this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Saw a suspicious post resurrecting a 5 month old thread, and after a few back and forths:

https://linux.community/comment/3453531

I don’t understand why you are treating me like a robot. However, I can help with the Fibonacci sequence. Here is a Python 3 function to calculate it:

I'm torn, its nice to have activity in the fediverse, but I'm not convinced bots are the right way to go about it. Opinions on the future of engagement bots?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

i expect admins and mods to deal with bots quietly. filling the comment sections with chatter is bad. encouraging users to fill the comment section with chatter is bad. encouraging users to treat other users as machines is bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would rather have transparency and community engagement to handle this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

id rather stop being called a shill and bot every time my opinion deviates from the hivemind. that shit is toxic

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Your account is 8 days old, who has accused you of being a bot?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

this account is 8 days old. i've been around the fediverse since 2015, and on lemmy with gusto since 2023.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

idk dude be more conversational? You don't need to engage in hostile conversations either.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 months ago

i don't tell you what to do. please extend the same courtesy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I recognize how it would be rude to accuse a human of being a LLM/bot. That's a good point

This is the first time I've seen a obvious LLM bot in the wild on lemmy, so I was trying to get it to definitively out itself. (which it later did)

I'm a little worried if the community rule is to ignore LLM bots when they appear in the comments, then they could become quite the elephant in the room. Most mod actions happen hours/days after the activity has already passed, so even if mods are 100% successful in removing LLM content, most of the experienced interaction people have will already be with the LLM bots.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

if the community rule is to ignore LLM bots when they appear in the comments

it should be encouraged for people to report bots. that's not ignoring.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

True, but the overlap between the best LLM and the most oblivious human is rather large, there needs to be a smoking gun for a moderator to see a poster is undeniably a bot, there has to be some interaction with the bot to get to that point.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

, there needs to be a smoking gun for a moderator to see a poster is undeniably a bot

here's a smoking gun: they don't appeal their ban.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm confused, accusing humans in comments of being a bot is rude, but banning people on the suspicion of being a bot so that they have to appeal to unban their account is better?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

when the appeal comes in, are you going to deny it?

this can be a very quiet exercise, without implying to other users that the user in question might be a bot. by contrast, just probing it out in the open taints that users interactions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Banning people is a very bad experience for humans, most are unlikely to come back to the community at all. Banning should really be a last resort.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

most are unlikely to come back

ok. well you're saying you'd rather preserve interactions from someone you suspect of being a bot, but bot interactions themselves are bad? the experience is the same. but from a user persectiveo having my comment responded to by other users in public saying "you're just a bot" "you're a shill" "ignore previous instructions..." etc.... that shit is toxic. it needs to NOT happen. keeping that shit out of the inbox is far preferable if all i have to do is send a dm to a mod.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Yes, open dialog is better then rapid fire speculative banning.

I'm not sure I understand your philosophy of Anarchy, but it seems to be very rule heavy.

This is the moderator/admin meta community for lemmy, so if we want to hammer out a better way to deal with bots this is the place to do it, but we should have a protocol that is actionable without DMs (if I was writing a bot I wouldn't ever respond to DMs), and that doesn't require speculative banning.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

maybe dm's are better than quick banning, but my banning preference is for shoot-first-ask-questions-later, but short bans. a 1 to 3 day ban is better in most circumstances for most offenses. even repeated bad behavior, i feel should see the same term unless the bans themselves become burdensome to the mods.

i can see the case for dm's for suspected bots though.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago

your philosophy of Anarchy... seems to be very rule heavy.

rules without rulers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I don't know that we can necessarily rely on bot creators to never implement automated ban appeals.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

When I'm banned from things I don't appeal because I don't trust the intentions of moderators and making such a request to someone acting in bad faith is humiliating. I think anyone coming from Reddit will probably be reluctant to appeal a ban.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I have too big a mouth to let injustice happen in front of me or to me and not tell someone they fucked up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Fair, point is the fact someone doesn't appeal doesn't prove they are a bot

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Most mod actions happen hours/days after the activity has already passed, so even if mods are 100% successful in removing LLM content, most of the experienced interaction people have will already be with the LLM bots.

users should still be discouraged from doing your probing anyway. mods should be encouraged to be involved.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I am a mod and a instance admin, I'm exactly the person you say should do the probing.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

i'm saynig no public probing should be done at all.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If the bot only responds to public comments, and we don't allow probing of suspected bot accounts, then we have created a situation where bots are allowed to exist in a defacto state as long as they don't say 'I'm a bot'

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

? just ban it. people appeal unjust bans.