NaimishWhy are so many bots following me?
Qina Liu✅@Naimish Bots following more accounts can expand an instance's reach and what accounts show up in your federated timeline. More details here: https://medium.com/@qinaliu/what-i-wish-i-knew-before-joining-mastodon-7a17e7f12a2b?source=linkShare-c763ccc05019-1491789465
@qinaliu Half way through the medium post and I gotta say, I knew a lot of things but I would not have been able to put in words like you did. Kudos. Gonna get back to finish the whole thing and reply again :)
@qinaliu Heya, I'm back. Alright so everything is well explained. Seriously amazing. I was out for a couple days from Mastodon and I had no idea where did the :pineapple: come from!!!
One more question, is bot following a good thing for the user?
Shane Curcuru 🐈@qinaliu @Naimish
Thanks Qina for the human-focused documentation - still a ways to go to explain Mastodon's differences from twitter to normal humans (i.e. who don't do technology).
Also, is #nobot meant to be "don't follow me bots", or "I'm not a bot?"
Hmmm. #Mastodon #feature #Idea: automated Turing test for bot detection. :rofl:
Thanks Qina for the human-focused documentation - still a ways to go to explain Mastodon's differences from twitter to normal humans (i.e. who don't do technology).
Also, is #nobot meant to be "don't follow me bots", or "I'm not a bot?"
Hmmm. #Mastodon #feature #Idea: automated Turing test for bot detection. :rofl:
@ShaneCurcuru @Naimish Both, maybe? I think users started doing it because they don't want bots to follow them, but it also identifies them as human. Seriously not sure if #nobot actually prevents bots from following you though
pillarist@qinaliu @Naimish @ShaneCurcuru on the bot front, #nobot only works for bots that adhere to that protocol/custom. other instances have quickly evolved from Follow Bots to Census Bots to Ambassador Bots to "You should walk to the Embassy yourself" to Bot Trap Bots, depending on ones feelings on mass/wide Federation versus "organic" Federation.
@pillarist @qinaliu @Naimish
Excellent points. In any case, unless you specifically make a toot private when you send it, assume any toot will be archived on the internet forever, one way or another.
#Mastodon #Feature #Idea: instance-side policies on bots, including optionally disallowing follows/toots from known bots appearing on the instance. Only works when you know it's a bot, but would still be nice.
Excellent points. In any case, unless you specifically make a toot private when you send it, assume any toot will be archived on the internet forever, one way or another.
#Mastodon #Feature #Idea: instance-side policies on bots, including optionally disallowing follows/toots from known bots appearing on the instance. Only works when you know it's a bot, but would still be nice.