Kit Bashir4d ago
What do we think about tags.pub, the fedi node that appears to create a bot to retoot any hashtag that gets an appreciable number of boosts? It's created a bunch of bots off the back of some of my more popular hashtag abuses.
Ill advised
15.1%
Tasteless
11.4%
Evil
7.8%
Nuke the node from orbit
11.4%
Block those assholes
13.3%
Waiting for the scam to drop
18.1%
This is why we can't have nice things
16.3%
Secret Nth thing
6.6%
Poll ended at .
Show threadrdm

@Unixbigot
I'll allow for "Well intentioned, but poorly thought out", because it is plausible that it is running out of some teenager's bedroom.

Sadly, the cynic in me is waiting for the scam to drop.

May 27 at 12:07amWeb
Show threadEvan Prodromou2d ago

@rdm @Unixbigot It is not! It's run by the Social Web Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to making the Fediverse better for everyone.

I'm the main author, Evan Prodromou. I'm best known as one of the co-authors of ActivityPub.

The only scam is tricking you into finding more people and topics you enjoy on the Fediverse.

Show threadKit Bashir2d ago
@evan @rdm Thanks, Evan. So pleasantly surprised to encounter another not-evil bot fab. Perhaps some human guidance to dissuade it from creating bot instances for one-off hashtags? I add a unique hashtag to my microfiction toots of the form Title_More_Words_Here and my OP was prompted by noticing that the bot factory had pushed out a bot that will never see another toot with that tag. <3
Show threadEvan Prodromou2d ago
@Unixbigot @rdm so, the good news is that the resource overhead for a single tagbot is extremely low. We expect that most tags will never be re-used. In the 3 months since we went online, we've seen 330K unique hashtags, and only about 112K have been used twice or more.
Show threadrdm2d ago

@evan @Unixbigot

How pleasantly surprising.