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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
496 points (92.2% liked)
Lemmy
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Couldn't we just scrape reddit with some bots and VPN and have the content populate Lemmy?
I mean this is exactly how some other platforms started out in the past.
Already some communities have bots doing that. It's shitty. If you want Reddit content just go on reddit.
It's not about that. it's about generating content to generate traffic so the new users will create content on their own.
Basically like jumpstarting a car.
(No content. No users, chicken and egg problem)
Part of it is being able to participate. You can't converse with a comment or ask OP questions on a post that was ripped off of Reddit by a bot. Just adding more garbage for people to scroll through won't help.
I don't think this is true and our conversation is proof too that. This post could have been written by a bot and yet we still don't interact with OP even though he is human. At this point we are not only generating content for others to see and to inject their pov. But also embolding OPs post getting it higher in the ranking as unique and worthy content.
Also most humans who post og content don't respond that often. Ofc their are alot of exceptions online but normal humans aren't able to respond to everyone anyway, unless they forsake their life in order to respond to every comment made.
So I don't believe it's garbage when starting out. Later on yes.
If you want bots check out the Lemmit communities. https://lemmit.online/communities
Or !hackernews@lemmy.smeargle.fans or !hackernews@derp.foo or !gaming@lemmy.zip
The problem is the bots make more posts than there are people willing to comment on anything. The userbase gets fragmented and they never end up in the same post as someone else, there's 0 actual socializing. People scroll past tons of posts with 0 comments and get frustrated and sometimes they quit. It also discourages real people from making regular posts because they can get drowned out by the bots.
I'd be very curious to see if there's been any successful Lemmy bot poster that just copies content from Reddit or somewhere else, in a way that people actually enjoy and engage with.
I think you need to respect the natural ratio of people posting and people commenting. Bots screw up that ratio big time and dilute the commenters spread thin, stretched across too many posts. Like butter scraped over too much bread.