It's an instance that crossposts posts from Reddit, except it also makes a new user for each Reddit account it came from. So if /u/hello123 made a post, it makes that post under a new account called hello123. That makes it impossible to block posting bots.

Not only that, it makes posts look like they're posted by real people, with many question and text posts being copied as well. I was very confused as to what these posts were until I realized they're crossposts.

Examples:

https://alien.top/post/263029

https://lemm.ee/u/pocalyuko@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/ItzMeRocket@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/CaptainCapp-n@alien.top

I strongly believe Lemmy isn't the place for mirroring content from other websites. You can host your own alternate Reddit frontend like LibReddit, there's no reason to spam the posts to everyone using Lemmy just because 5 people asked for it. Not to mention there are already enough instances mirroring posts, this is getting obnoxious.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 15 points 11 months ago

Agreed it's just pollution

[–] Sanyanov@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

I think a defederated instance could be made containing all of that. Lemmy makes it extremely easy to switch accounts between instances, so those in need of Reddit on Lemmy can use another profile without spamming all of Lemmy.

[–] TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for letting me know, I'll block that instance

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (12 children)

Agreed. I really dislike the Reddit spam, but I'll give credit to whoever made it for trying. The creator's intentions were noble, like trying to recreate how facebook got big, by making people feel not disconnected from MySpace.

However the fact it's only one way integration (and the wrong direction), it's a resource headache for all federating instances for little genuine interaction, it's difficult to block due to being from many users (until the 0.19 instance blocking feature arrives) is all very problematic.

It singlehandedly makes Lemmy feel like a place devoid of any real community from the outside, and just a Reddit mirror. I'm happy with how I have things set up for myself, but looking at some instance front pages anonymously I see significantly more spam, people won't want to sign up for that.

Bots and even Reddit reposter bots have a place -- @reddit_sales_repost_bot@lemmy.ca is one I am very glad to have to not miss any sales. We still need to have standards so that limited volunteer and donation-based resources are used effectively.

Bots need to:

Have a targeted and specific purpose
Be easy to block for anyone not interested
Be limited in how many posts it can make in an hour.

load more comments (12 replies)

[–] kpw@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I like it. I was looking for a Reddit client anyways. Now let's give users the ability to block domains like on Mastodon and everyone is happy.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 7 points 11 months ago

Can't you just block the instance

[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

~~It's at least opt-in for users to be mirrored (I think), but~~ it's still just creating spammy garbage.

Edit, I was wrong. It's worse than I thought.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's "opt-in" only for whoever decides to run that for a subreddit/community though.
As in someone decides to run that bot for a community and it will clone all content, they decide if they clone all the reddit comments too.

It's also annoying to deal with as a user because the bots are on alien.top, but the communities are all over the place with new ones popping up.

The new "instance block" feature in 0.19 blocks all communities from that instance, not their users when they post elsewhere.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments