bots on reddit dont post content. They serve admin or informative purposes. There shouldn't be bots posting content and there shouldnt be bots faking ad impressions (which as ive said before is a breach of ad contract)

That's fair

Supposed bots (whether they're actually bots is debatable) have been posting the majority of content for YEARS. People are only taking notice now because they think it's malicious, but there's absolutely no evidence for that.

I don't think the number of bot posts have gone up, I think the number of user posts have gone down.

I would like to tell you all that I'm not a bot, before you flag me as such and start a witch trial. I'm just not very active and won't notice comments until it's hours later

mate youve got 0 posts

Bots are obvious because they have 300-400 posts but only 10 or so comments from about a year ago. Obviously someone who hasn't posted isn't a bot, and its not a witchhunt when its obvious which are bots. And those bots have NEVER been this prolific.

How can you tell if its a bot??

A) when the title is obviously just cloned from another site IE: "now we can post pics in comments" or is way too long and just cuts off. B) tapping on the username shows their profile. Bots are using the accounts of long dormant users, so they will have between 300 to 500 posts, but only 10 comments from a year or more ago (because comments delete after a certain amount of time).

A) when the title is obviously just cloned from another site IE: "now we can post pics in comments" or is way too long and just cuts off. B) tapping on the username shows their profile. Bots are using the accounts of long dormant users, so they will have between 300 to 500 posts, but only 10 comments from a year or more ago (because comments delete after a certain amount of time).

I don’t get what is wrong with bots posting. As long as the board isn’t flooded with spam, and there aren’t 10,000 reposts- I don’t really get the problem. My logic is this:
1. Many users do not build or originate memes, or use meme templates made by others.
2. Many people don’t keep track of who posts what, they just look at posts, vote them if they feel like it (or thumb everything,) and/or comment. So for people who actually care who posted a meme or like seeing the personality of posters by a history of what they posted- they can still do that by checking the user (which they’d have to do anyway,) and thus:
4. User memes+bot meme=more memes every day.
5. So long as bots aren’t spamming or chronically reposting, you won’t notice they are a bot without checking in or because you don’t recognize the user.
6. People elsewhere have mentioned bots and crappy/misspelled titles- but how many “insert title here” or “I can’t think of a title” and so on gave humans used anyway?
...

They are spamming and constantly reposting. Thats part of the problem.

...
7. If you’re worried about bots beating you to posting... a human can do that already.
8. They should mark bot posts for transparency.
9. Bots shouldn’t be counted in rankings- or bots should have a separate ranking- that would also allow the admins to check which bot algorithms people like most and refine the other bot algorithms so that people might actually like the bots.
10. Besides people getting upset, chats, memes, and the ads- what changes have their really been? I haven’t noticed any other than these.

The are posting worthless memes like the selfie that got ripped from 8+1gag that had a broken title with 8+1gagger censored in the title. It's also given a distinct bump in traffic which tells us they are being used for false ad impressions which is an extremely unethical breach of ad contract. It's basically legal fraud.

@guest_ I think #8 and #9 are valid pointsand it looks like others agree. As was mentioned earlier, other social media sites tell you whether an ad was paid or a post wasn’t generated by a member. I think it’s fair to expect FS to tell us if a post was made by a human FunSubster or not. But @bethorien captured what I’ve been trying to say all along. If FS is using bots to juice their numbers, then that’s not ethical and we’re being included in their ruse. Also, I’m getting increasingly concerned about how our personal data is being used. Slippery slope logic but _if_ FS is creating false ad impressions, then what else are they doing that we should be worried about?

It's not that big a leap to assume someone using unethical tactics to get money would use a different unethical tactic to get money

@bethorien Can’t say I disagree with you. My spidey sense is tingling. Ethics of false ad impressions aside, and knowing fresh content is what keeps real humans coming back, seems like they’d at least fix their algorithm to post quality, relevant memes instead of the random mess we seem to be getting nowadays. No one wants to log on to see lame memes. Anyway, I’m taking a breather on this topic for a bit. Unfortunately, I don’t think our rants are going to be acknowledged by admin anytime soon.

But I am on board with the downvoting bot posts or only commenting on posts from ‘real’ FunSubters for a bit. I don’t know how that will play out but I agree with the principle of the matter.

The slow decline of this website is disheartening.