[META] So... about the bots

astropenguin5@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 186 points –

As some may have noticed, a fairly large portion of the post on this community are article links posted by bots. I am no moderator and am just a regular user like the rest of you, but I want to know what the community thinks of the posting bots. here is a sample of my opinion to get conversation started:

Pros:

  • lots of content to engage with
  • people can focus on discussing things not finding thing

Cons:

  • lack of reliable quality of article
  • lack of diversity of content
39

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

There is a single user who is posting dozens of times a day in my magazine (for which I am a moderator). Another mod on my team has raised the alarm about the user, like surely they're going through a personal crisis to be so terminally online and posting so frequently.

I'm realizing now they might be a bot. The sources of articles are varied, and quality of article is like 30/70 serious/bullshit. The user occasionally comments on the submissions and I'm realizing the comments are generic rabble rousing instead of being complex language or referencing complex details from the articles shared.

Could anyone speak more to how to identify bot accounts? Many thanks!

[OT]

surely they're going through a personal crisis to be so terminally online and posting so frequently.

I apparently needed to see this today. Life has been winding me up lately and I have been impatient/quick to dismiss people as a result.

Thanks for snapping me out of it.