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Reddit repost bots taking over entire communities (europe.pub)
submitted 13 hours ago by to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
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[–] 24 points 9 hours ago (8 children)

So I'm not looking for a fight, but can we have a friendly talk about the value of repost bots in the context of this medium? I just feel like yapping, so feel free to ignore if no.

Lemmy shares a format with Reddit - they're feed aggregators. Their value proposition is having everything in one place so a community can pass judgment on it all. That's why people hate reposts and bad faith actors, adverse or opaque sorting algorithms, and agenda-driven moderators - they directly devalue the medium. We tend to like original content, genuine sentiments and human connections, and relevant posts because those directly support the inherent value of a feed aggregator.

I'm not convinced either way about repost bots, yet. They're clearly not genuine or original, and too many of them will tend to obscure - you know what? I got there in the end I see it now.

I could still see the value in a carefully chosen, rate-limited bot that reposts with the blessing of the moderators, but the rate and curation are important, and the rate has to take into account the number of other communities using them versus the number of active users, so it's not trivial to decide what the right amount would be.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    I guess I'm in the extreme minority, but like... All the posts in OP are heavily upvoted and spawned comments. That's... good? I don't see why people care more about where a post comes from than the fact that large stretches of the Threadiverse are barren and reposts are the only content available.

    Sanitation is my most upvoted Threadiverse poster, and I'd rather have their content than nothing. Which, largely, is the alternative.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago*

    That's what was giving me so much uncertainty in either direction, there's always some gulf between how people act and what they say they want. You have to come at it not just from a metrics angle, but with a little wisdom as well. I think sure, people upvote bots like crazy and that's probably why Reddit doesn't get rid of them because it helps their metrics. We don't rely on that financial model, and bots probably do stifle genuine discussion to some degree by sheer noise:signal. I could be swayed still, but I'd need to see solid evidence to show that bots actually help communities thrive. It's probably highly contextual as well, some types of !c probably benefit from bots more than others would, but any bots will tend to dominate an /all feed.

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  • [–] 19 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    Repost bots discourage new users and kill engagement.

    Suppose you're into trampolines but there's no community for that here. You create one, and to kick start it you get a repost bot to repost from the other place.

    Over the coming weeks a few fediverse users see your community but see that they're all reposts with no comments, there's nothing to really engage with there, so no one does.

    Next month someone signs up to the fediverse and joins a few special interest communities. /c/sports, /c/gymnastics, and /c/trampolines. There might actually be real posts and discussions in /c/sports, but that new users feed is overrun with reposts in /c/trampolines. It's a very clear signal that there's no content here, all the content is on reddit.

    If you actually want a community, then you can read about trampolines on the other site, and manually repost things yourself as a human.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 hours ago*

    I think it can work for meme/shitpost type communities. But anything hobby related you really need to add something to prompt actual discussion.

    Although if you have a bot doing it there isn't even any quality control.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    Quality of engagement is important, you're right. By the time I'd written everything out I'd already mostly thought myself almost all the way to being against bots, but this makes sense. Taking your position, bots gotta go.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 hours ago

    Unfortunately they don't create the same engagement as a natural post. No one wants to comment on a wall of bot posts with no human involved. All it does is kill actual community engagement. Lemmy and reddit are not just link aggregators, they are forums for discussion, with humans.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    FIGHT!

    The main issue for small subs can be solved with pinned threads.

    The whole, where do I go to eat this here or what restaurant is good for this food or who does this kind of work locally or look at what I ate at so and so restaurant and you probably can imagine the theme here. Put into one post and ban whoever advertises. No need to repost pinned threads.

    FINNISH HYMN

    I think negative interaction is a good start. There's a reason people get their posts deleted, shadow banned, or just banned.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago*

    Pinned threads solve for perpetual topics within (specific) communities sure, but the main area where too many repost bots will do the most harm if left unchecked is when cruising all or local. People who sort by new are the lifeblood of a feed's (federated) community, and if there's not enough of them to boost the most valuable signals, the community won't grow and might even shrink.

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