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this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Programming
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As i argued in another comment, there are many useful bots for certain niche communities that I really think have a place here, even though I am generally wary of AI accounts infesting the fediverse as well.
Good examples for good and very useful, yet not mod work related bots are on TCG/CCG subs like magic the gathering and hearthstone to provide context to card names, or convert deck codes into a nicely formatted table of the used cards. Or on the Lego sub, returning any set number as a link to the proper bricklink entry. This kind of bot should be allowed and even encouraged to be used where appropriate.
Then there are the plenty of irrelevant and annoying bots we really can do without, like the alphabetical order bot, haiku bot, the dozens of bots quoting LOTR or Star Wars characters, and so on. Like most reddit jokes they stopped being funny fairly quickly and now add nothing to the conversation, but are being kept around for karma.
And then there are the more insidious bots that are about to become widespread, being harder to detect the more their refinement advances. It is going to be a constant arms race between bot detection and bot deception skills.
There are some bots that are useful for everyone (community specific ones mostly), those I have no qualms with as they help everyone in that community.
The ones I abhor are the spam bots ones, different accounts giving variations of the same messages, possibly to farm karma or inflate activity numbers (I wouldn't rule anything out when it comes to spez making his darling look active).
I also hate down vote bots as I feel they don't contribute to anything.
Yes, thank you for that. I guess I used the wrong term, I should have said "Service Bots" those bots who provide useful service for the community.
and yes, entertainment and joke bots are tiring. (they can exist but, can we apply a limit on their frequency? let's say an entertainment bot can only post a maximum of 5 posts per week for a small instance and 50 posts per week for a significantly larger instance. That way it would still remain novel and it's like a lottery where people are looking forward to its next appearance.
this is the hardest part, as the bot farms typically have the advantage of first strike. If we are not careful, we would be left behind as being on defense puts us in the position of being a reactionary player in this game of whack-a-bot.