it runs a lemmy instance which will be the home of bots that mirror accounts on reddit.
The admin of this instance can choose what subreddits are going to be monitored from this instance. Let's say that these are the "source" communities.
For these selected subreddits, the admin can define where the posts from these subreddits should be posted in the other lemmy instances. We can, e.g, map posts from /r/selfhosted to !main@selfhosted.forum or !selfhosted@lemmy.world .
You can choose whether to mirror the posts only or the whole thread with comments from reddit. Each of these will be authored by the account that mirrors the original reddit user.
(WIP, optional) responses to the reddit mirror accounts will create a comment on reddit with a link to original lemmy thread.

So, now I finally got to deploy the first lemmy fediversed instance, and I'd like to know the following:

which subreddits you still follow but would like to bring to the fediverse?
For instance admins and community mods, what communities you would like to be the destination of the mirror posts, and would you be interested in having the posts only or the whole thread?

Bear in mind that this is NOT advised to be done for the bigger subs. The idea here is not to create a huge army of bots and overwhelm the fediverse, but mostly to create a migration path to those who rely on the more niche subreddits.

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[+] rglullis -9 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Nobody wants to participate in a disconnected discussion.

This is why the next part of the work is to build a bridge to send notifications to the people on reddit.

We have multiple instances with bots that do precisely what you’re saying

Do we really? Can you point me to them?

Nobody wants to have a discussion about a reddit post.

You are starting to sound like a gatekeeper. First, this is not the goal of this tool. The idea is eventually to have mirror accounts ends to work as proxys to allow for two-way bridges. Second, a lot of people know that they are not with reddit, but when they have come to lemmy they bounced back because they couldn't find the content they were used to.

We need more people posting to Lemmy.

Agree, but If we follow the rule of 90/9/1 for lurkers/commenters/posters, this means that we can bring 90% of reddit's userbase to the fediverse just by bringing the content here. The posters and commenters will eventually follow.

The logic is simple: unless I start breaking into people's phones and computers, I can not force people them to post to Lemmy, but I can get their content here. A tool like this can help the intolerant minority to drive the behavior of the majority.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If we're interacting with Reddit anyway what's the point of using Lemmy

[–] rglullis -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You won't be interacting with Reddit. It's the opposite. This tool is to make sure that those on the fediverse do not need Reddit, but those on Reddit start getting exposure to the Fediverse.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you're literally building a bridge though, isn't that interacting with reddit?

[–] rglullis -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's one-way. You personally don't interact with anything on Reddit.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

A lifeless copy? Why would people want to engage with any of these posts or comments?

I can ask a question but will never get a reply. Why bother asking?

I understand you try to populate communities which lack activity, but this sounds like a recipe for frustration. People might learn it's useless to comment, which could reduce activity even in actual, man-made posts and comments.

[–] aaaa@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay not precisely, but we have a bot (I think it's the one at smeargle.fans) that reposts Reddit threads and replicates all of their comments, which nobody engages with

You are starting to sound like a gatekeeper.

Well that term just doesn't apply. I'm not saying "Real Lemmy users avoid anything to do with Reddit" or anything along those lines. You asked for feedback, and I gave you my honest criticism of it.

I understand that you found a project that sounds fun to make, and it probably will be. This is what we engineers do, we get excited to build things that seem to have clever technical answers. However in my past few months on Lemmy, I have seen these ideas, and have seen the way they tend to work out so far.

The logic may be simple, but human psychology is rarely as simple as engineers wish it could be.

Feel free to build your project. All aspiring engineers should make things that they want to make. But if you ask for feedback, don't argue that the feedback is wrong. Not all solutions end up working out the way you hope, and that's part of the engineering life. And based on prior experience, this one is likely to get the same treatment that the other repost bots get.

[+] rglullis -10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But if you ask for feedback, don’t argue that the feedback is wrong

Sorry for the bluntness, but I did not ask for any feedback at all. I am asking very specific questions and this post is mostly to collect information from those who can be interested in using it.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What an awful way to interact with potential users. Accepting constructive criticism leads to better and more successful projects.

A simple, dismissive "Okay thank you" would have sufficed.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Even more so considering most of his 'users' will be in that role without consent. OP prefers to pretend his userbase only consists of those who consent. I say for every person who finds this useful, there will be 10 or more who have to take action to shut it off. For some, this action might be to leave Lemmy altogether, backfiring on the intended effect of the tool.

[–] rglullis -2 points 1 year ago

I don't mind criticism. If you go take a look at my post when I first announced the project you will see that I was accepting all the concerns that people were raising.

What I do mind is being lectured by someone who constructs a bunch of strawmen ("this is just like lemmit!", "I don't want this, therefore no one wants this!") and then when called out for them responds with "they were just giving feedback".

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

You lost me at calling the poster a gatekeeper.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Do we really? Can you point me to them?

lemmit.online did this and was recently defederated, partially because the one admin wasn't able to prevent the volume of posts being generated from ending up filled with spam.

There's a few HN bots too, but unfortunately the posts never get much engagement here, so I have to go through to HN to read some discussion about it (which I will do, but a much bigger proportion of people just don't appear to engage with mirrored content here)

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

We have multiple instances with bots that do precisely what you’re saying

Do we really? Can you point me to them?

Two examples:

I wonder if the time people had to spend for removing their spam from their feed already surpasses the time the developers have spent setting them up. I know, I know, you intend your bot to be different, so not 'precisely' that, but I'm worried the result might be the same. Lots of posts with zero engagement, which give people the impression Lemmy consists of bot posts, ultimately driving user engagement down.