this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Lemmy
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The issue with bots in Reddit was less about their existence, and more about how unsolicited, forced, and pushy they were, since the administration of that site never imposed some limits on what a bot could/couldn't do. But at the end of the day they're just a tool, and need to be treated as such - prevent abuse, don't just kill the tech.
This is easy to prove by looking at the extremes:
It's clear why one was loved, another hated. And yet both are bots.
And OP is simply testing the viability of the tech here, based on what he says.
1 - Yes - some bots are helpful, some (most) are annoying:
a Haiku bot falls into your "triggered by accident" category (any post that is 17 syllables).
a Haiku bot also does not add any new contextual information (it just duplicates a comment).
That's why I'm saying the haiku bot is junk.
2 - In this very post, when Otome said "I never liked the Haiku Bot"... OP responded "I’ve never liked them much either"...
so I'm asking OP: "why create a bot to spam lemmy with low-value duplicate content, if you don't even like that bot yourself?"
Only if opt-out, as the original Haiku bot in the defunct site. OP however made it opt-in, so in order to trigger it you need two conditions - to actively subscribe to the bot and post a 17-syllables comment. The first one won't happen on accident.
Arguably it highlights that the post has 17 syllables in a shape that is suitable to build a haiku with, but in general I agree with you. It is not the kind of bot that I personally would inscribe in my comms, nor that I'd use myself.
Even then, a few people like this sort of gimmick, so there's some subjective value for some people. (Certainly not for both of us.)
OP himself answered it - "I wanted to try something easy to learn bot development on lemmy and a few users were waiting for this and so here I am!"
It's a low-hanging fruit, and a few people wanted it.
EDIT: just to make my position clear, I think that a few restrictions on what a bot can/can't do would be great, specially if they come from the admins. IMHO a good bot should have the following requirements:
Again, I wouldn't use this bot, but I think that it already fits all five requirements.
1 - It’s not opt-in "By User" though. It’s opt-in "By Community"...
So if one person turns it on, 1000’s of other people see it.
OP keeps saying “you can just toggle it off”... but I really can’t... when anyone can toggle it back on.
2 - Future options for toggling are not much better (bottom of the repo, To-Do section):
"if a moderator adds the haiku-bot, non-mod users cannot remove it"
“only allow moderators to subscribe/unsubscribe”
...so the toggle option wouldn’t apply to 99% of people anyway.
Who was waiting for it? The top level replies in this thread are:
I think your bot rules are pretty solid though.
Overall, I just feel like... Lemmy is a fresh space...
a chance to make a new culture...
maybe it's best to leave that old bloated carcass behind.
I was :)