Copying a rule from another community as a rule for ours is just what a bot would do.
What if it's actually a reasonable concern? Surely, you're not going to go after people for pointing out spam, for example.
From my experience modding on Reddit, it's generally a good idea not to engage with spam comments at all. Just downvote and report them. The ideal outcome is they just silently disappear when the mods get them, and if they've been otherwise ignored it's super easy. If there's a comment chain underneath it, it starts to take more thought and ends up getting messier as it involves either removing ok comments from other users or removing the context for those comments.
Same thing for human trolls. Downvoting is good, but once you engage in them the removal gets more tedious, especially since troll threads tend to spiral out of control. Modding is done by volunteers, make it easy for them, especially since responding to these things usually has very little value. Obvious spam and trolling is obvious to everyone and the downvotes signal to other people to not take it seriously.
If you are concerned, please flag it. We'll look into it as soon as possible. Obviously, we don't have round-the-clock coverage. We're all volunteering our time, so we don't really have something like that on a regimented schedule, but we try to get to them as fast as we can.
based and the correct choice. it’s just been a new way to dehumanize and it’s never appropriate. just report it if you are genuinely concerned about bot activity, everything else is just nasty.
I think that public call-outs of suspicious behavior is the only real and continuous way to teach new or under-informed users what bots and disinformation actors (ESPECIALLY these) sound like. I don’t remember the last time I personally called out someone I thought was a paid/malicious account or a bot… maybe never have on Lemmy. But despite the incivility, I truly believe the publicity of these comments is good for creating a resilient community.
I’ve been on forums or aggregators similar to Lemmy for a long time, and I think I have a pretty good radar when it comes to identifying suspicious account behavior. I think reading occasional accusations from within your community help you think critically about what’s being espoused in the thread, what the motivations of different users are, and whether to disbelieve or believe the accuser.
Yes, sometimes it’s used as a personal attack. But it’s better to have it out in the open so that the reality of online discourse (extremely frequent attempted manipulation of opinions) is clear to everyone, and the community can respond positively or negatively to it and organically support users that are likely victims.
If you see a suspicious post or comment, report it. Easy peasy.
You must have missed my point, which was entirely about education of new and under-informed users. Reporting is invisible and does not have that benefit.
Valid point, but leaving thins as is does not seem like the optimal solution. Maybe the mods could occasionally post examples of removed spam/bot content, for transparency and awareness. Leaving this to random users can end with more mistakes and actual abuse.
Also, the troll/bot comments and discussion around them will less disturbing outside of the intended context (where they were posted to cause disturbance or misinformation).
That’s a very interesting suggestion and I’d love to see it done, actually, regardless of what I’m about to write.
The problem is that mods aren’t bot sweepers or disinformation sniffers. They’re just regular people… and there are relatively few of them. They probably have, on average, a better radar than most users, but when it comes to malicious actors they aren’t going to be perfect. More importantly, they have a finite amount of time and effort they can put into moderation. It’s way better to organically crowd-source these kinds of things if it’s possible, and the kind of community Lemmy has makes it possible.
Banning these comments makes the community susceptible to all kinds of manipulation, especially in the run-up to a US election (let alone this one). The benefit of banning these comments is comparatively very minimal: effectively removing one type of ad hominem attack in arguments that have always featured ad hominem attacks, in one form or another.
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
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For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/