engagements on a forum by drawing people to the lowest common denominator of “”“”“”“”“”“content”“”“”“”“”“”“”.
Reddit, over the years, has turned into a platform for “bolstering engagement” for advertisers, and it does that by algorithmically stoking conflicts between people so they would endlessly argue and doomscroll. Why would we want that here? Now, I think most of us like the Lemmy/kbin right now because of the lack of bots here, and the conversations happen naturally and genuinely. I’ve even seen people here try to engage the bots, not realizing that they would never get a response out of them, because it felt normal to just talk about things.
(Eat your robot hearts out, @L4s and @BotIt)
Suppose then, if this repost bot situation was indeed temporary, why would people want to make original content if they are just going to be drowned out by bots? What’s to stop someone from turning on bots from /r/dankmemes or /r/tiktokcringe? The bots are not members of the community, because they are not people (save the /r/botsright joke for more appropriate times), and over time, we will just become dependent on the bots hosing us down directly from that burning dumpster fire and become doomscrolling addicts again.
That’s the number two lesson from the failure of Voat: that repost bots, like hate, should also not be tolerated, and Reddit will never die if we keep feeding it.
Everybody here are still currently all “Oh fuck reddit, fuck spez, I deleted my reddit account and all of my comments and will never go back again”, but after finally getting away from reddit, why are you so insistent on trying to turn this place back to the worst part of reddit again?
And if the reddit migration on July 1st does indeed occur, do you think they would be ecstatic to see a place that’s mostly reddit reposts, but with less “”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“content”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”? If they wanted reddit, why wouldn’t they just go back to reddit?
When will we finally be rid of reddit, if we are the ones keeping it on life support?
I will say, if I sound frustrated, it’s because I am frustrated, because I actually can’t believe I even had to say this. Judging from the comments on this thread yesterday, I think a majority of people here would agree with me. We have something good here, and I’d like to keep it that way a bit longer.
Now, I very much appreciate that our admins here at lemmy.world and their amazing job of preemptively blocking suspicious bot infested instances, so I’m asking politely for @ruud, @Antik and the rest of our good admin team here to put their foot down on not allowing reddit repost spambots and nip this problem in the bud before it takes root, so I can get back to shitposting in peace.
Be better than reddit.
Burn reddit down.
I agree. Bots should only be allowed if they show exceptional utility to the community.
Yeah, nobody really needs a bot that counts how many times you say “this” or smugly correcting your grammar. It was so awful there at reddit.
BEEP BOOP
Hello there, I’m amicable-bot!
You just did a heckin no no by using the word “sm*g”.
It’s important to remember that the use of language like this can be demeaning to others.
You’re welcome for the helpful information, and have a great day!
BEEP BOOP
I think a vein popped on my head just from reading that.
Bad bot
I hated the grammar correcting bots, because I often misspell things due to being dyslexic. Or I used the wrong words, because I’d be trying to write in a language that wasn’t my first one. It got old reaaaal fast.
I hated them because 99% of the time they were jaw-droppingly wrong.
One of the frequently wrong ones used to give snarky replies if you opted out, too. Whoever wrote it must be insufferable.
I can’t imagine how deflating it would be to write a decent reply or comment onto a post, logging in an hour or so later to see a reply for you to then go to read it and it’s nothing but a bot saying “YoU sHoUlD hAvE uSeD YoU’rE nOt YoUR” or some shit.
Didn’t ever like them but you’ve made me hate them even more.
Oh yeah, it was seriously terrible. I’d log off for the rest of the day sometimes, because I’d be having a decent conversation and then get some stupid bot reply that was a reminder of the fact that I have a disability that I have no control over. It really wears on you after a while, not to mention the people who I’d be having a debate with in comments and instead of focusing on what I was trying to say, they’d focus on my grammar mistakes, but that’s another issue entirely. It’s also completely demoralising when I’m trying my very best to communicate and learn, and then you’re just hit with rude people and condescending bots.
I hated them too. It’s rude and unpleasant to interrupt a conversation between other people so you can correct their grammar.
And if we let them, they’ll turn us rude and hateful too.
Hi! For clarity, consider rephrasing the sentence in order to avoid the use of the indeterminate second-person pronoun! Try: “Interrupting a conversation between other people in order to correct their grammar is rude and unpleasant.”
(Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)
I think it adds character. I didnt like when they were global, but when they hung around certain subreddits it gave flavor to the place
Limited and local are the keywords here though
I see. The difficulty is keeping them limited and local.
Besides, wouldn’t you want to be the one to make the funny comment instead of a bot?
I mean, keeping them local is easy - if anything much easier. I like the idea of summoning them, maybe a mod summoning and banishing them to have them watch a community
And bots shouldn’t be acting like humans, they should be doing things only they could or should do. Like haiku bot, n-word bot, things like tallying votes for AITA, or even tracking nominations and building best of communities
They were misused on Reddit, but we can do more with them here. Probably starting a goodbot that messages admins so they can stay ahead of the inevitable bot explosion