@[email protected] has been subject to multiple reports from our users over the last while.
We would like the users’ input on how to deal with it. It is the opinion of the administrators that @[email protected], and @lemmit.online doesn’t add anything positive and constitutes spam. We especially want to make sure we get feedback as we are more likely to be sensitive to bots like this and other forms of spam compared to most users as we’ll often scroll through “All” sorted by new.
Here are the options.
- Defederate from Lemmit.Online
- Ban @[email protected] from lemmy.ca
- leave it up to users to block @[email protected]
Please vote by up voting on one of the comments below. Downvotes will be ignored. Additional comments and discussion is more than welcome. Results of this discussion will provide us guidance on how to deal with other bots in the future as well.
If you’re not a lemmy.ca registered user, please refrain from voting but feel free to comment with your opinion.
I’ve brought up the ethics of it elsewhere. Many of us are pissed reddit undeleted our content. Regardless of legality i belive we have a right to remove our content as we see fit. This bot is copying that content from reddit without consent of those who made it wich is just as bad. again though legal, it is still a dick move. If a reddit user had their content copied here and wanted to remove it we are demanding they build an account to do so, this is not a postive way to gain users. We came to lemmy because reddit was too unethical, need to maintain higher standard of ethicacy.
I’m voting to defederate.
I do not think it’s fair to assume that everyone came to lemmy for the same reasons as you. I for one came because I didn’t like the decisions they were making, not because I had any strong feelings about the ethics of those decisions.
My bad, You are right I should not have assumed that.
- option 1: Defederate from Lemmit.Online
Option 2 is cool in regards to letting users decide… Option 3 is my second choice that said.
That said I ultimately agree with option 1. An instance dedicated to just regurgitating content from another user-generated site is just not a good thing. There is 0 value to those posts on Lemmy, instance wide imo.
There is 0 way to interact with the posts in a meaningful way and they just fill up ‘new’ with crap from somewhere else.
I don’t like the nuclear option of defederation, but I really just see that instance as a hindrence to the existence and natural growth on Lemmy.
I already actively scroll past the obvious reddit reports, and that’s all that instance brings to the table. I’m usually hesitant about defederating but in this case it seems to be the best choice if we don’t want this content around, and they even encourage it if that’s how we feel.
If you you don’t want anyone else on your server to be exposed to this bot/instance, you should convince your admin to defederate from lemmit.online. Since there are no other users on here, there will be no harm done.
Reading the FAQ I have changed my mind to defederate.
Yeah after reading their instance sidebar, I’m changing my vote to option 1.
I originally felt that option 2 would be the best since it would give us the most freedom and power.
However there is another important perspective. If there was a spammer in a community, then a solution isn’t just to “not look”, since it negatively affects other members of the community who might look. It’s our responsibility to make the community better (obviously there is some subjectivity to that).
Another point is that bandwidth is not free. This is a choice that clutters up the community and lessens the ability for others to communicate.
Finally there is no loss of information. If people want Reddit posts they can go there.
I also changed to option 1.
I agree with option 1. Lemmy is not Reddit and it should not be a Reddit copycat. These types of bots have no place in Lemmy and we need to deferate with instances that promote these kind of bots.
Defederate all the way
- option 3: Ban @[email protected] from lemmy.ca
Sorry if this was already answered, but what’s the difference between defederating and banning?
Defederating would block the entire lemmit.online instance, including all their communities and users. Banning the bot would only block the one user account. According to their FAQs though there is currently only the one user so it would have the same effect, but they might make other user bots in the future.
Ah ok. Thanks!
definite preference is 3. If you leave it to individual users you likely will have to continue dealing with reports, but I don’t think instance bans are very friendly and would only recommend in cases where traffic to/from the instance is causing resource issues on your server.
- option 2: leave it up to users to block @[email protected]
Letting users block for themselves was my choice. Lemmy is very customizable and the fewer decisions I have made for me, the better off I feel I am.
For some users, this bot may help ease the transition from Reddit. If you don’t like it, it’s quite simple to block.
Yeah, no offense to the admins who I’m sure are just trying to do their users right, but stuff like this is making me see the value of running my own instance, or at perhaps finding a more hands-off one. It’s weird to me that instance admins (or popular votes) make the decisions about what content I get to have access to.
This is my choice. I’d prefer defederating is more of a last resort. And we can choose for ourselves what to do.
deleted by creator
Since this is one “bad” actor and not the case that the entire instance is composed of bad actors, I would prefer banning or blocking over defederating.
Since the intention of the bot seems to be non-malicious, and since the individual has the means, I think it should be left to the individual to decide to block.
It’s literally the only user of that instance and the admins of that instance have stated it would remain that way.
I’ll block it, you don’t need to protect me. In fact, I would rather you not – as long as the tools I have are adequate to the task.
I’m not a part of this instance, but I wish mine would defederate from lemmit.online. It is definitely spam in my opinion. I’ve blocked the bot for now.
We’ll share this post with other instance admins once there’s a bit more discussion, and maybe seeing this will get the ball rolling for other instances to have similar discussions.
I’d like to know what the benefit is if your instance defederated when you’ve already blocked the bot. You’re already not seeing the content anymore.
Honestly, not that much for me now. But it would improve the user experience for newer people joining the instance. Also if more instances defederate it may lead to the admin of that one shutting it down, or at least changing it to not be a Reddit spam bot instance.
removed by mod
I am pretty sure I have blocked it multiple times. It is utter spam.
I like to browse All as well
and haven’t noticed that bot. If the issue is just with a single account, I think defederation seems unnecessary. Could you provide more information on the benefit for defederation versus banning the bot on Lemmy.ca? And I’m one of those people who prefer pledging defederation of Threads, so I support such a move depending on the situation.EDIT: Correction, I checked my block list and that user account is in there. 😂
My take from an outside perspective: banning the one account seems like the sensible approach toward the goal of sending a stern message to the creator and establishing an early precedent – one account is bad enough, imagine more. I think defederating should only be used if the creator doesn’t take the hint and creates another account.
I haven’t noticed it yet, but if you feel it’s a big enough problem, I’d say block the account for now. Defederating feels like a more serious punishment that I’d reserve for multiple bad actors.
I had already commented on this post few days ago with my concerns about this bot. I feel it hinders the proper movement of users from rexxit by artificially keeping activity and attention tethered to the old site, discouraging the creation of (and participation in) new communities here.
I vote we de-federate from it and ignore it as much as possible.
Personally I’m not a fan of automated content scrapers posting on Lemmy in general. I like to see what other people picked out and found interesting, even if they are reposting other sites. I’ve already blocked the bot user, but imo we should give that Reddit bot the
ban hammer.I think option 3.
Option 4. Ask the Lemmy developers to provide mandatory flagging on bots so users can know who made the bot and why so they can make an educated decision and also enable them to then ban it on an individual basis if required.
If the bot is doing things to impact performance, or break Canadian law than the lemmy.ca instance gets the last call.
I think the bot account is already flagged as one, and going to its profile shows you it has been made to crosspost from Reddit. I guess it makes sense to ban it at a per-user level because some users might like to see content cross posted from there.
There should be governance around bot creation given the impact they can have. You shouldn’t stop their creation but they should have clear ownership to a user otherwise what’s stopping someone making a CP bot and running it out of North Korea or some shit?
We are all in on an experiment right now. Rules need to exist and they need to be enforced.
Did lemmy.ca already defederate? I clicked the link to the link to block the bot it but it shows nothing there. Yet if I sign out, I can see it.
Nope, that’s probably just lemmy being buggy.
If you scroll to the bottom of the page and click instances, you can search on that page for it
Thanks. I tried again today on my desktop this time and managed to figure it out.
