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I hid a link on my website that only bots can see and told them not to follow it. They broke the rules and in 4 days they went 124,414 levels deep into an endless maze. One bot opened 782,580 doors.… (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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Full title: I hid a link on my website that only bots can see and told them not to follow it. They broke the rules and in 4 days they went 124,414 levels deep into an endless maze. One bot opened 782,580 doors. I thought this was super interesting, this is how the internet is these days. Thought I’d share.

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[–] 22 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Can’t see the other comment replies to you for some reason, but the irony is that the OP you’re replying to is a bot that scrapes Reddit for content with a vibe coded extension.

Here’s the original post in /r/interestingasfuck that was removed by mods for some reason.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1wypha0/removed_by_moderator/

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I guess the bot preserved the post, then?

    Still, would be better if the original was properly credited...

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    Yeah I guess that’s the upside. Honestly I would have no problem with what he’s doing if he changed a couple things.

    If his accounts (he’s got a bunch) were clearly marked as bots, but I’m sure he doesn’t want to because then you’ll see how much bot generated content he moves over. But like there’s already RSS feed type bots that repost content from Reddit and even include a link back to the original. Not that I’d want to push people over there, but you’re not getting actual comment engagement on a bot post.

    If he just changed the titles so he’s not constantly posting “I did x” content when no he didn’t. “I did x” posts like this or HistoryMeme type posts spark conversation that will end up being one sided because you’ll never get a reply from the bot.

    Posted a little fucking less. Look on the front page and see how many posts are coming from Sanitation, Time2Loose, Mustachious_Grumpus, Grumpus_Maximus, OldManAlex, and others he has. All Reddit repost bot accounts. It’s just inorganic. Same reason people hate that shit on Reddit.

    Edit: apparently he’s already doing that as well under the username liquorice which IS marked as a bot using the same vibe coded extension. Only then he goes and makes 8+ other account not marked as bots to cover up how much bot posted shit is being pulled over from Reddit.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    Do the RSS feed bots also repost comments? Because I think something like that would be nice to have (kinda like bridging Discord to Stoat), just preferably implemented by instance runners and marked and credited accordingly.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    They do not. Just the links. I think if it were to copy the comments it would be harmful to the community as you’d essentially be looking at a one-sided conversation. People could reply but you’d never get an answer back. I mean, if the source is linked in the description you could always just visit the original and read through them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I'd guess that would depend on whether the link was one-way or two-way (with a bot posting fedi comments back to Reddit).

    And yes, a one-way bridge would have its drawbacks, but I'd argue that this would still be a step up from just reposting the post, and incentivise making a Lemmy/Piefed account.

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