I would keep positive content since they are rarer to find.

But, when people use bot or script, they must indicate it.

0% of bots pretending to be human. 10-20% of automated content marked as such, for example someone using a bot to re-post a daily comic to a comics community.

Why would anyone want >0%?

I answered above 5% because i fear that my timeline will be empty. According to our data, lot users use bots.

So it is mostly to make sure that without them, there would be enough contributors to make our timeline lively. I don't know the result on <5%. We need a minimal amount of content to interact with each other

He didn't say "bots", he said "bots pretending to be humans".

I'd rather see no content than bot posted content.

I don't use Lemmy exlusively, I have a old timey forum that I use, IRC and some other things. So I'm not reliant only on Lemmy for my entertainment. If things are slow here, I go check the forum, if the things are slow in the forum, I check Lemmy, if things are slow everywhere, I put on a movie, tv-series or a game. Personally I don't have any desire to have a website that throws new content at me constantly. Once or twice a day is enough for me.

However, I do realise that I'm a bit of a Luddite and a special case with this and others want different things. So I'm not going to vote for banning things, if I have tools that block or hide bot content, I'm happy with that. I already have quite a lot of users, instances and websites on the blocklist. So as far as I know, I should have quite organic experience here. But yeah, bots not declaring themselfs as bots is a problem.

Zero percent. I block and report every one I see.

I’d prefer an empty feed if I knew that when it wasn’t, it was content create led by human beings.

This

Wouldn’t an empty timeline be better than something a bot PRETENDING TO BE HUMAN posted? This is usually stuff to manipulate people. Why would you want something like that instead of just nothing?

As is the common answer, none.

Defining bot very loosely we could call an RSS feed a bit in that it's an automated relay of content. Those are fine, just a labor saving tool really so long as the sources aren't problematic.

I really dislike the 'I am your customer service assistant' bots, they tend to be inept and act as more of a gatekeeper. They have some minor utility but also generally don't try and present as human.

Proper AI bots that attempt to pass as real are generally only there to manipulate and force a narrative, those need to be removed or limited to cases where someone is intentionally trying to engage them through a specific call.

Because usually, they are a mix of users and bot

Should we consider the downside of false positives or just this ideal case?

I would like zero percent. I am prepared to accept some because identifying bots is a non-trivial problem, and I would not want to ban a human for a false positive.

Then by who they are managed ? Human. That's why some content are posted in a specific community or target certain users.

So i don't know how the timeline will change, nor the criteria used to define those bot. So that's why i'm careful.

That depends of the question wording, it changes everything. When you do a poll, you have to thread carrefully because they can get the answer they want.

We could slightly change your vote with thoses wording :

• What percentage of bots pretending to be humans is acceptable in your 'All' feed?
• What percentage of bots is acceptable in your 'All' feed?
• What percentage of bots managed by users is acceptable in your 'All' feed?
• What percentage of blogs and news contents curated by bots is acceptable in your 'All' feed?
• What percentage of positive contents curated by bots is acceptable in your 'All' feed?

So, that's how i think. Whilst the answer is obiviously <5% i want to compare both timeline to make sure it was the correct choice.

What are we defining as a bot? Is an RSS feed to a dedicated community a bot? What about one to a community that wants it there, but also has posts directly written by humans? Can we group in humans who just churn out dozens of posts without much thought? Without a clear definition I can't really answer the poll.

Regardless of what the answer is though, the platform must absolutely not be making choices about what I see without my consent and ability to adjust the filtering completely.

Honestly, what I'd like to see less of is posts that are just a link, with no exerpt and no explanation of why the poster chose to post it, regardless of whether it was posted by a bot or a human.

Context?

Without context, I would say 0% - because why would I ever want to see a bot post disguised as human? But for the question to be asked, I feel like you're trying to figure out something, and each level would have pros&cons/nuances.

Like, for example, is the question actually "what % of bots pretending to be humans is acceptable IF it means that you'll get less content if we filter them out?"

None. Sanitarium and people like him who use his repost add on get blocked. I’ve already got a collection of screenshots a bunch of baby accounts with disproportionately high post, mostly reddit repost. I’d rather empty communities than become a reddit rehost/bot site. Also, limiting peoples upvotes was a mistake and you should undo it. I miss PugJesus.

0%. I want no bots.

I voted I don't care. What I really would like is a way to block all posts that are just links or even better specify a minimum amount of characters the body must have to not be blocked for each type of post. Right now because of the lack of this I have started blocking anyone who posts a link with no context and if something like this comes about I will never be able to figure out who in my block list is because they tend to post links with no body so I will not see their comments for those who are not bots. That being said the fact they do it indicates its not someone who really vibes well with me anyway. Still I always like more options that users can use to curate their own lists.

Honestly, what I’d like to see less of is posts that are just a link, with no exerpt and no explanation of why the poster chose to post it, regardless of whether it was posted by a bot or a human.

This is the most important thing and I voted content is content because it is the quality of the content that matters. Someone setting up something like an RSS feed is perfectly fine as long as it accomplishes the same things as a person would do and it is the kind of content I'm looking for.

I don't want people actively spamming the All feed with low effort posts and I don't want bots doing the same. If the problem is their posting looks like a bot and spamming low effort trash it doesn't matter if they are a real person or a bot.

Or the reverse where prolific posters who engaged with comments were dunked on because they posted too frequently and were accused of automation and subsequently driven off the site by restricting how they could engage with voting. This purity test crusade is getting out of hand.

Or the reverse where prolific posters who engaged with comments were dunked on because they posted too frequently and were accused of automation and subsequently driven off the site by restricting how they could engage with voting. This purity test crusade is getting out of hand.

Yes, this is one of the things I was alluding to, along with the hidden, centralised block lists. Piefed is a really nice interface to the threadiverse, marred by a few bad, ideological, decisions by the dev. The fact I mostly agree with the decisions is irrelevant, they should not be baked in to the platform.

Same here. 0% please.

How exactly are bots pretending to be human though, @rimu@piefed.social? Just by not checking the checkmark in their account settings, or something more nefarious?

I'd also add to that people posting like bots - mindlessly. And that applies to "reposters" as much as "normal" random news article posters. I just can't with these powerposters.

But frankly, I'm mostly fine to figure this out by myself and grow my blocklist. OTOH this could be important for newcomers.

And before someone counters with that argument: no, these people are not helping the fediverse lift off or however they phrase it. They're helping the fediverse to become just like reddit/Xhitter.

F bots pretending, everyone needs to be clearly identified as bot or not.

I’m torn.

I enjoy the Picard maneuver and those people that thoughtfully curate their reposts but time2waste and sanitation and their alts drive me up the wall.

I feel like you’re trying to figure out something, and each level would have pros&cons/nuances.

Right, I get the feeling that some kind of decisions will be made with the justification: "everybody voted for this!" but it's not clear what we're voting for.

re-post

Right, I notice piefed.social now labels some accounts as "Reposter accounts" which are described in the Settings panel as "Reposters automatically copy popular content from reddit, etc, which can feel inauthentic."

@rimu@piefed.social it's not clear whether Reposters is considered a subset of Bots for this poll.

Somewhere between 1 and 3%. If there was none I’d assume the place is dead and there’s no one interested in disrupting it.

Now, now, don't be bot-racists. If they're sentient and posting on their own behalf, then I'd be as delighted to engage with them as anyone else.

But bots as agents doing others' bidding? No thank you, sir. Can't spell abolition without 'oi, ban toil!'

I think this is mainly talking about bot accounts that are nit marked as such. Of course, at the end of the day a human has instructed the bot what to do, but there are at least a few people here who don't consider their reddit reposting bot account an actual bot (time2lose for example)

I mean its pretty simple. A bot is a program creating posts instead of a human. Thats it.

And no, a piefed client does not court as one of these programs, because its still the user writing and submitting the post.

What then, in end result, is the difference between, say, a script that reposts stories from the BBC, and a person doing so? It seems to me that there is no meaningful difference, and what matters is where they are doing it, and whether they are welcome in that community.

The question the rimu is asking seems to be irrelevant, or at least, not well formulated enough for a meaningful conclusion. I think what they're really asking is "What percentage of non-interactive posters do you think is acceptable in the all feed", but that is conjecture on my part. By "nob-interactive", I mean posters, either human or automated, who don't respond to comments on their posts. Unfortunately, even the answer to that question must be "it depends", as some communities, such as comic reposts, thrive on them, whereas they don't have any place in more duscussion based communities.

The difference is that one is automated and the other is not. I'm just telling you the difference between a bot and a normal account. There isn't that much to it.

I'm aware of the technical difference, but that doesn't seem to be what this question from rimu is about. If it was as simple as the difference between an account flagged as a bot and one that isn't, a simple user selectable filter would handle the issue. They are clearly asking something more than that, but it is not actually clear what.

zero should be an option tho

Perhaps I should have been clearer about that. Maybe we need another poll, argh.

I'm fine with bots if I know they are bots. Bots pretending to be real is not something I could imagine I would want. Reading the tread I don't see any example of why a bot pretending to be human is good?

I really dislike the ‘I am your customer service assistant’ bots, they tend to be inept and act as more of a gatekeeper. They have some minor utility but also generally don’t try and present as human.

I know the OP question is about bots masquerading as human, not bots calling themselves bots, but… this quote reminded me of the AutoMod Reddit bots. I'm happy with the bots that were like

If the audio is a recording of the actual song please check the replies to this comment to see if the bots u/RecognizeSong and u/find-song identified it correctly :) (might take a few seconds to reply)

Please flair your post as Answered if the bots got it right, or comment to say if they listed the wrong song(s), so that people would know if help is still needed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

trying to help out with the functioning of the sub and that clearly call themselves bots.

0% isn't an option? I don't think bot posts should be disallowed, but they should be clearly labelled as bot posts, and they should not be allowed to pretend to be human.

Wondering if it counts if you post stuff

• you randomly remembered from Reddit because it was funny or relevant
• that you want to preserve from Reddit before it gets deleted
• that someone else sent you and that you thought Fedi might like

or if I should stop the above three because they are botlike, or too Reddit/Twitter-like, and only post comments, original content, or links I personally have something to say about other than "thought the people on !communityname would like it."

All of that's OK. In case I dodn't make it clear above: I'm talking about people who post a lot - sometimes more than 10 posts daily - and almost never interact.