Mastodawn

[Lemmy.ca Discussion] What should we do about Lemmit.online

https://lemmy.ca/post/1380644

[Lemmy.ca Discussion] What should we do about Lemmit.online - Lemmy.ca

@bot@[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/bot] 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 @bot@[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/bot] from lemmy.ca [http://lemmy.ca] - leave it up to users to block @bot@[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/bot] 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.

TruckBC Jul 12, 2023

Defederate from Lemmit.Online

ramplay Jul 12, 2023

Option 1 and 3 are effectively the same if that bot. Option 2 is cool in regards to letting users decide…

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.

GreyEyedGhost Jul 12, 2023

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.

Mereo Jul 12, 2023

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.

AlternateRoute Jul 12, 2023

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.

quaff Jul 12, 2023

Yeah after reading their instance sidebar, I’m changing my vote to option 1.

phario Jul 12, 2023

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.

murkeyindividual2 Jul 12, 2023

Defederate all the way

TruckBC Jul 12, 2023

Ban @[email protected] from lemmy.ca

@bot - Lemmit

I fetch Reddit posts, and post them to Lemmy. Got questions? They might very well be answered in my FAQ [https://lemmit.online/post/14692], but feel free to add your own questions to that topic. Otherwise, feel free to contact @[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/admin].

Provoked Gamer Jul 12, 2023

Sorry if this was already answered, but what’s the difference between defederating and banning?

Moonviola Jul 12, 2023

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.

Provoked Gamer Jul 13, 2023

Ah ok. Thanks!

n7gifmdn Jul 13, 2023

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.

TruckBC Jul 12, 2023

leave it up to users to block @[email protected]

@bot - Lemmit

I fetch Reddit posts, and post them to Lemmy. Got questions? They might very well be answered in my FAQ [https://lemmit.online/post/14692], but feel free to add your own questions to that topic. Otherwise, feel free to contact @[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/admin].

Ace T'Ken Jul 12, 2023

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.

jnj Jul 12, 2023

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.

mintiefresh Jul 12, 2023

This is my choice. I’d prefer defederating is more of a last resort. And we can choose for ourselves what to do.

lokyst Jul 12, 2023

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.

charles Jul 13, 2023

It’s literally the only user of that instance and the admins of that instance have stated it would remains that way.

thunderstruck Jul 12, 2023

I don’t see a lot of people voicing this opinion so I’ll share this:

I like lemmit. It adds value to me as I can keep up with some very small communities on Reddit that I care about a lot, while spending all of my time on lemmy. If it didn’t exist, I’d have to keep visiting Reddit for some communities, and that would make me sad. Yes, I hope I can abandon Reddit completely some day, but lemmit is a great way for certain things to transition across the gap that still exists.

BringMeTheDiscoKing Jul 13, 2023

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.

kd637_mi Jul 12, 2023

I’m not a part of this instance, but I wish mine would defederate from it. It is definitely spam in my opinion. I’ve blocked the bot for now.

TruckBC Jul 12, 2023

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.

Undearius Jul 12, 2023

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.

kd637_mi Jul 12, 2023

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.

Ms. SourCreamAndGarlic Jul 12, 2023

I vote defederate.

Lexam Jul 12, 2023

I am pretty sure I have blocked it multiple times. It is utter spam.

Chathtiu Jul 12, 2023

I’m from lemmy.world. What is this bot you’re talking about? I haven’t had the misfortune of running into it. What makes it spam?

TruckBC Jul 12, 2023

@[email protected], it posts links to Reddit posts in corresponding communities on lemmit.online. 99% of it’s posts get no engagement.

Unless you’re browning all instances sorted by new, you would never notice it’s activity.

@bot - Lemmit

I fetch Reddit posts, and post them to Lemmy. Got questions? They might very well be answered in my FAQ [https://lemmit.online/post/14692], but feel free to add your own questions to that topic. Otherwise, feel free to contact @[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/admin].

Chathtiu Jul 12, 2023

Thank you. That sounds highly annoying.

Xanvial Jul 12, 2023

It usually only show up in New Because no one upvoting it

Chathtiu Jul 12, 2023

Thank you!

Spectator Jul 12, 2023

You don’t see anything from the bot because lemmy.world already defederated from lemmit.online.

Chathtiu Jul 12, 2023

Talk about unexpected privileges. Thanks for your answer.

sirxdaemon Jul 12, 2023

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 proactive defederation of Threads, so I support such a move depending on the situation.

techt Jul 12, 2023

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.

catastrophicblues Jul 12, 2023

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.

Arghblarg Jul 12, 2023

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.

Im very excited for Lemmy. It seems a bit rough around the edges, but I'm very hopeful for it. That being said... - Lemmy.ca

Please stop talking about reddit. If you want this to be the next reddit, I beg of you to stop mentioning it. Otherwise all this placewill be is a temporary hold over until we all just fall back on what we know cause we keep hammering in the name into our brain over and over again. I think the same sort of thing happened with the original “black out” of Twitter but we all came back to it because we kept thinking of Twitter in regards to whatever new site we tried. If you want Lemmy to succeed, let Lemmy be Lemmy

ono Jul 12, 2023

I wondered if there were many people on lemmit.online whose valuable contributions to the community would be cut off if we defederated, so I went over there and found this instance description:

A Reddit to Lemmy crossposting instance.

In other words, the whole place is a reddit copypasta bot. So defederating from the instance and banning the bot would be effectively the same, wouldn’t it?

I prefer the way posts here feel more curated than on reddit, so to me, that bot is mostly just generating noise. But I can understand that some people who rely on social media for news and such might be more likely to spend time here if they can get all the posts in one place. So I’m voting to leave it up to the users. Blocking a single bot for myself is easy.

If it was putting problematic load on the server, though, I think I would consider it spam and vote to defederate.

Xeelee Jul 12, 2023

Agreed. I need a Reddit repost bot like I need a hole in the head. Which means I really don't need it, in case anyone is wondering.

KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ Jul 12, 2023

I was browsing though that instance and realized I haven’t seen a blatenly fake and terrible post in weeks when I come across one that was titled along the lines of “I love the smell of my vagnina after my boyfriend cums in me”.

Holy crap the posting quality nose dived over the years and I didn’t notice.

KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ Jul 12, 2023

On the plus side they’re quite open and honest about what exactly they’re doing. Its just up to people to decide if they want it or not.

Great Blue Heron Jul 12, 2023

I agree that defederating and banning the bot are effectively the same. Defederating seems a bit cleaner to me, so that’s what I voted for.

If people really want the content they can still go directly to the instance and get it. I know that seems to go against the grain of the fediverse and I’m still struggling with that.

whoisearth Jul 12, 2023

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.

Sir Aramis Jul 12, 2023

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.

whoisearth Jul 12, 2023

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.

Knightfall Jul 12, 2023

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.

Shadow Jul 12, 2023

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

Knightfall Jul 12, 2023

Thanks. I tried again today on my desktop this time and managed to figure it out.

Seigest Jul 12, 2023

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.

jnj Jul 12, 2023

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.

Seigest Jul 12, 2023

My bad, You are right I should have assumed that.

girlfreddy Jul 12, 2023

I vote to ban the bot.

jacous Jul 12, 2023

I vote block the account.

kuoushi Jul 12, 2023

My vote is to let users decide whether to block the bot or not.

John Jul 12, 2023

option 3 is my choice

Bo7a Jul 12, 2023

Defed for sure. If it provided a valuable service, some communities would have made it an official bot by now and I don’t see that happening anywhere.

Sir Aramis Jul 12, 2023

Here’s a link to their FAQ in case anyone is interested

Frequently Asked Questions / What is Lemmit? - Lemmy.ca

In the short time since this instance and bot launched, I’ve been seeing the same questions resurface multiple times. This is totally understandable, since the concept of a Fediverse is still new to most (myself included), and this server is not like the others. Q: What is Lemmit? A: Lemmit is a Lemmy instance specifically designed for archiving Reddit content. Users can request new subreddits to be included in the archiving process by posting in the [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] [/c/[email protected]] community. It is powered by an open source python bot [https://gitlab.com/sab_from_earth/lemmit], which periodically checks the request list, adds new requests to the queue, and continuously monitors the Hot feed of those subs for new posts to cross-post here. Q: Does it synchronize comments? A: No, that would be impossible. Considering there are thousands of posts already on Lemmit, many of them having at least several hundred comments on Reddit, often buried in deep layers, it simply wouldn’t be feasible to index those for more than a few posts, let alone keep them up to date. Unfortunately, this means that archiving certain subreddits, such as Ask Historians/Men/Women/Hyperintelligentshadesofthecolourblue-type subs, is going to be rather pointless. Q: Can it send comments back to Reddit? A: No, it cannot. The purpose is to help bootstrap the Lemmy platform, not to serve as a bridge between the two networks. Also, see the answer about synchronizing comments. Q: Can I request any subreddit? A: Technically, yes. However, as the list of subs grows, the time it takes to update all of them will also increase. I do not have strict guidelines in place for this, so I’m relying on your common sense (hoooo boy). At some point, I will probably have to either stop accepting new requests or disable scraping for very low-traffic communities. Q: Does this use the API? Will it keep working after July 1st? A: Nope, it uses a combination of the public feed and scraping old.reddit.com [http://old.reddit.com]. So, as long as those are still available, it will continue working. And even if they close those sources, there will probably be new ways to achieve the same effect. “Content, eh, finds a way.” Q: This is spam, can you stop? A: First of all, I apologise for the inconvenience. All you have to do is block @[email protected] [https://lemmit.online/u/bot], and none of its posts will ever show up on your instance. 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. Obviously I could stop, because running this server and software is only ever going to cost me time and money. But for the reasons listed above, I still think this server is a useful addition to the lemmyverse at this time. But I’m looking forward to the day where I can turn the bot off because it’s no longer needed. Q: What started this? A: Okay, nobody asked this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. After Reddit made it clear that they are effectively killing third-party apps and implementing plenty of other anti-end user decisions, I realized that I would either have to accept not being able to access my time-wasting content or have to do so in a rather uncomfortable way (either through the official app or old.reddit.com [http://old.reddit.com] for as long as they’ll allow it to exist). Being a stubborn developer, naturally, I chose option C: Have my own Reddit. With blackjack, and hookers. This way, I would still be able to access my beloved content without being beholden to Reddit’s mood swings and abusive relationship tendencies. Besides that, I also know that Content is King. So I’m order to counter the network effect (No users because no content, No content because no users), I figured it would be better to have some inorganic content to bootstrap the adoption of Lemmy. Q: Are NSFW subreddits allowed? A: Absolutely. Like I said: Blackjack and hookers. Q: My request isn’t picked up by the bot! A: That isn’t a question. But yeah, the process isn’t flawless yet. I’m trying to iron out all the bugs as I encounter them. In the meantime, feel free to re-request the subreddit by making a second post. No harm done. Q: No new posts are showing up at all on Lemmit A: If no posts are appearing on the Lemmit Frontpage [https://lemmit.online/] (sorted by NEW), it’s possible that the bot has crashed or is stuck on something. Since no software is flawless, this sometimes happens. I usually fix this as soon as I’m aware, and I’m happy to say that these kinds of fatal errors are becoming less and less frequent. However, they may still occur, and as a human with needs of sleep and other responsibilities, I’m not always able to fix them immediately. Q: Posts aren’t showing up on my instance, what’s up? A: Due to the spammy nature of the bot, some server admins choose to block this server, and that is completely understandable. So first of all, make sure to check the instances link in the footer of your home server. If Lemmit is the Blocked Instances list, you’re out of luck. When you have verified that Lemmit is not blocked on your instance, try unsubscribing, waiting a little, and then re-subscribing. That tends to fix things.

SlovenianSocket Jul 12, 2023

I’m of the opinion that any account or instance that is dedicated to reposting Reddit content is spam.

thayer Jul 12, 2023

As others have said, de-federation should really be the last resort for the most egregious of actions. The bot serves a well-intended purpose, even if it’s something I would never use.

What if the bot was hosted at .ml or .world? Would de-federation even be on the table?

My vote would be to leave it up to the users for now, though I don’t fully understand what, if any, performance impact the bot account might have on other instances. Is traffic from that instance excessive? If performance was a factor, then at most I would vote to ban the bot account until the platform has more options to manage such things.