Hello fellow Lemmings! the first version of the haiku-bot is out! anyone can add or remove it in any community by simply mentioning him and asking to subscribe:
!Haiku-bot SUBSCRIBE
when added to a community, it will read every comment (not posts currently) and if he detects the 5-7-5 syllable pattern typical of haikus will reply formatting it in a nice way!
If it becomes too spammy you can remove it by just commenting:
!haiku-bot UNSUBSCRIBE
currently it can be subscribed and unsubscribed by anyone, but if this will result in a problem please let me know and I’ll allow only mods to do this! any problem, bug, suggestion, insult, anything you wish is welcome!
hope you’ll enjoy it!
1 - Yes - some bots are helpful, some (most) are annoying:
a Haiku bot falls into your “triggered by accident” category (any post that is 17 syllables).
a Haiku bot also does not add any new contextual information (it just duplicates a comment).
That’s why I’m saying the haiku bot is junk.
2 - In this very post, when Otome said “I never liked the Haiku Bot”… OP responded “I’ve never liked them much either”…
so I’m asking OP: “why create a bot to spam lemmy with low-value duplicate content, if you don’t even like that bot yourself?”
Only if opt-out, as the original Haiku bot in the defunct site. OP however made it opt-in, so in order to trigger it you need two conditions - to actively subscribe to the bot and post a 17-syllables comment. The first one won’t happen on accident.
Arguably it highlights that the post has 17 syllables in a shape that is suitable to build a haiku with, but in general I agree with you. It is not the kind of bot that I personally would inscribe in my comms, nor that I’d use myself.
Even then, a few people like this sort of gimmick, so there’s some subjective value for some people. (Certainly not for both of us.)
OP himself answered it - “I wanted to try something easy to learn bot development on lemmy and a few users were waiting for this and so here I am!”
It’s a low-hanging fruit, and a few people wanted it.
EDIT: just to make my position clear, I think that a few restrictions on what a bot can/can’t do would be great, specially if they come from the admins. IMHO a good bot should have the following requirements:
Again, I wouldn’t use this bot, but I think that it already fits all five requirements.
1 - It’s not opt-in “By User” though. It’s opt-in “By Community”…
So if one person turns it on, 1000’s of other people see it.
OP keeps saying “you can just toggle it off”… but I really can’t… when anyone can toggle it back on.
2 - Future options for toggling are not much better (bottom of the repo, To-Do section):
“if a moderator adds the haiku-bot, non-mod users cannot remove it”
“only allow moderators to subscribe/unsubscribe”
…so the toggle option wouldn’t apply to 99% of people anyway.
Who was waiting for it? The top level replies in this thread are:
I think your bot rules are pretty solid though.
Overall, I just feel like… Lemmy is a fresh space…
a chance to make a new culture…
maybe it’s best to leave that old bloated carcass behind.