Hi,

I don’t post this to be malicious or rude, but simply out of concern.

I believe this bot is killing community growth on Lemmy. I keep coming across would-be-interesting communities only to find a wall of bot posts with zero comments, zero votes, zero engagement. And I walk away disappointed instead of getting into a new community. As, I’m sure, may other users are doing.

Sure, you say, “just block the bot” if I don’t like it. But that doesn’t stop this thing from stifling any real engagement and growth in communities. Surely if someone can “just…”, you can “just” go back to reddit if you want to read reddit content that badly.

I admire the engineering you put into making this thing work. It’s impressive, and honestly very cool. But I really think it’s actively disengaging users, when Lemmy has enough of a hurdle to overcome in growing new communities.

Thats just my 2 cents. I’m not sure it will mean much, but I felt I had to share it. Again, no ill intent against what you’ve accomplished in creating this. Best wishes.

  • @[email protected]English
    8•1 year ago

    I agree. The sheer number of bots and the … enthusiasm with their posting frequency is making the overall experience worse.

    I remember a discussion I was having on another site about what was happening with Twitter and Reddit, and there was a phrase that really stuck with me - “curation is the product.” I think many of us use a service like lemmy to find interesting things, ask questions, and have conversations. The mass auto posting of article after article makes discovery challenging. My All feed looks like a spam-filled inbox.

    And unfortunately block lists really don’t work. They’re tough to maintain, and they certainly don’t help new users find the communities that would make them stay.

    I really think the bots need to be banned or throttled.