Hey folks!
Bots on lemm.ee
There has been some discussion lately regarding bot accounts on lemm.ee. Many users have noticed that some of our feeds are dominated by bot posts. These bot posts are not super engaging - they generally don't generate any discussions. The most problematic bots are the ones which just repost large amounts of content from elsewhere.
I have looked over a lot of user feedback on this issue, and also discussed the matter with other lemm.ee admins. We feel that at this time, repost bots are not healthy for lemm.ee, so we are introducing some new rules to limit such bots.
To be clear, I have nothing against users who want to use bots to just help organize and run their communities. The problem is specifically with communities which are not just supported by bots, but actually overwhelmingly run by bots.
Proposed new rules for bots
The rules we are considering are as follows:
- All bot accounts must be explicitly marked as bots (can be done through the API or on the user settings page)
- Bots are not allowed to vote on any posts or comments
- Bots should disclose their specified purpose in their profile description
- Bots should not have a disruptive influence on a community
- Bots should not be responsible for the majority of content in any community
If you are a bot developer and you can already tell that your bot would be in violation of some of these rules, then I am very sorry to inconvenience you, but I would ask to please choose (or consider hosting!) another Lemmy instance for your bot.
These rules are not in effect yet, but if reception is positive, then we will start enforcing these rules from the 1st of August!
Please share your feedback, both negative and positive, in the comments below!
Lemmy programming stream
For some unfortunate personal reasons, I will be having some extra free time in August. A silver lining to this is that I will most likely be able to use some of this free time to increase my contributions to Lemmy!
I've had an idea for a while that a programming stream focused on Lemmy might help to bring in additional new contributors and generate additional interest in Lemmy, so today, I am planning to do an experimental programming stream, where I will first try to learn about, and then improve, the 2fa logic which is currently implemented in Lemmy.
Some caveats:
- I am not a streamer or an entertainer, so this might be an extremely boring stream
- I am not some amazing superstar programmer, so I might make dumb mistakes or miss obvious things, please don't hold that against me ๐
If this sounds interesting to you, I am planning to do a 1 hour stream starting right now at https://twitch.tv/sunaurus. Feel free to jump in! If it's not a massive failure, then I will also upload a recording later on. Edit: Stream is over, thanks to all who tuned in!
I really think the "simple" approach of categorizing bot VS non-bot and federate vs defederate are only masking the underlying problem : all posts do not have the same amount of "value".
However, with Lemmy they do. And I think this is what's broken. If you or anyone in the community has time or interest, I think focusing on rewriting the "what's hot" algorithm would reduce/remove many of these "workarounds" (like the one you're suggesting).
(I'm just thinking out loud) but a better "what's hot" would have each post weighted:
Of course this cannot all be done in real time. Things like "average number of comments per post" could be precalculated daily, but I think it'll be "good enough" and a radical improvement to what Lemmy currently offers.