I do like that posters who seem ro manually post filter the stuff from other sites which in my opinion increases the average quality of posts. Reddit is a tidal wave with a few gems. The fediverse is mostly the gems, like using cheesecloth in a strainer.
A day ago he reposted a meme about a doctor raping a woman because her credit card was declined and she couldnt pay for care.
Thats VILE.
In addition to the slimy pretending that his posts are organic traffic by not just marking his account as a bot, he is also importing the culture of casual sexism from reddit to the threadiverse.
The solution is for all these people complaining to post new, original content every day and give lots of engagement with each one. Since that takes a shit ton of effort and most people work and have lives outside of the internet, they're unwilling to do that because it would be a full time job, but they'll still complain about it and demand that someone else fix it for them.
I don't expect it from everyone every day. You just need a few people at a time.
Better ways to search for or pay attention to niche communities might help too. Scaled seems like its supposed to attempt to give them more focus but I don't think it works very well when I have tried it. Problem is if I sub to 50 tiny communities and 1 popular one, my subscribed feed is dominated by the popular one and anything else will be drowned out.
I'll drop everything and come to piefed right now. On god.
Question though: How or will you differentiate between people who are scheduling mass posts from reddit from people who just saved memes that also happened to be there?
I wouldn't like a blanket rule like that. I think that dropdown menu in the screenshot is perfect. Especially if paired with a toggle in the community settings that lets the mods ban posts from them entirely.
Isn't that just a client side filter, would be up to whoever runs the community/instance rules for handling bot accounts, and if they feel the accounts should be banned.
Yes the screenshot is just the user settings. Admins are going to have to manually designate accounts as reposters because I haven't even tried to make an automated detection. That would be very hard to get right.
It's manually-applied and reversible. I can't reliably code an automatic reposter detection system because they're all different. It's going to have to be a human judgement.
Similar to labelling things as AI-generated or NSFW - being a reposter isn't necessarily bad. It just means that people who don't mind whether they see it can do so and those who don't want to can avoid it, without the conflict that ensues when people with different needs and tastes are forced to share space.
Individuals, yeah. Instance admins are going to need to designate reposters if they refuse to self-designate (and Lemmy doesn't have functionality for them to do that, except as a bot) and then it's up to individuals to decide whether they filter out reposters or not.
All of those posts are heavily upvoted and have multiple comments though? Accreditation, etc. are all valid critiques, but I genuinely don't understand why so many people care about the provenance of posts.
I think that's a bad analogy for a few reasons. First, all the examples you've posted are specifically meme template-friendly subs, which makes sense since they're inherently easy to repost. I don't think think a baking community would have that problem. But even if it did, you could just start a new baking community that bans reposts? Given how unpopular repost bots are, I assume your anti-repost baking community would be more popular than the hypothetical pro-repost baking community that your posts are buried in. Assuming that repost bots are drowning out more organic content, which prima facie doesn't seem to be the case in either community you screenshotted as examples. Both seem like pretty solid examples of their being no other content.
Structurally speaking, up and down votes should ideally, roughly sort posts by quality. A post being buried (unpopular) in a community isn't necessarily a bad thing.
If fear of not getting enough internet points is what's keeping someone from posting, that's more on them.
You're not battling anyone for engagement because you're not posting anything yourself. All you can offer is hyptheticals with no supporting evidence.
Why don't you go hang out in /askscience or /askhistorians with Portnou if you want all organic content. He and his multiple personalities are posting there dozens of times per day and those communities are just popping off with content and activity.
kinda wierd for someone with a yr history that only posted a few things early on and then a few more 3 months ago who then also is on so unoften he does not recognize your handle to make this statement about your user. had to tag that.
Upset that your daily screenshots of the mod log aren't getting much engagement? Perhaps you're jealous that your reposts from /r/news aren't getting as much traction as time2lose's reposts? What engagement are you generating other than your current crusade against this specific user?
Edit: its also interesting that not only have you started a crusade against users for posting content that you don't agree with (even though you don't hold yourself to the same standard as evidenced by all your own reposts), but you've also started a community for you to start a crusade against mods for making decisions that you don't agree with. There seems to be a pattern here where everything revolves around you and everyone needing to meet your demands.
Does blocking not work? I'm not the biggest fan of repost bots myself, but they exist for a specific purpose. There are times when you have to take efforts to curate your own experience, also.
Right, but the new-person-experience will royally suck because they don't come pre-blocked. I actively try not to block accounts, to keep the view as default as possible.
Yeah, that's true. Thinking about it more 'just block them' only really works if they aren't most of the platform. I make most of my posts to encourage discussion, and I don't see repost bots doing much to that end.
So I'm not looking for a fight, but can we have a friendly talk about the value of repost bots in the context of this medium? I just feel like yapping, so feel free to ignore if no.
Lemmy shares a format with Reddit - they're feed aggregators. Their value proposition is having everything in one place so a community can pass judgment on it all. That's why people hate reposts and bad faith actors, adverse or opaque sorting algorithms, and agenda-driven moderators - they directly devalue the medium. We tend to like original content, genuine sentiments and human connections, and relevant posts because those directly support the inherent value of a feed aggregator.
I'm not convinced either way about repost bots, yet. They're clearly not genuine or original, and too many of them will tend to obscure - you know what? I got there in the end I see it now.
I could still see the value in a carefully chosen, rate-limited bot that reposts with the blessing of the moderators, but the rate and curation are important, and the rate has to take into account the number of other communities using them versus the number of active users, so it's not trivial to decide what the right amount would be.
Repost bots discourage new users and kill engagement.
Suppose you're into trampolines but there's no community for that here. You create one, and to kick start it you get a repost bot to repost from the other place.
Over the coming weeks a few fediverse users see your community but see that they're all reposts with no comments, there's nothing to really engage with there, so no one does.
Next month someone signs up to the fediverse and joins a few special interest communities. /c/sports, /c/gymnastics, and /c/trampolines. There might actually be real posts and discussions in /c/sports, but that new users feed is overrun with reposts in /c/trampolines. It's a very clear signal that there's no content here, all the content is on reddit.
If you actually want a community, then you can read about trampolines on the other site, and manually repost things yourself as a human.
Quality of engagement is important, you're right. By the time I'd written everything out I'd already mostly thought myself almost all the way to being against bots, but this makes sense. Taking your position, bots gotta go.
I guess I'm in the extreme minority, but like... All the posts in OP are heavily upvoted and spawned comments. That's... good? I don't see why people care more about where a post comes from than the fact that large stretches of the Threadiverse are barren and reposts are the only content available.
Sanitation is my most upvoted Threadiverse poster, and I'd rather have their content than nothing. Which, largely, is the alternative.
That's what was giving me so much uncertainty in either direction, there's always some gulf between how people act and what they say they want. You have to come at it not just from a metrics angle, but with a little wisdom as well. I think sure, people upvote bots like crazy and that's probably why Reddit doesn't get rid of them because it helps their metrics. We don't rely on that financial model, and bots probably do stifle genuine discussion to some degree by sheer noise:signal. I could be swayed still, but I'd need to see solid evidence to show that bots actually help communities thrive. It's probably highly contextual as well, some types of !c probably benefit from bots more than others would, but any bots will tend to dominate an /all feed.
Unfortunately they don't create the same engagement as a natural post. No one wants to comment on a wall of bot posts with no human involved. All it does is kill actual community engagement. Lemmy and reddit are not just link aggregators, they are forums for discussion, with humans.
The main issue for small subs can be solved with pinned threads.
The whole, where do I go to eat this here or what restaurant is good for this food or who does this kind of work locally or look at what I ate at so and so restaurant and you probably can imagine the theme here. Put into one post and ban whoever advertises. No need to repost pinned threads.
FINNISH HYMN
I think negative interaction is a good start. There's a reason people get their posts deleted, shadow banned, or just banned.
Pinned threads solve for perpetual topics within (specific) communities sure, but the main area where too many repost bots will do the most harm if left unchecked is when cruising all or local. People who sort by new are the lifeblood of a feed's (federated) community, and if there's not enough of them to boost the most valuable signals, the (federated) community won't grow and might even shrink.
Looking at this specific accounts history it seems as if its a regular poster (with a bit controverse ethics about content creation if you will) and as if OP has just labeled the account to be a bot.
Time2lose is almost definitely u/sanitation after he got torn apart in his "everyone who doesn't like my repost bot is wrong" post. They're using the same software that trunctates post titles. They're both clearly Russian and have made some anti-ukraine comments.
And not to get all conspiratorial but it is a biiit suspicious that a Russian bot is spamming tabloids to the US news communities when we're approaching an important election. At the very least, it's annoying as fuck.
I don't think the user you're talking about in the top post is the same, though. Different posting styles, totally different content. I also don't think it's the same person as the (thankfully dead) SteamAndEpic account, either, though that one was also Russian. Just a lazy spammer this time.
Wholly agreed with your conclusion, though.
[Edit] I also don't think ooli is the same user as oldman for similar reasons
I like to frequent HackerNews for some of the discussions there, but... my god, the front page just turns me off. I do a quick glance, see if anything isn't some not-so-subtly covert advert for an LLM product, and just navigate away.
I'd love a lemmy client that next to a username, it gives their post to comment ratio. That tends to give me a solid feel. If they don't comment on their own posts ever, then they are not here to discuss.
You're right, that'd be a really useful heuristic. I comment way more than I post, but whenever I do post, I always make sure to reply to at least a few of the comments people leave. It feels almost like a duty, and I'd feel bad if I didn't at least try.
It is frustrating for sure. I do appreciate the higher signal to noise ratio in the fediverse and also that it is decentralized, I think it makes for a better experience overall.
as soon as they fully force the logins, and if on mobile using thier apps is when people star leaving in droves. but people are addicted to certain sub like sports.
I've run this experiment before. ~90% of accounts sampled on the top 20 /r/all with not prior post history before 2-3 months got converted to cryptocurrency spam bots. Some of the remainder were porn spam. A few deleted accounts. A few seemingly real people. This was during the heights of cryptocurrency mania. Believe me or don't. I can't be assed with source dropping internet-pseud wankery.
Bot deception tactics have certainly changed since the prevalence of LLMs. I haven't been paying attention to what the patterns have shifted to. Before these times, it was easily spotted because they were relatively simple.
I believe earlier this year someone on /r/theoryofreddit spotted closed networks of subreddits where bots engage with each other. Those are used to farm accounts on a massive scale.
Does blocking not work? I'm not the biggest fan of repost bots myself, but they exist for a specific purpose (however tenuous their ability to achieve it may be.)
He's skating by on it being "technically allowed". Also created his own comm to do it after getting shouted out of most places. And he's making new alts every week. It's going to take having instance owners on board with spacing the jackass
Yeah I know what job it does I'm more asking why does a bot the repost even exists (yes to repost) Idk just never seen a repost bot before just crazy how out of handle everything on the internet is now days (is there anything we can do) or do we just sit and watch the world burn??
Some bots were put into place when Lemmy started getting lots more traffic to try and help fill content, since not having a full Fediverse to jump to from Reddit was off putting to some. An attempt at retaining users, basically. What I don't like about some of them is how they'll dump the link as if it's content, but it's only a link back to Reddit, and not nearly the same as someone actually posting something here and discussing it. They still can spark something, if people don't realize it's just a bot. Don't know what ratio posting is these days of bot vs actual person, or even if you could tell a lot of them apart sometimes.
Part of the issue IMO is that so many of our Lemmy communities are just copies of subreddits. The bot creators see a subreddit shaped hole so of course they want to fuck it. Having communities with new original themes might help deter the bots, and the natural content might be more interesting too!
Good. Lemmy needs more content. I hate that I miss out on so much by being here, but I can't go back to reddit. Therefore I welcome the bots with open arms.
But reddit rejects people for utter nonsense reasons. If you just use it enough you'll eventually stumble into something that irks the wrong admin or gets caught by their word filter. So the "Reddit rejected" set is really just a random sampling of power users. Of that set, the hateful degenerates are driven towards X imo.
Nothing would surprise me at this point, Reddit builds a platform that lets you get attached to your account & community and then takes it away without even having a human look at the ban. Total BS
No, by "I can't", I mean that I don't want to go back to reddit. Dodging a ban is easy, but fuck reddit. I can't stand all the low IQ MAGA-types and general American stupidity there. At least Lemmy's conservatives have enough brain cells firing that you can have a proper debate with them...
No, just the good reddit content, lol
Like what is shown in OP's screenshot. Niche content too, 'cause that pretty much doesn't exist here. We desperately need it.
I'm ok with that if it's on a separate instance that's easy to block/hide (which has been happening already). Where I take issue is bots taking over communities where humans post.
As long as the bot is allowed to be there it's not a problem it's not ideal obviously. It should be considered if it is actually a good idea will the community ever develop if it is just already 100% reddit reposts?
I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. Hopefully the community existing and having regular posts increases the odds of user interaction like comments and votes, which would naturally lead to more and more posts from actual members. Hopefully whoever is running that bot can wind it down while actual engagement ramps up.
All default subreddits are karma farms because bots need to farm certain karma level and account age before they can be used for propaganda and/or astroturfing.
I mean I'm kind of ok with that, I just don't want to use reddit. Or am allowed to. Then again reddit is a corporate cesspit so that will start spilling over...
It was only a matter of time before they found a way to get rid of the mods. They were always too much of a variable that the company could not control.
If they don’t use reddit how do they know is a repost?
Why would they care? If it's useful stuff getting posted that's okay. If it's just a spammer flooding everything with low quality stuff treat them accordingly. The fact that the same posts exist on reddit is entirely irrelevant.
Because the culture is different and the crossposts are indiscriminate. A day ago he crossposted a meme about a woman being raped by her doctor after her credit card was declined, so she couldnt afford care.
Also because its disingenuous to crosspost things like "I had this experience!" without labeling it and have people engage with you earnestly because theyre here to be social, not knowing the title of the post is just an outright lie. That doesnt sit well to a lot of people and makes this space feel less human and sincere- one of the most meaningful attributes of the fediverse if you ask me.
Given that I find the culture of reddit miserable and the culture of the threadiverse generally much more human, social, and pleasant (albeit with the added flavor of the specific social dysfunction of chronically online leftists) I can't say I agree
And if the implication of your comment (totally fine if its not and you mean the point more broadly, subtext is hard over the internet) is that I'm being weirdly entitled and aggressive because I take issue with jokes about being raped because you can't afford medical care, I think that reflects a lot more poorly on you than on any aggressive or entitled vibes I may be giving
Ah lol, my bad. Yeah I haven't seen much of it but most of the sloppers and slopper instances have me blocked so maybe thats why. Or maybe nobody on my instance follows to any of the affected feeds.
I wish I could block it so people wanting thoughtless content could mindlessly upvote this content and the rest of us could enjoy this platform for what it is.
People whined and cried about the lack of content on Lemmy but never posted anything (including me btw). Now we're going to whine and cry because bots are solving that problem?
Lemmy is basically identical to reddit in so many ways, and it looks like incessantly whiny commenters is one of them. The bots keep getting engagement from users so all this complaining means nothing.
Bots are not "solving that problem" because the lack of posts was never really the problem in the first place. The problem was lack of anything to engage with. Bot posts do nothing for engagement. Replying to their posts is just talking into the wind.
We to want to have conversations with real people; to know that when we insult the poster's mother that we're causing real, lasting harm to a flesh and blood person.
If that were true, there wasn't a lack of anything to engage to begin with. Therefore your premise must be wrong. I like the bots, they should be marked as a bot and you should just ban them on a personal and sub level. Then all of you annoyed by them just ignore them and everyone else sees content they might engage with, without the need for reddit.
They provide more low quality reddit slop. I would actually like to see more text based discussions rather than endless memes. Or a picture of something you have made and a discussion about it.
I think its in DIY someone has been posting a few times about making various things from cardboard and glue. More stuff like that!
I looked at a few of the posts from the screen shot and most of that "engagement" is people warning other people that it's bot posted content, or pointing out reposted Reddit memes. I don't consider that real engagement. There are a few that seen to have created real discussion, but the majority of the posts are noise.
Is everything ok? You seem to be going through something here. Just know we're here for you if you decide you need help.
Ohh, and my mom says "hi" and wants to know when you can come over again. She said you were the best she's ever had. Just between you and me, she really needs this right now after gaining all that weight and the incident with her face 👍
Edit 2: LOL I guess I stuck a nerve. I can't believe I'm the only one who does this! But apparently I'm the weird one... 😅
Edit 3: Seriously I do not understand why everyone is so upset. I saw a problem, and offered a fix. Fuck me for trying to help people, I guess...
Holy shit, dude, I can't even tell what this post is about because your UI is blown up way too big and it's distracting me!
Please, allow me to show you how to fix this: Go into Developer Options, and then do a search for "minimum width" (sometimes it's called "smallest width", depending on the device), and increase that number until you can actually fit a decent amount of content on the screen. A setting around 450-550dp works best on most screens.
Edit: When configured properly, your UI will look like this. Please note all the extra room for activities! I've got nearly double the amount of screen real estate, compared to what you're looking at!
Hell yeah! Whats the point in having ~2k resolution if everything in the UI gets blown up bigger than it was in the days of 640x480? Do your letters look that much smoother? Do you like only being able to fit a single sentence on screen at a time? If I'm paying for that screen real estate, I want to use it all!
That's what I'm saying!!! Thank you; I thought I was going crazy. I can't believe my fellow Lemmings are this against changing your UI scaling to actually match the screen you have...
Dude I'm not the one who started with the insults. If you roast me, I roast you back. If you're nice, I'm nice back. Golden rule.
I said nothing to inspire that "stupid waste of time" comment. I don't even understand why people are so heated about this when I was just trying to help... Are y'all upset because I'm easily excitable? My bad! That's just how I am!
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Please, for my mental health: point out WHERE I was being an asshole in my original comment! I legitimately DO NOT see it! I was just trying to HELP!!!
246 replies
Hello again, I see we're both annoyed by the same person still
Yeah this shit is getting out of hand.
Already blocked the ass
What's the issue if you can just block them and not have to deal with them?
The principle. Repost bots ruined Reddit and we don't want them here
Yep. I see this all over the new feed.
It's stupid just reposting 100% from another place. If I wanted that, I'd just go there.
I do like that posters who seem ro manually post filter the stuff from other sites which in my opinion increases the average quality of posts. Reddit is a tidal wave with a few gems. The fediverse is mostly the gems, like using cheesecloth in a strainer.
You'd go to reddit?
I would if I wanted to, but I don't so I won't.
A day ago he reposted a meme about a doctor raping a woman because her credit card was declined and she couldnt pay for care.
Thats VILE.
In addition to the slimy pretending that his posts are organic traffic by not just marking his account as a bot, he is also importing the culture of casual sexism from reddit to the threadiverse.
He's like 14 or at least has the brain of one. I hate the sexist shit he always posts. Let's keep 4chan shit like that on 4chan
📡📡📡 Lazy-ass poster with dumb emoji titles
Is that the incel on shit posting?
Yeah, all the gender wars and incel garbage is pretty much just him
https://sh.itjust.works/post/67242461 The post I was referring to
Thank you SMCF for calling them out so I can tag them and move on
They’ll make two new accounts by next week so good luck.
Oh, I see I cut the head off of a Hydra.
So the solution is to subscribe to good communities or block bad ones.
The solution is for all these people complaining to post new, original content every day and give lots of engagement with each one. Since that takes a shit ton of effort and most people work and have lives outside of the internet, they're unwilling to do that because it would be a full time job, but they'll still complain about it and demand that someone else fix it for them.
I don't expect it from everyone every day. You just need a few people at a time.
Better ways to search for or pay attention to niche communities might help too. Scaled seems like its supposed to attempt to give them more focus but I don't think it works very well when I have tried it. Problem is if I sub to 50 tiny communities and 1 popular one, my subscribed feed is dominated by the popular one and anything else will be drowned out.
Working on it!
I'll drop everything and come to piefed right now. On god.
Question though: How or will you differentiate between people who are scheduling mass posts from reddit from people who just saved memes that also happened to be there?
I hate the reddit reposts where the only interaction is on reddit .. that defeats the point of lemmy\fediverse?
If you can detect it, you could auto ban them, no?
I think a rule against serial reposting would be fine and, probably, popular.
I wouldn't like a blanket rule like that. I think that dropdown menu in the screenshot is perfect. Especially if paired with a toggle in the community settings that lets the mods ban posts from them entirely.
Isn't that just a client side filter, would be up to whoever runs the community/instance rules for handling bot accounts, and if they feel the accounts should be banned.
Yes the screenshot is just the user settings. Admins are going to have to manually designate accounts as reposters because I haven't even tried to make an automated detection. That would be very hard to get right.
How is this any different to a user blocking them directly? What a useless feature.
Edit: Really? Trying to mark me as a bot or possibly dox my IP by visiting your link because I thought it was a bad idea?
Awesome, thanks so much!
And what happens when you get this detection wrong?
It's manually-applied and reversible. I can't reliably code an automatic reposter detection system because they're all different. It's going to have to be a human judgement.
Similar to labelling things as AI-generated or NSFW - being a reposter isn't necessarily bad. It just means that people who don't mind whether they see it can do so and those who don't want to can avoid it, without the conflict that ensues when people with different needs and tastes are forced to share space.
And you’re leaving this up to individuals, not your judgement, right? If so, good idea. If not, eww.
Individuals, yeah. Instance admins are going to need to designate reposters if they refuse to self-designate (and Lemmy doesn't have functionality for them to do that, except as a bot) and then it's up to individuals to decide whether they filter out reposters or not.
Oh, so you’re leaving the labeling to instance admins, not individuals. That’s problematic, but you do you.
The label doesn't do anything until individuals opt in to filtering based on it.
We can't leave it to the reposters to self-identify because
Lemmy does not have the functionality to do that and
reposters are deceptive and sneaky
Is there a way to tell repost rates for today vs yesterday?
Not yet, this functionality isn't running on a live server.
I hate all of them, but I hate the ones not marked as bots more than those that are marked.
The knights of new were what made reddit good, where are they
I'm out here in New/ 1hr / all fighting for my fucking life
🫡
We're still here, but! do we have good taste?
The worst part is the lack of transparency and credit to the actual authors. Many of the reposts are personal to the OOP, and it feels extra scummy.
All of those posts are heavily upvoted and have multiple comments though? Accreditation, etc. are all valid critiques, but I genuinely don't understand why so many people care about the provenance of posts.
I post pictures of bread I bake and I’m on the upper lower middle side of mid for my baking skills.
If someone picks the best bread on a subreddit with a million members my posts will be buried instantly so what’s the point in adding real content?
I think that's a bad analogy for a few reasons. First, all the examples you've posted are specifically meme template-friendly subs, which makes sense since they're inherently easy to repost. I don't think think a baking community would have that problem. But even if it did, you could just start a new baking community that bans reposts? Given how unpopular repost bots are, I assume your anti-repost baking community would be more popular than the hypothetical pro-repost baking community that your posts are buried in. Assuming that repost bots are drowning out more organic content, which prima facie doesn't seem to be the case in either community you screenshotted as examples. Both seem like pretty solid examples of their being no other content.
Structurally speaking, up and down votes should ideally, roughly sort posts by quality. A post being buried (unpopular) in a community isn't necessarily a bad thing.
If fear of not getting enough internet points is what's keeping someone from posting, that's more on them.
If I wanted to battle bots for engagement I’d be on reddit.
You're not battling anyone for engagement because you're not posting anything yourself. All you can offer is hyptheticals with no supporting evidence.
Why don't you go hang out in /askscience or /askhistorians with Portnou if you want all organic content. He and his multiple personalities are posting there dozens of times per day and those communities are just popping off with content and activity.
kinda wierd for someone with a yr history that only posted a few things early on and then a few more 3 months ago who then also is on so unoften he does not recognize your handle to make this statement about your user. had to tag that.
Upset that your daily screenshots of the mod log aren't getting much engagement? Perhaps you're jealous that your reposts from /r/news aren't getting as much traction as time2lose's reposts? What engagement are you generating other than your current crusade against this specific user?
Edit: its also interesting that not only have you started a crusade against users for posting content that you don't agree with (even though you don't hold yourself to the same standard as evidenced by all your own reposts), but you've also started a community for you to start a crusade against mods for making decisions that you don't agree with. There seems to be a pattern here where everything revolves around you and everyone needing to meet your demands.
Um... what?
That's a very fancy way of saying, "I bake the middest of mid bread." And I approve
The canary sings despite the cage. You don't have to sing to anyone except for when you want to
Does blocking not work? I'm not the biggest fan of repost bots myself, but they exist for a specific purpose. There are times when you have to take efforts to curate your own experience, also.
Not when they create new accounts constantly.
Oh yeah, no, that shouldn't happen.
Are they? I've been seeing that account posting for quite a while.
It's only a month old.
Feels more like 5 weeks.
I mean... 1 or 2 new accounts to block every month or so is hardly onerous. It's not like there's a new one every day. I don't get the vocal hate.
Right, but the new-person-experience will royally suck because they don't come pre-blocked. I actively try not to block accounts, to keep the view as default as possible.
Doesn't that assume that the new person will hate said content? I'm not taking that as a given myself, personally.
Fair point, but if there's no engagement on those posts, it's just a repost site like all the others, not a community.
They actively discourage new users, and engagement.
Yeah, that's true. Thinking about it more 'just block them' only really works if they aren't most of the platform. I make most of my posts to encourage discussion, and I don't see repost bots doing much to that end.
So I'm not looking for a fight, but can we have a friendly talk about the value of repost bots in the context of this medium? I just feel like yapping, so feel free to ignore if no.
Lemmy shares a format with Reddit - they're feed aggregators. Their value proposition is having everything in one place so a community can pass judgment on it all. That's why people hate reposts and bad faith actors, adverse or opaque sorting algorithms, and agenda-driven moderators - they directly devalue the medium. We tend to like original content, genuine sentiments and human connections, and relevant posts because those directly support the inherent value of a feed aggregator.
I'm not convinced either way about repost bots, yet. They're clearly not genuine or original, and too many of them will tend to obscure - you know what? I got there in the end I see it now.
I could still see the value in a carefully chosen, rate-limited bot that reposts with the blessing of the moderators, but the rate and curation are important, and the rate has to take into account the number of other communities using them versus the number of active users, so it's not trivial to decide what the right amount would be.
Repost bots discourage new users and kill engagement.
Suppose you're into trampolines but there's no community for that here. You create one, and to kick start it you get a repost bot to repost from the other place.
Over the coming weeks a few fediverse users see your community but see that they're all reposts with no comments, there's nothing to really engage with there, so no one does.
Next month someone signs up to the fediverse and joins a few special interest communities. /c/sports, /c/gymnastics, and /c/trampolines. There might actually be real posts and discussions in /c/sports, but that new users feed is overrun with reposts in /c/trampolines. It's a very clear signal that there's no content here, all the content is on reddit.
If you actually want a community, then you can read about trampolines on the other site, and manually repost things yourself as a human.
I think it can work for meme/shitpost type communities. But anything hobby related you really need to add something to prompt actual discussion.
Although if you have a bot doing it there isn't even any quality control.
Quality of engagement is important, you're right. By the time I'd written everything out I'd already mostly thought myself almost all the way to being against bots, but this makes sense. Taking your position, bots gotta go.
I guess I'm in the extreme minority, but like... All the posts in OP are heavily upvoted and spawned comments. That's... good? I don't see why people care more about where a post comes from than the fact that large stretches of the Threadiverse are barren and reposts are the only content available.
Sanitation is my most upvoted Threadiverse poster, and I'd rather have their content than nothing. Which, largely, is the alternative.
That's what was giving me so much uncertainty in either direction, there's always some gulf between how people act and what they say they want. You have to come at it not just from a metrics angle, but with a little wisdom as well. I think sure, people upvote bots like crazy and that's probably why Reddit doesn't get rid of them because it helps their metrics. We don't rely on that financial model, and bots probably do stifle genuine discussion to some degree by sheer noise:signal. I could be swayed still, but I'd need to see solid evidence to show that bots actually help communities thrive. It's probably highly contextual as well, some types of !c probably benefit from bots more than others would, but any bots will tend to dominate an /all feed.
Unfortunately they don't create the same engagement as a natural post. No one wants to comment on a wall of bot posts with no human involved. All it does is kill actual community engagement. Lemmy and reddit are not just link aggregators, they are forums for discussion, with humans.
FIGHT!
The main issue for small subs can be solved with pinned threads.
The whole, where do I go to eat this here or what restaurant is good for this food or who does this kind of work locally or look at what I ate at so and so restaurant and you probably can imagine the theme here. Put into one post and ban whoever advertises. No need to repost pinned threads.
FINNISH HYMN
I think negative interaction is a good start. There's a reason people get their posts deleted, shadow banned, or just banned.
Pinned threads solve for perpetual topics within (specific) communities sure, but the main area where too many repost bots will do the most harm if left unchecked is when cruising all or local. People who sort by new are the lifeblood of a feed's (federated) community, and if there's not enough of them to boost the most valuable signals, the (federated) community won't grow and might even shrink.
Personally I don't mind it too much, as long as
Looking at this specific accounts history it seems as if its a regular poster (with a bit controverse ethics about content creation if you will) and as if OP has just labeled the account to be a bot.
enshittification is 100% complete
This is a lemmy problem.
an internet problem
Time2lose is almost definitely u/sanitation after he got torn apart in his "everyone who doesn't like my repost bot is wrong" post. They're using the same software that trunctates post titles. They're both clearly Russian and have made some anti-ukraine comments.
And not to get all conspiratorial but it is a biiit suspicious that a Russian bot is spamming tabloids to the US news communities when we're approaching an important election. At the very least, it's annoying as fuck.
I don't think the user you're talking about in the top post is the same, though. Different posting styles, totally different content. I also don't think it's the same person as the (thankfully dead) SteamAndEpic account, either, though that one was also Russian. Just a lazy spammer this time.
Wholly agreed with your conclusion, though.
[Edit] I also don't think ooli is the same user as oldman for similar reasons
They're spending money on this pollution? What a loser
Probably my least favorite Lemmy user of all time. He truly believes he's not making this place worse.
They admit to running a bunch of ai powered accounts.
They definitely are, I just don't think oldmanalex is one of them. I could be wrong! I think all repost bots should get banned regardless
Check out the shitpost community on lemmy.today and let me know what you think.
I take it back, I saw them say Reddit agent lmao
I don't t know if I had seen them comment before
Follow-up thought: are they the same as the account posting "space news"? Equally dull content bot that usually doesn't link sources
It almost certainly is, Both Sanitation and Time2lose use the term "reddit agent" when people point out the automated reposts.
Wish they'd get IP banned. The second account exists to circumvent the community bans of the first
Can't wait for this to be reposted by the bots.
Slop in, slop out.
This AI thing might turn people off the Internet???
I like to frequent HackerNews for some of the discussions there, but... my god, the front page just turns me off. I do a quick glance, see if anything isn't some not-so-subtly covert advert for an LLM product, and just navigate away.
There are some alternative front pages (https://elijahpotter.dev/hnsansai) to make it bearable, but even then
I use a lot less internet than I used to because of it.
I'd love a lemmy client that next to a username, it gives their post to comment ratio. That tends to give me a solid feel. If they don't comment on their own posts ever, then they are not here to discuss.
You're right, that'd be a really useful heuristic. I comment way more than I post, but whenever I do post, I always make sure to reply to at least a few of the comments people leave. It feels almost like a duty, and I'd feel bad if I didn't at least try.
Yeah never been a fan of drive-by posting myself.
Truth be told, I was kind of hoping for a reply of "use this client, it does exactly that!" I'll let you know if someone gives me one.
That kind of check is easily evaded. Consider this bot posting automatic, what prevents it from replying to some comments by running it through AI?
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
Reddit is getting increasingly wonky. Picked up a ban for calling a racist a racist. I'm being hateful. Um, okay?
Don't call out that, cus that's just as hateful as hate! /s
Or something like that I presume.
It's not* even tolerance paradox shit (which only exists if you misunderstand what tolerance is), it's full blown normalization of biggoted behavior.
It is frustrating for sure. I do appreciate the higher signal to noise ratio in the fediverse and also that it is decentralized, I think it makes for a better experience overall.
Cheers to you. :)
And then they get mirrored to fediverse via bots...
But in the fediverse, you can just block the repost bots. Do it. It becomes so much better.
Of course, but the problem is that new users come here, see a sea of repost bots, and then conclude that its a ghost town.
People should have left reddit months ago
Years.
Same time sexy pig boy abandoned his users.
Longer. Haven't looked back
as soon as they fully force the logins, and if on mobile using thier apps is when people star leaving in droves. but people are addicted to certain sub like sports.
This is why we can block things
You do realize that 95% of all Reddit / Lemmy posts are all created by bots right?
Show your work
I've run this experiment before. ~90% of accounts sampled on the top 20 /r/all with not prior post history before 2-3 months got converted to cryptocurrency spam bots. Some of the remainder were porn spam. A few deleted accounts. A few seemingly real people. This was during the heights of cryptocurrency mania. Believe me or don't. I can't be assed with source dropping internet-pseud wankery.
Bot deception tactics have certainly changed since the prevalence of LLMs. I haven't been paying attention to what the patterns have shifted to. Before these times, it was easily spotted because they were relatively simple.
I believe earlier this year someone on /r/theoryofreddit spotted closed networks of subreddits where bots engage with each other. Those are used to farm accounts on a massive scale.
I'm talking about lemmy.
I use browser so don't get to see the little robot icon. Looking forward to a fix.
I think thats part of OPs tag for the user
Ah i see, and i did, thank you. I now also see the little chip icon, i saw that before and did not realise what it was. I am an idiot.
Dead internet theory!!!!!!!!
No longer a theory lol
it would be funny when it turns out that it was all some indian outsourcers.
Ugh, only bots still post about dead internet theory.
beep bop!
Does blocking not work? I'm not the biggest fan of repost bots myself, but they exist for a specific purpose (however tenuous their ability to achieve it may be.)
You already posted a very similar comment to this.
sorry, my page reloaded while editing and I assumed it hadn't sent.
It’s okay just promise you won’t do it again.
I promise 🙏 forgive me?
Yes but I won’t forget.
Now have you tagged as "elephant".
How did you know my penis was 5 to 6.5 feet long?
<3
Forget, but never forgive.
I'm not infuriated by more content that we desperately need.
I don't mind, if content is interesting. I was forced to post fairly big news no one else bothered with today.
Half those posts I've seen here too. It doesn't really matter tbh. At least the people are nicer here.
I'm not. I really am dreadful
I remember seeing someone being a dick to a post you made and I was upset about it. So I must say I haven't concluded that you are dreadful yet.
Thanks for the solidarity! I get that sometimes but tbh I get a zillion notifications and rarely read them
yeah but it's a nice kind of dreadful. like a smallpox pustule with a smiley face drawn on it.
An no one ever treats them as posts so there is no comments or community to it. Just slop basically
There is a report button, I encourage people to use it.
He's skating by on it being "technically allowed". Also created his own comm to do it after getting shouted out of most places. And he's making new alts every week. It's going to take having instance owners on board with spacing the jackass
Well then, better hope we don't have "Lemmy repost bots taking over entire communities" happening next.
crosspost to c/FuckReddit
I'm new to this platform and not finding that in the community or general search. How do I access that?
What's a repost bot?
A bot that reposts.
Just takes the top of Reddit and reposts it here.
Self-explanatory.
Whats a self?
Better men than me have spent lifetimes trying to answer that.
A self is what asks the self, what are you?
Brother, who are thou?
It's like William Shakespear and Hulk Hogan had a word baby, that grew up into that question.
ooh! it's been a while since I got to do a username checks out
Yeah I know what job it does I'm more asking why does a bot the repost even exists (yes to repost) Idk just never seen a repost bot before just crazy how out of handle everything on the internet is now days (is there anything we can do) or do we just sit and watch the world burn??
Some bots were put into place when Lemmy started getting lots more traffic to try and help fill content, since not having a full Fediverse to jump to from Reddit was off putting to some. An attempt at retaining users, basically. What I don't like about some of them is how they'll dump the link as if it's content, but it's only a link back to Reddit, and not nearly the same as someone actually posting something here and discussing it. They still can spark something, if people don't realize it's just a bot. Don't know what ratio posting is these days of bot vs actual person, or even if you could tell a lot of them apart sometimes.
it got really aggressive on reddit as of late, usually in different usernames, but exact same titles verbatim. you would see the same post 4+times.
Didn't realize just how many posts that bot had. Blocked.
Part of the issue IMO is that so many of our Lemmy communities are just copies of subreddits. The bot creators see a subreddit shaped hole so of course they want to fuck it. Having communities with new original themes might help deter the bots, and the natural content might be more interesting too!
More like reddit has so much content it dwarf's lemmy, but it was bound to happen, you can always mute the bots
Only if they mark themselves as bots.
Well the bot in the screenshot is marked as a bot
That's a manually applied user tag inside the client of the person who took the screenshot. System bot accounts show up differently.
Ahhh, I must have one of those I can't see
Good. Lemmy needs more content. I hate that I miss out on so much by being here, but I can't go back to reddit. Therefore I welcome the bots with open arms.
I think half the problem with lemmy is there’s too many people who reddit rejected and not enough that rejected reddit.
But reddit rejects people for utter nonsense reasons. If you just use it enough you'll eventually stumble into something that irks the wrong admin or gets caught by their word filter. So the "Reddit rejected" set is really just a random sampling of power users. Of that set, the hateful degenerates are driven towards X imo.
Trading strategies on how to keep ice from kidnapping people is a bannable offense apparently.
Nothing would surprise me at this point, Reddit builds a platform that lets you get attached to your account & community and then takes it away without even having a human look at the ban. Total BS
Preach
I rejected reddit when they did RIF and Apollo dirty. I would still like the reddit content.
I miss RIF 😕
No, by "I can't", I mean that I don't want to go back to reddit. Dodging a ban is easy, but fuck reddit. I can't stand all the low IQ MAGA-types and general American stupidity there. At least Lemmy's conservatives have enough brain cells firing that you can have a proper debate with them...
No, just the good reddit content, lol
Like what is shown in OP's screenshot. Niche content too, 'cause that pretty much doesn't exist here. We desperately need it.
I'm ok with that if it's on a separate instance that's easy to block/hide (which has been happening already). Where I take issue is bots taking over communities where humans post.
Mods need to be better on this. It isn't hard.
Ew.
As long as the bot is allowed to be there it's not a problem it's not ideal obviously. It should be considered if it is actually a good idea will the community ever develop if it is just already 100% reddit reposts?
I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. Hopefully the community existing and having regular posts increases the odds of user interaction like comments and votes, which would naturally lead to more and more posts from actual members. Hopefully whoever is running that bot can wind it down while actual engagement ramps up.
All default subreddits are karma farms because bots need to farm certain karma level and account age before they can be used for propaganda and/or astroturfing.
Had two of them tagged already, but not the other. Thanks.
Edit: two not one
I mean I'm kind of ok with that, I just don't want to use reddit. Or am allowed to. Then again reddit is a corporate cesspit so that will start spilling over...
I blocked them
Unfortunately you can't block the AI enforcing the reddit terms of use, which shadowban users on a half-assed hunch.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/975398/reddit-ai-rules-hub-moderator-old-reddit-developer-platform
It was only a matter of time before they found a way to get rid of the mods. They were always too much of a variable that the company could not control.
I find it cathartic. Anybody still using Reddit is basically choosing this self inflicted harm.
EDIT: Oh this is on the Fediverse? Somebody start IP banning these Bozos and Chucklefucks.
It's not a bot reposting on reddit, it's a bot reposting things from reddit to the fediverse.
They’re using the ignorance defense.
If they don’t use reddit how do they know is a repost?
(The answer is a little intelligence and a bit of common sense).
Nah i thought I was looking at a picture of reddit for a moment.
And I assumed an answer before I asked.
Why would they care? If it's useful stuff getting posted that's okay. If it's just a spammer flooding everything with low quality stuff treat them accordingly. The fact that the same posts exist on reddit is entirely irrelevant.
Because the culture is different and the crossposts are indiscriminate. A day ago he crossposted a meme about a woman being raped by her doctor after her credit card was declined, so she couldnt afford care.
Also because its disingenuous to crosspost things like "I had this experience!" without labeling it and have people engage with you earnestly because theyre here to be social, not knowing the title of the post is just an outright lie. That doesnt sit well to a lot of people and makes this space feel less human and sincere- one of the most meaningful attributes of the fediverse if you ask me.
The cultures of Lemmy and Reddit are 100% identical, right down to the weirdly entitled and aggressive commenters
Given that I find the culture of reddit miserable and the culture of the threadiverse generally much more human, social, and pleasant (albeit with the added flavor of the specific social dysfunction of chronically online leftists) I can't say I agree
And if the implication of your comment (totally fine if its not and you mean the point more broadly, subtext is hard over the internet) is that I'm being weirdly entitled and aggressive because I take issue with jokes about being raped because you can't afford medical care, I think that reflects a lot more poorly on you than on any aggressive or entitled vibes I may be giving
Ah lol, my bad. Yeah I haven't seen much of it but most of the sloppers and slopper instances have me blocked so maybe thats why. Or maybe nobody on my instance follows to any of the affected feeds.
Lucky.
I wish I could block it so people wanting thoughtless content could mindlessly upvote this content and the rest of us could enjoy this platform for what it is.
Good! I hope that place turns into Satans Maggoty Cum Fart!
You do not understand the issue. This is a bot reposting content to lemmy.
I hate those so much!
That shit do be fucking annoying.
Reddit being bad? Never.
We need a way to scan Lemmy posts for reposts from Reddit, to mark and block them all entirely
Whilst i hate reddit, It would be great flair system that labels say for example Reddit, Anime, Gardening and you could block by flair.
People whined and cried about the lack of content on Lemmy but never posted anything (including me btw). Now we're going to whine and cry because bots are solving that problem?
Lemmy is basically identical to reddit in so many ways, and it looks like incessantly whiny commenters is one of them. The bots keep getting engagement from users so all this complaining means nothing.
Bots are not "solving that problem" because the lack of posts was never really the problem in the first place. The problem was lack of anything to engage with. Bot posts do nothing for engagement. Replying to their posts is just talking into the wind.
We to want to have conversations with real people; to know that when we insult the poster's mother that we're causing real, lasting harm to a flesh and blood person.
If that were true, there wasn't a lack of anything to engage to begin with. Therefore your premise must be wrong. I like the bots, they should be marked as a bot and you should just ban them on a personal and sub level. Then all of you annoyed by them just ignore them and everyone else sees content they might engage with, without the need for reddit.
They provide more low quality reddit slop. I would actually like to see more text based discussions rather than endless memes. Or a picture of something you have made and a discussion about it.
I think its in DIY someone has been posting a few times about making various things from cardboard and glue. More stuff like that!
All the posts in the OP seem to have generated engagement though. Just because the poster is a bot doesn't mean all comments are.
I looked at a few of the posts from the screen shot and most of that "engagement" is people warning other people that it's bot posted content, or pointing out reposted Reddit memes. I don't consider that real engagement. There are a few that seen to have created real discussion, but the majority of the posts are noise.
I was just saying this last night to your mom. She was quiet though given her mouth was full.
Is everything ok? You seem to be going through something here. Just know we're here for you if you decide you need help.
Ohh, and my mom says "hi" and wants to know when you can come over again. She said you were the best she's ever had. Just between you and me, she really needs this right now after gaining all that weight and the incident with her face 👍
you beat me. I can't keep up the schtick.
Well done, it had me laughing. I always appreciate a good "your mom" insult.
I don't whine about lack of content. Heck I have a ton of meme, sport, non english communities blocked and I still see plenty of content.
You have no idea how different from reddit this is. You are high. If you like that content sphere so much, you should just live there instead
Edit 2: LOL I guess I stuck a nerve. I can't believe I'm the only one who does this! But apparently I'm the weird one... 😅
Edit 3: Seriously I do not understand why everyone is so upset. I saw a problem, and offered a fix. Fuck me for trying to help people, I guess...
Holy shit, dude, I can't even tell what this post is about because your UI is blown up way too big and it's distracting me!
Please, allow me to show you how to fix this: Go into Developer Options, and then do a search for "minimum width" (sometimes it's called "smallest width", depending on the device), and increase that number until you can actually fit a decent amount of content on the screen. A setting around 450-550dp works best on most screens.
Edit: When configured properly, your UI will look like this. Please note all the extra room for activities! I've got nearly double the amount of screen real estate, compared to what you're looking at!
Or maybe some of us have normal sized phones
My phone has a 5.7" screen which is about as normal as it gets. It's the very first thing I change when I get a new phone.
Are you this condescending to everyone you talk to?
Hey, I wasn't the one making the "stupid waste of time", and sarcastic "normal-sized phone" comments. Y'all started with the insults first.
Don't dish it out if you can't take it. If you're nice to me, I'm nice back. If you're not, then I'm not. It's not complicated. Be nice.
And sorry for trying to help. I saw a legitimate problem, and just thought OP might me interested in a fix. Fuck me for trying to be helpful, right?
Lol are you some kind of blind boomer? Why is everything so big on your screen? 🤢🤮
Condescending amateur.
Funny you say that because your UI scaling looks exactly the same as mine when I scale your screenshot to fit my screen.
BTW, what's with all that wasted whitespace in your Lemmy app? You could easily fit twice as many posts there!
Hell yeah! Whats the point in having ~2k resolution if everything in the UI gets blown up bigger than it was in the days of 640x480? Do your letters look that much smoother? Do you like only being able to fit a single sentence on screen at a time? If I'm paying for that screen real estate, I want to use it all!
That's what I'm saying!!! Thank you; I thought I was going crazy. I can't believe my fellow Lemmings are this against changing your UI scaling to actually match the screen you have...
What a stupid waste of time
Don't be a dick; this is the very first setting I change when I get a new phone, and I can't be alone in this. So no, it's not a waste of time.
You're the one being a dick to him about having normal settings on his phone. Pretending it's unreadable so you can be condescending about it.
Dude I'm not the one who started with the insults. If you roast me, I roast you back. If you're nice, I'm nice back. Golden rule.
I said nothing to inspire that "stupid waste of time" comment. I don't even understand why people are so heated about this when I was just trying to help... Are y'all upset because I'm easily excitable? My bad! That's just how I am!
Quit your fucking crying. You were an asshole and got called out for it. Take your lumps and move on with your life and maybe learn a lesson or two.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Please, for my mental health: point out WHERE I was being an asshole in my original comment! I legitimately DO NOT see it! I was just trying to HELP!!!