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   FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 05:48:35 JST FediTips has moved!

   Have you ever noticed an account on here labelled "Automated" or "Bot"?

   It means the account is a bot, operating automatically without a human doing the posting.

   This might sound odd, but there are many useful and entertaining bots, for example posting sports results or weather bulletins or public domain art. Other bots run interactive games of chess or D&D campaigns or text adventures.

   Find out more at:

   ➡️ https://fedi.tips/why-are-some-accounts-marked-bot-on-mastodon/

   ...and some good bots to follow:

   ➡️ https://fedi.directory/tag/bots/

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:11:51 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Anopka

     @anopka

     Yeah, some nice bots on botsin.space!

   • Embed this notice
     Anopka (anopka@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:11:52 JST Anopka

     in reply to

     @feditips There is even the Mastodon server botsin.space that is dedicated to host such bots.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:14:23 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Virginia Murr

     @VirginiaMurr

     Ahaa, thank you!

     Is it correct to say bad bots probably wouldn't label themselves "automated"?

   • Embed this notice
     Virginia Murr (virginiamurr@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:14:24 JST Virginia Murr

     in reply to

     @feditips

     A bit of extra advice from someone who researched fake nets (including bots) for years ... usually the good/helpful bots will have the bot creator identified in the account's bio. (Sometimes with links to their other accounts/work.)

   • Embed this notice
     Virginia Murr (virginiamurr@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:18:57 JST Virginia Murr

     in reply to

     @feditips

     Yep. I have no problem at all with what you posted 🤟

     Just wanted to add an extra tip (from experience) for the more cautious folks ... like me.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:18:57 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Virginia Murr

     @VirginiaMurr

     Glad to hear from voice of experience! 👍

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:34:17 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Capcom VS Everyone

     p.s. For example, this is a fun bot for fans of pop culture: @vs_everyone

   • Embed this notice
     michealtheratz :verified: (michealtheratz@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 09:02:08 JST michealtheratz :verified:

     in reply to

     👏

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 08:59:03 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse

     @Sylkeweb

     I think the "news account" label on Friendica is intended for automated RSS streams?

     Is there some reason a non-automated account would use it? (Genuine question!)

   • Embed this notice
     Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse (sylkeweb@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 08:59:04 JST Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse

     in reply to

     @feditips I’m running an account that is not really a bot account on Friendica. There you can’t set it to being an “automated account” in the settings but I made it a so called ‘news account’. It shows up as Automated Account on Mastodon. 🤷🏼 In this case that’s at least half true (I automatically republish items from an RSS feed and also manually add posts), but in other cases news accounts might be totally manual work, so I don’t really understand why Mastodon is doing that.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 23:17:20 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse

     @Sylkeweb

     I'm pretty sure it's meant to label accounts with linked RSS, as they are often called "news feeds"? That's why RSS readers are often called "news readers".

     One of Friendica's best features is its ability to easily link any RSS feed to an account 👍

   • Embed this notice
     Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse (sylkeweb@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 23:17:21 JST Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse

     in reply to

     @feditips I had a small conversation with the usually well informed server admin but he couldn’t shed much light either and agreed with me that a news account doesn’t necessarily have to be an automated account. I think this is one of those cases where different services have made use of the sometimes not very specific AP protocol in different ways.
     I don’t think it’s intended to be used with RSS as a rule, there is no such specification on the settings page. I chose it as I post news articles.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 23:19:23 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse

     @Sylkeweb

     It is pretty unclear though, yeah :blobsad:

     Maybe Friendica should change the label to "RSS account" or something?