Much less likely.
Though I haven't seen these RSS bots you complain about. Is this because you're browsing 'all' instead of 'subscribed'?
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
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I do generally browse All but I see them on communities I'd be subscribed to anyway
/r ?
Whoops lol
I gotta admit reddit had better shorthand
I’m a fan of the c/whatever terminology personally
We just call them comms here
There's plenty of them. I like the RSS bots. Brings more content to my feed.
Leaving this out of the post body because it's kind of a side thought: I think RSS bots on Lemmy kind of suck. We get flooded with everything these sites post whether they're worth reading or not (and most aren't!)
"Just block the bots" is the suggestion I'm sure many have..but if an RSS bot posts an article, a human is not going to post it again so I'd miss out on the 20% of articles worth reading
It used to be worse. We would have three different instances with bots reposting hackernews. One guy hosted an instance entirely for bot posting from different news feeds.
And so many different projects trying (poorly) to mirror reddit content in obnoxious ways.
On the other hand, the bots reposting old comic strips get plenty of discussion and don't annoy me as much, so not all bots, I guess.
I really don't understand the appeal of bots reposting other social media sites
I wonder what the breakdown of discussions started from users vs. bots is. While I can see your point especially from a spam pov, one purpose of this kind of bot is to pull from other sources and get a conversation going. If no one is interested, then it just falls to the bottom. I often see posts complaining that Lemmy/fediverse isn't as active as Reddit was/is, and yet without some of this automation it would be far deader as people don't tend to start posts as much as reply to existing one. If a particular bot/community is flooding your feed too much, that can be easily be blocked, or let the mods/admin know that it needs some adjustment.
I agree with most of what you said but it's less about the spam to me and more of how it feels hollow and uncurated. A human didn't read the article and feel like it was worth sharing, it just appears here
Yes, I understand that concern. If we had more people creating posts... I'm a hypocrite, I don't have many posts myself.
People want RSS functions but are too incompetent to use RSS or the source doesn't provide a feed. They do the best they can with what they know.
And the rest of us suffer due to their ignorance. It's just how humans work.
if an RSS bot posts an article, a human is not going to post it again
I reject your premise, on the basis that it seems like basically every article, worth reading or not, is posted repeatedly (by humans) over the span of a day or two anyway.
Of course, I block the bot accounts, so if there are interesting articles that aren't being re-posted, I can't see them, but... I'd say my Lemmy experience is considerably better even with the presumed reduction in content.
To directly answer your question, even if I could see them, I wouldn't engage with bot account posts.
You're not wrong but if a bot-posted article is already on the frontpage, humans are less likely to post it. And if it's news, I don't really want to wait for the reposts
I sometimes comment on rss bot posts depending on the community. I’m not replying to the bot per se, rather expressing my opinon on the the article that was posted for other users to see. I sometimes get replies from other people so it’s not entirely shouting into the void.
I actively avoid them. Im looking to more socialize around news than get the news. Basically I look for something like you get hanging and talking in a bar.
Not RSS, but we have bots that post some games to !dailygames@lemmy.zip every day. I reply to those for sure. You would miss out on those games if you'd block all bots.
Yeah, bot posts are good IMO for things that are like once per day or less. More frequently and it can end up being spammy. OTOH, I've browsed all a few times and seen interesting posts from HN that I then went over and read, so there's something to be said for that too. Maybe if there was a more nuanced option, like "don't show me bot posts unless they've been upvoted by a non-bot" or something like that. Or maybe if bots reposting from elsewhere did that filtering beforehand, like top 10 per day or something
I appreciate that your posts. Feels better knowing a human is sharing something
I don't mind those. It's really just the articles, like zippybot posting every stupid RPS headline
Ive got bots blocked.
I immediately block bot posts
Why would anyone knowingly reply to a bot? Other than to warn others that it's a bot.
I can think of one reason. Instead of replying to the poster you can make a comment for the benefit of other readers, that could start a conversation between commenters.
This is pretty much what I do with every "upper level" comment I write. It's almost never directed at OP, it's meant for anyone reading it.
RSS bots definitely get replies. The comments section on Lemmy is often just a space for discussion on what was posted but when it's a bot, I never want to "start the conversation"
No, not really. It just depends. One of the first things I blocked on Lemmy years ago was the "Lemmit" not which just copied tons of posts verbatim from Reddit. If bots are posting articles, maybe I comment. If a bot posts something discussion oriented, I'm not replying.
Huge caveat, all this is about transparent bots. If I think something is a bit masquerading as a human I don't reply.
Yes because I have blocked and filtered out all the article bots
How can you tell?
Post histories are fairly easy to see- if they have zero comments it's a dead giveaway.
Also many bots on fedi are obviously labeled as so in their username
Why does it matter? If they don't think something is a bot, how could they be less likely to reply if it's a bot?
Absolutely. Mostly because I block most of them so I can't see their posts in the first place.
If I'm commenting on an article, I'm not just talking to the person who posted the article here. So it doesn't really matter who posted it.
That's how I feel but I still find myself not wanting to contribute to bot posts
I prefer when humans choosing a few interesting stories to share, rather than a bot posting every piece of news that a website publishes.
Some news websites engage in this poor practice of splitting important information into ten different articles instead of merging it into one big article with with all the background details.
Yeah, it's the choice thing that gets me. The websites would like you to read every article no matter how irrelevant it is, I like when topics I don't read about outside of lemmy are human-curated.
I have the settings set to not show bot posts.
Yes
Definitely.
Settings>Don't show bots
If I discover an account hiding their bot status, I block them, any account connected ("created by user this and that") and consider blocking all subs it posts in as they're most likely a bot infested narrative manipulating shithole.
I have bot posts disabled in my settings so yes I'm less likely to comment on them by default.
Absolutely.
Yes. I don’t even look into the post details, just keep scrolling past
Who can tell what a bot is nowadays? There are a few ways but, most folk are not savvy enough, or do not care enough, to make the distinction.
Depends entirely on the community.
Nope. I reply to bots quite frequently. I'm often the only commenter in the thread, but if I have something to say about what the bot posted, I'll comment.
Often my comments are to make fun of blockchain or LLMs. But if the Hacker News bot posts a link to a blog post on underwater beekeeping and I have an opinion, I'll post whatever I think adds to the conversation.
For HN (and other social media sites) specifically, it feel like eavesdropping to me lol