Hi everyone,
I think it has become clear that many bot accounts are swarming the communities. Sometimes we can’t be sure whether a specific account is a bot, but there are some clues. I will not post the clues here since they could be used by bot creators to bypass the rules.
Lemmy (the software) currently doesn’t have tools to automate moderation, so everything has to be moderated manually.
That said, I will be adding a few anti-bot rules to the /c/comicstrips community:
- A limit of two posts per person per day.
- Bots are not allowed. There will be heavy moderation of suspected bot accounts. If an account is identified as a bot, its posts will be deleted and it will receive a permanent ban.
- Banned users will have their posts removed.
And thank you to everyone in the community who reports possible spammers and bots. It helps a lot.
Here is the previous post that I fixed before, which contains a few discussions about this subject: https://lemmy.world/post/42127013
Do you have any comments or suggestions? I’m listening.
(This is not the future that Asimov expected.)
You’re my hero. Hope automation (sensibly implemented) reaches mods soon!
Is there only one mod? If needed, I can help! Especially if we create a “credit the artist” rule. :3
This was widely seen as a good move
Is there a way to change the title or pin an automated comment to flag the post as a bot instead of deleting it? I think it’s better to sensetize the community on the subjects the bot accounts target so it’s easier to spot it elsewhere. I also think deleting posts also deletes interesting comment chains midway at times. I’ve had it happen and it’s a bit frustrating.
I guess it wouldn’t stop it from getting on the all feed though. I wish there was a way to lock votes or reset them.
Edit: one of the bots down voted me lol, he actually created extra accounts with my name to downvote. I guess it’s his idea of taunting.
Edit: The guy is actually losing it lol. Everyone in this thread, including recent comment history for me and cannedtuna, is being downvoted by bots with my name.
only the person creating a post can mark their own account as bot or change the title
Is there a reason mods can’t edit the title of a post? I’ve found myself wanting this behavior when I’m moderating.
all content is generally owned by its creator and only the creator can change it. for lemmy 1.0 this will be changing for marking as nsfw and managing tags, so it seems that this is somewhat being relaxed.
Lemmy is popular enough to have bots now? Crazy.
I’ve considered using a script to post more often, so that the quieter communities don’t seem like a wasteland. More posts= more engagement = more human posts
I do love that I’m getting voted down for trying to make it busier to try and get more real people, because network effect is a thing. I get it, we want more actual human engagement, but some of these communities, 2 years in, have single-digit active members, on subs with 70k on That R Site.
Someone made 20 new accounts yesterday to downvote in the thread. You technically received 1 downvote.
I don’t get the appeal. Preparing to redirect to paid content? Just to feel cool?
Yeah I don’t get the appeal of bots at all. I also like that Lemmy isn’t that busy or popular personally.
He is always posting divisive content. He probably downvotes certain comments and tries to instigate arguments to make Lemmy feel hostile. It’s to turn people off and get them to leave imo.
it just takes one mentally ill person to make it their hobby to harass people on the internet
Antiyanks comes to mind.
Thank you! I’m so tired of seeing the same fucking dude post from a million alt accounts.
Lol the bots down voting all the comments is hilarious
Suck it bot-authors
It’s all me 😭. The newest one got a belly laugh out of me though, not gonna lie. I crossed out the only one that isn’t a day old account.
Here’s what I think is going on, since calling him out is probably the best (copy pasted from an other comment):
He is always posting divisive content. He probably downvotes certain comments and tries to instigate arguments to make Lemmy feel hostile. It’s to turn people off and get them to leave imo.
Oh I misunderstood this comment initially and thought you were admitting to making alt accounts to downvote but someone actually created a bunch of alts with your name to downvote you and others? Psychotic behaviour lol
I wonder what his beef with grimy is, that’s insane 😂
I have been identified as a bot account because of my use of a VPN. I am not a bot so the system is not working perfectly. Thanks
