Why are there no bots that post Reddit content on Lemmy?

doodledup@lemmy.world to Reddit@lemmy.world – -33 points –

Genuine question.

There are tons of niche subs on Reddit that aren't on Lemmy or don't have enough people posting. Lemmy could benefit from bots that automatically post Reddit content. Why is this not a thing?

42

This was a thing for a short time, most people on lemmy didn't like it.

It still is a thing, but I just mute those communities. They usually have zero participation by Lemmy anyway.

If I wanted to see Reddit content, I would go to Reddit.

This leaves me going to Reddi for 90% of the content I enjoy. It's also the main reason why most people still use Reddit and not Lemmy. I don't see why crossposting would be a problem. Crossposting is being done anyways. Reposting too. Where is the difference?

We need to build communities here, but that takes time. What I have personally seen is that many niche communities that are on Reddit just fail with Lemmy. (I suspect that most of that is because of the lack of algorithmic boosting.)

I am not saying cross posting from Reddit is a bad thing, btw. It's my personal preference to read actual user content where I can interact with OP. It's highly likely that "fake" content just doesn't pull my dopamine triggers the same way, s'all.

Content is here, but it's generated at a much slower pace. Honestly, that is much more healthy for me.

Niche communities fail because 99% of users are not posters and there are too few posters and users on Lemmy in general. You need content for people to move to Lemmy. They will never move to a dead Lemmy community (unless they are ideologically motivated). It will never happen in a hundred years.

Yep. It takes a ton of work and time to build a community that will attract more people who generate content.

With every shit move that Reddit pulls, it pushes more people to Lemmy. While I have zero intentions of being as active on Lemmy as I was on Reddit, I have still racked up a couple thousand comments or so over the last year. Even that interaction generates content, but it's still only a tiny contribution.

TBH, I just shifted what kind of content I consumed. That did come at the price of doing without some types for the time being. However, the interaction with other users is generally much better here. Many people stay here on Lemmy because of that and honestly, I feel that is a much better experience.

What I am saying is that Lemmy is getting bigger, but it will probably take another five or so years to get the momentum Reddit had ten years ago. It'll happen because it's just a matter of time before Reddit is purely investor driven and all value is completely extracted. (It's just like how Facebook is mostly for old people now.)

There's no discussion or interaction on the bot posts. And if you subscribe to them they tend to overwhelm your feed quickly. And your Lemmy experience becomes akin to someone just sharing a bunch of article links. That's the opposite reason I used Reddit or come here.

Lastly questions being crossposted are really dumb. Imagine AskReddit or AITA where your comments aren't read by anyone, much less the person posing the actual question.

Cross posts with Reddit do exist and they are completely pointless.

Yet here you are lmao

How do you know I'm not on Reddit for 90% of the time?

you replied instantly

Are you trying to lecture me on what I'm doing? I know very well myself what I'm doing. I'm here for the 5 communities there are and on Reddit for the rest.

There's literally tons of bots that post Reddit content on Lemmy. To the point that I get extremely annoyed at the vast number of them.

To say nothing all the people who scour Reddit for content to post here.

I know a couple. Didn't know there are that many. Are they marked in some way to recognize they are bots?

There are a couple entire instances that consist of nothing but Reddit cross post communities and there is no interaction. They are almost not even a part of Lemmy proper.

It is a thing on a lot of Lemmy communities, but most of the posts end up with no comments which makes them not that interesting. For certain niche communities, Lemmy just doesn't have the user base yet.

but most of the posts end up with no comments

This is simply untrue. There are known bots on Reddit that have a lot of interaction in the comments. The same goes for some subs here that I know have bots posting.

For certain niche communities, Lemmy just doesn't have the user base yet.

This is the problem that will be solved by the bots. Everyone on Reddits seems to hate Reddit. But nobody is moving over because there is nobody moving over. If at least the posts are crossposted then I bet a lot of people will flock over to Lemmy, which in turn will fill the comment threads.

/r/RedditAlternatives is getting some traction, Lemmy is the most mentioned alternative over there

I'm here to avoid most of the people that were on Reddit.

I like having small communities and names I recognize. More content would be nice, but at what cost?

If I wanted to read the bullshit that happens on reddit now, then I wouldn't have left to come here.

If you want reddit content, go to reddit.

Most people including me don't care about where the content is posted. I just want the content and a good app to view the content. This is the real reason why nobody is moving from Reddit to Lemmy eventhough Reddit sucks.

Besides, there is no such thing as "Reddit content" or "Lemmy content". 99% of content posted on Lemmy isn't original either. Articles, videos, news, etc. are all crossposted from somewhere else on the internet. Lemmy is a content aggregator and community forum, nothing more.

Reddit has more content. And arguably, more content that is actually important. It has this advantage over Lemmy because Reddit is older.

If bots can bring the important information over to Lemmy, then that will make Lemmy more valuable. None of the anti-bot users are lining up to manually do all that work themselves.

Reddit has more content. And arguably, more content that is actually important

That much is obvious, but Reddit also has so many reposts it's not even funny

Also there's a lot of trash on Reddit too

Comparing it percentage wise would be a fairer comparison, and imo the average post quality on Lemmy is so much higher than on Reddit. Wich would mean if you start bringing over Reddits content, you would automatically lower Lemmys average post quality

Most Lemmy users are robophobic. They hate bots with a passion regardless of their function, so they likely blocked them or reported them or whatever, leading to the bots not being considered popular and many just being outright removed.

Why not just have bots post the comments too and thereโ€™d be no need for us?

Someone tried that and even duplicated the usernames of commenters on Reddit. The idea was to facilitate the transition to Lemmy and people could just pickup where they left off.

It backfired in many ways. Some of the first communities cloned were tech support related and people would spend their time giving answers to bots without realizing it.

The solution is to highlight the bots, like they do with moderators. I don't know whether that's technically possible on Lemmy.

It's done here on Lemmy, but it's easy to miss on some clients and it's controlled by the bot creators, strangely enough.

The creator of the first (extremely noisy) bot-clone communities was kind of a dick and wouldn't highlight posts as bot generated. He had good intentions, but really bad delivery.

It's literally a flag in the account settings.

That said, I think mass copying of Reddit content is the issue. Functionally, yes, Lemmy and Reddit are similar. But they do have different cultures/subcultures. Even within a given topic, when you have both a subreddit and a community, they will like and dislike slightly different things.

I think the solution would be for individual users to bring content (links, memes, etc. - not comments or entire threads) over that they found worthwhile, instead of bulk copying.

If you want Reddit on Lemmy, just skip the middleman and use Reddit.

Reddit sucks. Ads. App sucks. Can only use the official app. Mods suck.

I moved to Lemmy for a reason. But I don't want to miss out on the content because there is barely any here.

I used to like cocaine, but I hated the addiction and I hated what it did to my nose.

But here's the thing: you can't have cocaine without the side effects. So I chose to stop cocaine. It's less fun in the short term, but getting your life back together and enjoying the simple pleasures in life more than make up for it in the long run.

You need to choose Reddit with the side effects, or no Reddit and work on making Lemmy fun. You can't have the Reddit hit without the side effects.

But if you put in the effort of trying to make Lemmy fun, it'll be more rewarding, and it will help rebuild worthwhile communities away from Reddit for the benefit of everybody.

Up to you.

If you donโ€™t like it why do you want to move it here?

Why so passively aggressive?

My answer is: Ads, shitty company, shitty mods, shitty app, breaking third-party apps gave me the rest.

Why did you move here? Surely you didn't move here because you wanted less content and less subs, or do you?

Iโ€™m not passively anything.

I moved here to get away from Reddit and Iโ€™d rather not see Reddit on Lemmy.