Bots copy pasting Reddit - is there a method to block them all?
I've noticed we have bots copy pasting Reddit submissions. Is there a method to block them all?
I assume they mean good by 'generating' content in communities, but I don't see a reason why anyone would comment on them since the OP is on Reddit and will never read them.
I know I can block each individual account as I come across them but I'd just prefer to block them all so I don't see their content at all.
They appear to do the nice thing by adding a line in the submissions about it being an automated submission. Is there a filter for words/phrase found in the body of a submission?
I don't mind the ones copying content from Reddit. I came here to get away from Reddit and I don't really mind seeing the content so long as I'm not giving spez and his fucks any clicks.
I do mind the ones posting links TO Reddit. I... came here to get away from Reddit. I don't need links back. I know where Reddit is...
I'm not adverse to Reddit because I don't believe Lemmy is a complete replacement yet. Let's be honest, Lemmy is mostly programming, Linux, hate against Windows, hate against cars, and hate against paying for services. For me, Lemmy cannot replace Reddit until a variety of people come.
I use Lemmy and Reddit to see a discussion around a topic. I might as well just use an RSS feed if I want to read news topics instead of bare Reddit copy paste submissions.
I'm still using a third party for Reddit - I never stopped using it and it continued to work.
how could you forget the most important part, Star Trek memes?
Sorry Borg Queen
I'm doing pretty similar. I now only go to Reddit as a logged out lurker for the path of exile subs. Too much info is dropped there that I just don't see anywhere else.
So the bots that create a complete mirror of subs (posts and comments) are ok, I hope.
The part you quoted. What I meant is that I might as well just subscribe to the news source using an RSS feed and cut out the middle men (Reddit and Lemmy).
Reddit/Lemmy is more than a link aggregator. 90% of its value is in the self-posts, and there is no RSS feeds for them.
I think you misunderstood what I've said.
I believe there is a setting to disable seeing posts from accounts labelled as a "bot account". (I realize that this would technically also hide all other bots, not just reddit repost ones, but I personally don't really know of any content posted by a bot that I want to see).
Some communities use bots to schedule recurrent posts. Those can be useful, and mostly provide a feature we'll hopefully see built-in the platform in the future
Possibly moderation bots too.
I think the TLDR bot has its purpose.
I've blocked that one, I found it was rarely useful.
Automated mod actions, Sports game threads, L4s, Hackernews reposts, sales threads, weekly threads are what you might miss out on.
My instance has daily threads. It'd be nice to distinguish between community bot and generic bot. I should see if there's a request for that already.
I want more sports related bots to post, I know I missed blocking some. Roaches they are, everywhere.
I just uncheck "Show bot accounts" Gets rid of most.
It's weird that people seems to outright hate any kind of repost. You know that there are posts that don't really requires any user interaction to be useful. I am subscribed to the repost bots of the Today I Learned, life pro tips, memes, piracy and other subreddits and the contents been really nice so far.
I don't mind reposts when there is discussion on the reposts. When there is zero discussion, which is what's happening with the Reddit copy paste on Lemmy then it's just clutter.
If I sort by new, most of the submissions are reposts with zero votes and zero comments. If I sort by activity/hot then I see days old submissions. ... how engaging. I'd prefer to engage with new content but I'm not prepared to look over ~twenty submissions to only find one or two real submissions.
The lack of discussion isn't due to the bots, though. That's due to the users simply not participating. There's no technical difference between a bot-posted thread and a human-posted one; users can still engage in the comments section all the same.
Personally, I don't mind the bot accounts for the most part. There aren't enough humans posting new threads in some communities, so the bots at least offer the potential for discussions to occur, but it's up to the users to actually engage.
Sure there is: when it's a human-posted thread, it means at least one person participated. The difference between one and zero -- between talking to a single other person and talking to an empty room -- is very large.
That's not really how comment sections work, though. They exist all the same, whether the OP is a bot or a human. It's up to the other humans to use it.
Even if no other humans reply but you, at least you were talking to OP.
There is more content posted to reddit so when that's reflected to lemmy I find that I miss lemmy threads. That made me block the reddit bots.
The big difference is a human OP gets a notification when someone comments, and presumably the OP is usually interested in discussing the thing they posted
If you’re talking about lemmit.online, you just need to block the username posting. It blocks the whole instance.
There are bots on other instances that do the same.
I’m sure, but there’s really that many? Lemmits whole basis of it is to do that. It’s the only reason it exists. Which ones are flooding your feed?
How do you tell it's copied from Reddit. I haven't seen a single one but I also use Reddit less and less.
There are some well known ones, like L4sbot, that copy everything but they're upfront about it with bot in their name.
There are a few others more sneaky.
On Eternity (previously Infinity for Lemmy) you can set filters for words and phrases in posts
Good to have this content cross posted here so you can gauge people's opinions and feelings. It's a net positive if it's generating good dialogue (even if the OP won't ever see it)
Bots taking the place of humans when it comes to social interactions is NOT a net positive....
It was negative side effects that we have been seeing for years now. One of which is the removal of organic human behavior, bots driving extremism & polarized views/discussion, and humans losing empathy for each other without realizing it's the bots that despise.
Let's not turn lemmy into reddit v2
The issue, there is no dialogue on these Reddit cross posts - zero. It's just bot spam clutter that no one cares to engage with. In my books, that's a net negative and that's without considering what the other person said about bot accounts being used as a divisive tool.