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?

  • threelonmusketeersMEnglish
    15·
    4 months ago

    I don’t think bots are a good way to boost engagement, but I don’t think all bots should be banned either.

    In The Other Place, I enjoyed labeled bots which performed a clear function or service, and replied only in specific circumstances, such as when they were summoned or a key phrase was mentioned.

    Examples: stabbot, more JPEG auto, metric converter.

    Can you think of any other examples of “useful bots”?

    • Emotional_Series7814@kbin.melroy.org
      7·
      4 months ago

      I could swear there was a community link fixer bot, which is pretty useful for people reading comments, trying to click a link to a community, and getting an error. Bot has the correct link as a reply.

      Community-specific bots can be quite helpful. NameThatSong on Reddit had a bot that would run your post through song recognizer bots if your post had audio, to try to help the poster identify the song. I found it useful. I should probably figure out how to make a similar bot for [email protected] someday.

      • Elevator7009@kbin.run
        3·
        4 months ago

        Some people are engaging with the weekly posts on [email protected] (sadly having federation issues) that are in theory using a bot, but in practice mods have been manually making the post. But people engaged when it was actually the bot posting too.

        [email protected], [email protected] definitely have weekly posts that get interacted with. [email protected] used to, they are not regularly posted anymore, but when they are people interact. However, on all those communities, as far as I know (I think the post scheduler posts with your account so for all I know the bot could post it?), humans are making the bog-standard “what is going on in your community/active communities/what are you playing this week?” posts and I wonder if the fact a human is posting is what is driving the engagement there.

    • kofe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      It may not have been useful, but the gandolf and gronk bots provided many entertainment. My joyful emotion was used, at least

      • threelonmusketeersMEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Definitely! Entertainment absolutely qualifies as valid “utility”, especially in the less serious meme communities.