Who would do such a thing? And why? The poor little fella is just doing it’s job…
Because it’s annoying to think there’s a comment on a thread, open it, and see that it was only a bot.
It still shows as a comment, except now you see nothing when you click the post.
The same people who are downvoting you, I guess. I’m not really sure what the objection is but they are very consistent. I’ve actually wondered if someone set up some bots to downvote all the MBFC bot posts for some reason.
They have not. I just did some analysis of it, and there is one person whose account has downvoted almost every comment that the bot has left. They have around a thousand other votes, so it’s unlikely to be a single-issue votebot account, but they also have no posts or comments, which is suspect. It seems plausible that there’s something mechanical going on which might be concerning. On the other hand, it’s only one person. There is one other person who has given so many downvotes to the bot that it’s suspicious, also.
Aside from those two accounts, it all looks like real downvotes. There are accounts which have given hundreds of downvotes to the bot, but they’re all recognizable as highly active real accounts, so it makes sense that they would give mass downvotes to the bot.
People just don’t like the bot. Have you considered listening to the pretty extensive explanations they’ve given in this comments section as to why?
Have you considered listening to the pretty extensive explanations they’ve given in this comments section as to why?
I was just entertaining a notion as I lack the skills to do an analysis like you did.
As for reading the other comments here, I have read them now, and they are interesting, but when I first commented, there were no other comments here and the post stood at -3.
Reasonable. I wasn’t trying to jump down your throat about it. I was a little annoyed at the comments which are positing some sort of fantasy scenario where the bot is useful, but where people hate it for irrational reasons. But yours was a reasonable question, definitely, in particular because for at least one account, it looks like what you described is exactly what’s happening.
Most people don’t want the bot to be there, because they don’t agree with its opinion about what is “biased.” It claims factually solid sources are non-factual if they don’t agree with the author’s biases, and it overlooks significant editing of the truth in sources that agree with the author’s biases.
In addition, one level up the meta, opposition to the bot has become a fashionable way to rebel against the moderation, which is always a crowd pleaser. The fact that the politics moderators keep condescendingly explaining that they’re just looking out for the best interests of the community, and the bot is obviously a good thing and the majority of the community that doesn’t want it is getting their pretty little heads confused about things, instigates a lot of people to smash the downvote button reflexively whenever they see its posts.
Maybe I’m misreading your comment (coffee hasn’t kicked in yet), but are you saying the bot is incorrect or that people view the bot as incorrect because it doesn’t support their biases?
I’m saying that the bot is incorrect. Look up any pro-Palestinian or -Arab source on it, and you’ll find a pretty bald-faced statement that it is factually suspect, because its viewpoint is anti-Israel. Look up the New York Times, which regularly reports factually untrue things, including one which caused a major journalistic scandal near the beginning of the war in Gaza, and check its factual rating.
Every report of bias is from somebody’s point of view. That part I have no issue with. Pretending that a source is or isn’t factual depending on whether it matches your particular bias is something different entirely.
I’ll down vote it when it says “I have nothing to add” because it could just not say anything.
Because if I wanted bots to interact with I would have stayed on Reddit. The only good ones were the LotR character bots in the first place and even those got tired.
