I’ve found that I am. I sometimes write a reply, see that it was posted by an RSS bot, and delete the draft. OP doesn’t exist so what’s the point?
Leaving this out of the post body because it’s kind of a side thought: I think RSS bots on Lemmy kind of suck. We get flooded with everything these sites post whether they’re worth reading or not (and most aren’t!)
“Just block the bots” is the suggestion I’m sure many have…but if an RSS bot posts an article, a human is not going to post it again so I’d miss out on the 20% of articles worth reading
It used to be worse. We would have three different instances with bots reposting hackernews. One guy hosted an instance entirely for bot posting from different news feeds.
And so many different projects trying (poorly) to mirror reddit content in obnoxious ways.
On the other hand, the bots reposting old comic strips get plenty of discussion and don’t annoy me as much, so not all bots, I guess.
I really don’t understand the appeal of bots reposting other social media sites
I wonder what the breakdown of discussions started from users vs. bots is. While I can see your point especially from a spam pov, one purpose of this kind of bot is to pull from other sources and get a conversation going. If no one is interested, then it just falls to the bottom. I often see posts complaining that Lemmy/fediverse isn’t as active as Reddit was/is, and yet without some of this automation it would be far deader as people don’t tend to start posts as much as reply to existing one. If a particular bot/community is flooding your feed too much, that can be easily be blocked, or let the mods/admin know that it needs some adjustment.
I agree with most of what you said but it’s less about the spam to me and more of how it feels hollow and uncurated. A human didn’t read the article and feel like it was worth sharing, it just appears here
Yes, I understand that concern. If we had more people creating posts… I’m a hypocrite, I don’t have many posts myself.
People want RSS functions but are too incompetent to use RSS or the source doesn’t provide a feed. They do the best they can with what they know.
And the rest of us suffer due to their ignorance. It’s just how humans work.
if an RSS bot posts an article, a human is not going to post it again
I reject your premise, on the basis that it seems like basically every article, worth reading or not, is posted repeatedly (by humans) over the span of a day or two anyway.
Of course, I block the bot accounts, so if there are interesting articles that aren’t being re-posted, I can’t see them, but… I’d say my Lemmy experience is considerably better even with the presumed reduction in content.
To directly answer your question, even if I could see them, I wouldn’t engage with bot account posts.
You’re not wrong but if a bot-posted article is already on the frontpage, humans are less likely to post it. And if it’s news, I don’t really want to wait for the reposts
I sometimes comment on rss bot posts depending on the community. I’m not replying to the bot per se, rather expressing my opinon on the the article that was posted for other users to see. I sometimes get replies from other people so it’s not entirely shouting into the void.
Who can tell what a bot is nowadays? There are a few ways but, most folk are not savvy enough, or do not care enough, to make the distinction.
There are some accounts that explicitly label themselves as bots, though. So on those, you’re basically guaranteed to never receive any response or engagement from OP.
Nope. I reply to bots quite frequently. I’m often the only commenter in the thread, but if I have something to say about what the bot posted, I’ll comment.
Often my comments are to make fun of blockchain or LLMs. But if the Hacker News bot posts a link to a blog post on underwater beekeeping and I have an opinion, I’ll post whatever I think adds to the conversation.
For HN (and other social media sites) specifically, it feel like eavesdropping to me lol
I actively avoid them. Im looking to more socialize around news than get the news. Basically I look for something like you get hanging and talking in a bar.
Why would anyone knowingly reply to a bot? Other than to warn others that it’s a bot.
RSS bots definitely get replies. The comments section on Lemmy is often just a space for discussion on what was posted but when it’s a bot, I never want to “start the conversation”
I can think of one reason. Instead of replying to the poster you can make a comment for the benefit of other readers, that could start a conversation between commenters.
This is why I have no hesitation while commenting on a bot’s post. I have seen plenty of good conversation started under a bot post. My comment is not directed at OP, it is directed at anybody reading it.
This is pretty much what I do with every “upper level” comment I write. It’s almost never directed at OP, it’s meant for anyone reading it.
Much less likely.
Though I haven’t seen these RSS bots you complain about. Is this because you’re browsing ‘all’ instead of ‘subscribed’?
I do generally browse All but I see them on communities I’d be subscribed to anyway
/r ?
Whoops lol
I gotta admit reddit had better shorthand
I’m a fan of the c/whatever terminology personally
We just call them comms here
There’s plenty of them. I like the RSS bots. Brings more content to my feed.
Yeah I don’t comment on them, but I don’t have them blocked bc they have stories I’d never see otherwise
I have the settings set to not show bot posts.
I generally block bots, and I don’t see a point to responding to their posts.
I immediately block bot posts
Depends entirely on the community.
Settings>Don’t show bots
If I discover an account hiding their bot status, I block them, any account connected (“created by user this and that”) and consider blocking all subs it posts in as they’re most likely a bot infested narrative manipulating shithole.
Yes
No, not really. It just depends. One of the first things I blocked on Lemmy years ago was the “Lemmit” not which just copied tons of posts verbatim from Reddit. If bots are posting articles, maybe I comment. If a bot posts something discussion oriented, I’m not replying.
Huge caveat, all this is about transparent bots. If I think something is a bit masquerading as a human I don’t reply.
