The news mod team has asked to no longer be a part of the project until we have a composite tool that polls multiple sources for a more balanced view.

It will take a few hours, but FOR NOW there won’t be a bot giving reviews of the source.

The goal was simple: make it easier to show biased sources. This was to give you and the mods a better view of what we were looking at.

The mod team is in agreement: one source of truth isn’t enough. We are working on a tool to give a composite score, from multiple sources, all open source.

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.oneEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Honestly; I think the “Negative” reactions to the bot are overblown and only done by a vocal minority who are sockpuppeting followed by a few people who are irrationally angry that the bot can be, GASP! Dare I SAY IT???!!11, Wrong.

    Personally I don’t find the bot problematic at all; and I think it could easily be blocked or ignored by people who find it too inaccurate. So I find it extremely disappointing that the mods are listening to the vocal minority about this.

    That being said; I do understand why Mods want to make the bot more accurate. It’s assessments and information can easily make obvious extremists and trolls more obvious to the naked eye; and can help people consume media with some grains of salt. More sources of data are good for accuracy.

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        01·
        3 months ago

        We do. Admins found dozens of downvote alts and nuked them at the same time. Seems folks aren’t content to just state their opinion and leave it at that, and instead they feel compelled to overwhelm the system to give the illusion of uniformity.

        • qevlarr@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 months ago

          These people were specifically trying to get the bot removed? Must have hit quite a nerve. I know it was biased in favor of Israel, but it must have been even worse. That bot sucks so bad people make mass sockpuppet accounts just to tell you they want it gone

            • qevlarr@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 months ago

              I was joking. Just like you can’t be seriously claiming there is no consensus that the bot sucks and that all the net downvotes for that bot are due to a small minority of sockpuppeteers?

              • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                01·
                3 months ago

                I didn’t claim there was no consensus, or that “all” the downvotes were sockpuppets. We have evidence that some of them were, which makes distilling the overall sentiment pretty difficult.

                  • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                    0·
                    3 months ago

                    No, in this community. We were told that the admins found a vote manipulation ring in our threads. I don’t have admin level access, so I have no idea where they voted for what.

        • Five@slrpnk.netEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Props to the LW admin who uncovered and banned the vote manipulation ring. Its existence is troubling.

          I did a vote audit of the Soliciting Feedback from the Mods thread, and none of the sock accounts that were banned three days ago voted on the post or the most highly upvoted or downvoted comments. If you don’t believe me, I suggest asking an admin you trust to repeat the audit.

          The outrage about the bot seems extremely organic, and any sockpuppetting going on is small compared to the overwhelming number of legitimate accounts casting votes that are apparent from the logs. The uniformity of the consensus does not appear to be artificial at all.

    • mriormro@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      What point does a “bias” bot serve if it can be incorrect? And if it can be incorrect then why should we trust it at all?

      You may as well write a bot that posts “remember, don’t trust everything you read online and use critical thinking when you’re doing your own research” to every post.