Alien Top
alien.top

I do not want to block all bots. I only want to block bots from specific instance. More specifically, the @alien.top instance is using most, if not all, bot accounts with random usernames. It uses that instance to post in communities of other instances. I thought about blocking other instances. But the main issue lies with random bot accounts from @alien.top. And I cannot block individually by usernames.

What shall I do to block posts posted by random bot accounts of @alien.top instance?

Update

I looked up potentially affiliated sites connected to that instance and found these.

https://level-up.zone/ (@communick, high post rate)
https://gearhead.town/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://viewfinder.pro/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, medium post rate)
https://netheads.online/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, low post rate)
https://healthy.community/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, low post rate)
https://sfw.community/?dataType=Post&listingType=Local&page=1&sort=New (same admin, no post yet)
https://blockchained.world/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, low post rate)
https://matchpoint.zone/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, low post rate)
https://poweruser.forum/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://hi-fi.community/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, medium post rate)
https://expats.zone/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, medium post rate)
https://nba.space/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://athletic.center/?dataType=Post&listingType=Local&page=1&sort=New (same admin, no post yet)
https://style.land/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://metacritics.zone/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://academy.garden/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, medium post rate)
https://foodie.rehab/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, no post yet)
https://indiehackers.space/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://hardware.watch/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)
https://nfl.community/?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New (same admin, high post rate)

The instances may be hours to two months old and are run by the same admin. Some have high post rate, while others have no post yet. The ones with posts are all using @alien.top’s random bot accounts. I suspect this problem will amplify.

Update2

Blocking by instance is finally working. I blocked @alien.top and @hardware.watch. Consider this issue resolved.

  • rglullisAEnglish
    15·
    10 months ago

    Please, do not feel discouraged to participate. The idea of the bots is not to be a simple mirror, but to bootstrap real conversation. The next step of Fediverser is to allow two-way communication so that Reddit users can see the Lemmy content and migrate.

    The reason that alien.top content seems so overwhelming now is more to Lemmy"s losing its activity than a real “flood” of bots. My hope is that people will join in to the point of balancing out, but if this is leading to the opposite effect I will have to turn off, and that will be a shame because there are hundreds of people already using it “as intended”

    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      51·
      10 months ago

      Your instance is misreporting its name somehow and it was super annoying when I was trying to block it.

      Is it alien.top or selfhosted.forum? Pick one please.

      Also, do you manage any other instances so I can block those as well? Needless to say, I am slightly pissed off that I have replied to several posts before I saw they were bots. Some of those replies took some effort when I was trying to actually be helpful.

      • rglullisAEnglish
        15·
        10 months ago

        There is nothing being misreported, they are separate instances.

    • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      10 months ago

      I read more about the project and it seems interesting. I suppose 2 way communication to sync accounts between reddit and lemmy would be interesting… would the reddit TOS allow that? Or would the reddit admins tolerate it for long? I suppose you’ve looked into it.

      The problem is the current state is confusing… if you look at the communities posted in by the bots, it is a huge flood of posts, like sometimes 20 posts in 15 minutes. I guess that would be different if Lemmy was more active, but it isn’t yet. Also, it’s confusing - one has to visit alien.top and github to have any idea what’s going on, and if the account holders aren’t receiving the posts, it’s sort of wasting people’s effort on lemmy and not creating true engagement. Perhaps a disclaimer like ‘this post mirrored by Fediverser’ would help.

      • rglullisAEnglish
        15·
        10 months ago

        I agree with pretty much everything but:

        it’s sort of wasting people’s effort on lemmy and not creating true engagement

        Even if we don’t have two-way communication, having the content mirrored has two purposes:

        • it allows lurkers to move away from reddit and browse here.

        • it works as a prompt for conversation between “organic” subscribers.

        I will add a comment to every post though (similar to how AutoModerator does) to indicate that is a mirrored comment and with general instructions on how to interact with the bots and some links to describe the project.

        • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          Great, I think as my and other people’s experience illustrates it has been a bit confusing so far, being unexplained. The byline will help a lot, I think.

          Sure, it’s useful as it is as long as people check into their Lemmy accounts. I suppose I would if I signed up and was aware there might be replies waiting for me on Lemmy in addition to Reddit.

          • rglullisAEnglish
            15·
            10 months ago

            So, a comment like this one will be sent on every mirrored post. The only issue I see with this approach is that there is no way to pin a comment to the top of the thread…

            • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              10 months ago

              That’s cool, I think that will help explain it. I didn’t realize the accounts for people on reddit were being created on lemmy automatically though. Do the reddit users even know it’s happening?

                • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  10 months ago

                  It kind of changes things if accounts are automatically made and the user on reddit has no idea. From earlier discussion I thought you were saying these posts were from people who explicitly went to alien.top and signed up. But it turns out no, the content is automatically duplicated and the user on reddit has no idea this is happening - so it IS largely a waste of time to try to respond to them as they’re unlikely to ever read it.

                  The suggestion I’ve seen you make elsewhere for Lemmy users to message people on reddit and invite them to Lemmy is rather unrealistic, and I’m pretty sure reddit would tolerate this being automated for about 1 day after they found out about it. Reddit isn’t going to let you scrape the site and autospam members (in their view) to support what’s essentially an unauthorized 3rd party client that replaces the core function of their site.

                  • rglullisAEnglish
                    1·
                    10 months ago

                    If the content being posted had a real person behind it from the beginning, then it would be one less reason to treat the whole thing as “spam”, wouldn’t it?

                    It should be simple to discern: users from alien.top that have not claimed their account there are marked as bots. Once an user from reddit claims their account, they are then unflagged as bots and none of their content gets automatically mirrored (because once they claim their account, they control the password and there is no way for my service to post on their behalf)

                    and I’m pretty sure reddit would tolerate this being automated for about 1 day

                    I am not even saying it has to be automated. At the moment, I’m actually suggesting people to go do what I am doing and writing DMs on reddit to tell the original poster about the mirrored link and to let them know that they can get more answers on Lemmy.

              • rglullisAEnglish
                14·
                10 months ago

                Seems like you want to crowdsource advertising for alien.top.

                Yes and no. Anyone can set up a fediverser instance, and I am certainly not going to let it grow over past 10k “organic users”. My hope is to grow alien.top enough only to validate the idea of fediverser as a migration mechanism and to have more people deploying “fediversed” instances.

                  • rglullisAEnglish
                    14·
                    10 months ago

                    I hope people set up fediverse instances instead of fediverser mirror proxies, we need people to communicate with - Not a “shadowbanned” experience for new users where nobody interacts with them.

                    You are missing the point. There is no need to have multiple instances doing the content mirroring, and the more people migrate from Reddit, the more I will be able to disable the mirroring.

                    The idea is not to get fediverser instances just to mirror more Reddit content. The idea is to get more “fediverser” instances to scale the operation of a coordinated Reddit migration. alien.top itself can not be the home of a million Reddit migrants.