The rules for bots # Bots should be clearly prompted by a command # Bots that always post without human intervention are noisy and are often unwanted. Bots should not act in a community without mods from that community being contacted first # Moderators should not have to chase down the bots being used in their community, it should be opt-in. Just ask, be nice. Bots should minimize the space they take with their messages # A bot’s response should be a small as possible to avoid taking space that could be used by people.

After some discussions in !chat, we came up with the conclusion we should adopt rules surrounding bots.

We’ll ban bots which we are aware of that currently don’t follow these rules and contact their creators. Please report bots that don’t follow these.

  • brie
    8•1 year ago

    Although I do like the idea of having some other information outside of the spoiler, I’m of the opinion that bots should distinguish themselves with the bot flag, and no more. The message should introduce the content, rather than the bot itself, and information about the bot should go in the bot’s bio.

    Here’s a summary of the article! This summary is 100% shorter than the article:

    Summary
    • Enfield [he/him]
      2•1 year ago

      Admittedly, I agree with you in making the footprint leaner if it can be helped. The Lemmy UI and best practices working with that would ideally handle flagging the bot and let people make informed decisions from there.

      I was trying to strike a balance between keeping it lean and keeping it visible. @rikudou’s concern was that spoiler folding would lead to people missing the bot as they scanned through the comments. At least with how Lemmy UI currently is, I have to concede that I think they have a point. Last I checked on the default Lemmy UI theme at least, the Bot flag is relatively easy to miss scanning through comments. Moderator and Administrator icons are already relatively low-key, but the Bot flag currently uses the more discrete body text color and no outlining. I didn’t even know bots had a name flag until you pointed it out.

      It’s a delicate balance between keeping the comment reasonably slim but also reasonably visible. I think I was trying to come up with a solution that works with the limitations as-is, but your recommendation is definitely what we ought to go with in the long-term if we can make it happen. It seems to me like it would be better to solve a fair chunk of this through the UI itself rather than bulking up the copy.