As the service grows, I have noticed more and more people and bots popping up, only posting links to a news article and that’s that. Usually there is no post, no summary and nothing from the OP but the link.

What do you all think about this?

Do you think it’s a good thing, because it is providing content? Do you maybe find it annyoing and if so, why?

I myself am happy when people take the time out of their say to try to provide content, but for me it’s a bit low effort a lot of the times. Bots I tend to block immediately and people it they make it hard for me to reader other posts between all their link-posting.

But I am more curious how you all think about this and whether you consider it good or bad.

    • @nexguy
      link
      191 year ago

      That’s just what a bot would say

    • Blaze (he/him)
      link
      fedilink
      91 year ago

      I guess we all do, but as of now, we have to choose between lack of content or some bot content

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        131 year ago

        I suppose it depends on how you define content. Usually when people post it includes some discussion. Those types of posts get drowned in the bot posts however.

        • Blaze (he/him)
          link
          fedilink
          -11 year ago

          Usually when people post it includes some discussion.

          Indeed, but as of now, I feel we are lacking a bit of a userbase to have enough content at all times. I know the part about everyone posting as much as they can, but I guess we still need bots for a bit

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    401 year ago

    Lemmy, like Reddit, operates like a link aggregator, so news article spam sorted by type into sublemmy’s is sort of its “natural state”. IMO there’s not really anything wrong with it, because it’s a good way to get conversations started.

    I don’t really like the lemmit.online bot that just reposts “archive” posts from Reddit.

    • @DrQuint
      link
      English
      16
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      This is just another reminder that reddit didn’t start its life with comments. Reddit was just the links at first, comments came later, and yes, the first comment was complaining about there being comments and how the site would be ruined.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 year ago

      I don’t really like the lemmit.online bot that just reposts “archive” posts from Reddit.

      Yeah, that was just depressing - we’ve moved on and it felt like it was trying to drag us back again.

  • El Barto
    link
    fedilink
    English
    241 year ago

    As long as they mark the accounts as a bot account it doesn’t bother me, if it gets too much I can just turn on the don’t show bot accounts check.

    • CaptainBasculin
      link
      fedilink
      41 year ago

      I used to run a news bot on my profile for my community, but some people PM’d me to mark my profile as bot. I also personally use my account so I don’t want my other post/comments to be seen as bot activity; and my instance did not permit creation of a second account for the bot only, what should I do to keep the bot running without having my profile marked as bot?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      3
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Imo we need to be able to differentiate between bot posts and comments. Posts can often be spamy, but comments are almost always useful.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    181 year ago

    I feel like it will be increasingly used for propaganda, not discussion. By cherry picking articles, these news accounts will try to shape public opinion.

    • @givesomefucks
      link
      English
      31 year ago

      I doubt they’ll be turned off, it’s just hopefully we get enough real users to drown them out

    • @TORFdot0
      link
      English
      21 year ago

      Whether or not it’s posted by a bot, real users are the one commenting and voting on it. It’s not going to be useful for spreading propaganda unless it’s something the user base already believes

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    181 year ago

    As long as it’s not “spammy” and there’s actual engagement or discussion on the posts I don’t see an issue. But if the community being posted to isn’t engaging with the posts, or it’s crowding out the more interesting posts, yeah that’s not great and shouldn’t be allowed.

    • livus
      link
      fedilink
      5
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I am a human who posts a lot of news. It’s not mainstream news though and it’s all been read and selected by me.

      Most of it is to a small niche news sub and gets little engagement yet - the 90-9-1 rule applies and we don’t have the numbers yet.

      If anyone discusses it with me I’m over the moon!

  • Dick Justice
    link
    161 year ago

    Hate it. If it’s a person fine, I guess, but I wish bots weren’t allowed to create posts at all. I would rather see Lemmy grow very slowly than see Lemmy become a mirror of Reddit, with shit tons of scraped posts that have little to no engagement on them. That’s not a community, it’s a newspaper. I don’t understand the “massive growth at any cost” mindset.

    • @Synthead
      link
      31 year ago

      You won’t believe what THIS Lemmy user said in the comments! 😱

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21 year ago

      Counterpoint, I’m trying to find a good bot to be a matchbot for a community I made. It’s more effort than I have time to devote to posting a Pre-Match, Match, and Post-Match thread to the community with lineups, match events, and game summary. I wish a bot could take care of that so I could simply comment on the game in each thread.

  • redimk
    link
    fedilink
    111 year ago

    I don’t mind the news, I absolutely hate the bots.

    I said in another comment before, there’s an “AITA” bot reposting everything from Reddit, but, who are we supposed to answer if it’s a bot that’s asking? It doesn’t make any sense…

    If there is no engagement (or at least something that’s educational or informational), then what’s the point?

    If it was a “TIL” bot I’d probably have a harder time hating on it, but still.

    • Botree
      link
      31 year ago

      …there’s an “AITA” bot

      That’s ridiculous. Wonder if there’s a r/roastme bot somewhere.

  • monk
    link
    fedilink
    91 year ago

    There’s a voting system. That should give you an idea of whether they’re considered good or bad and of their visibility in general.

    • Dr. Zoidberg
      link
      61 year ago

      Not if there are more bots than humans upvoting and drowning out the real people.

  • Boklukchia
    link
    fedilink
    81 year ago

    I used to get most of my news from Reddit, now that I don’t use Reddit I get them from here. I post pretty frequently news articles on my country’s community and think that they are a good source for a discussion.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      41 year ago

      I am also replacing reddit for news. I currently find it a bit tedious to see the same post on 2 or 3 different sites, however, there are not too many subscribers so I go with it.

      I have noticed more interactions with some of the bot posts. If I see at least one comment I check it out and have started engaging that way.

      Everything has to find the right rhythm. This takes time (and sometimes duplicate posts).

      • Boklukchia
        link
        fedilink
        21 year ago

        For sure, duplicate posts are annoying but that’s the nature of the fediverse, I think some apps are trying to combat this but it would take time. Overall I’m pretty happy with my new home here!

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    8
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    My problem with it’s poor quality sources and/or content. For example: yellow journalism. I want to be informed and have good discussions, not being outraged or click baited.

  • livus
    link
    fedilink
    8
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I get news from the fediverse so I’m very happy with others posting news.

    I don’t like repost bots though because they tend to be programmed to let non-fedizens control the agenda. Eg scraping what the people of Reddit upvoted.

  • rubikcuber
    link
    fedilink
    81 year ago

    I hate it. Some communities just fill up my feed with links to news articles with zero (or zero quality) comments. I either unsubscribe from these communities, or block the poster. In some cases they are so frequent, and with images that are effectively advertising. That and the zero comments, they just remind me of Reddit ads. I don’t think you can hope to build a community by drowning out any discussion with a flood of posts from news sites. If you’re the mod of a community with so little interaction, then you should be curating content and adding comments yourself.

  • HobbitFoot
    link
    fedilink
    English
    81 year ago

    News articles are fine, but I’m not as thrilled with the Reddit reposting bots.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    51 year ago

    It really annoys me, especially as there seems to be at least two lemmy instances that are 99% just a bot reposting everything from reddit… Really wish I could block whole instances

    • Madbrad200
      link
      English
      31 year ago

      Block the individual bots. You’ll get rid of them in one go.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        31 year ago

        Oh thank you! I couldn’t figure out how to do it in the app I use (Liftoff) but with your comment I checked again and found out how!

        This makes “All” so much better to explore, thank you!