Suggestion: Allow the operation of bot accounts
PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Ok, I've been considering this suggestion for AGES now, but I was almost always too lazy to write it.

So you probably know it, Scratch Team prohibits the operation of bot accounts for social actions on this website to prevent spam and other unwanted content, but I think bots should be allowed if all of their actions is triggered by human activities, for example, a bot that randomly posts things on projects and studios, then it's not ok, but if the bots is only replying to people who commented on their own profile, then it's fine. (but of course, spamming or breaking any other rules is not allowed)

Commenting
A list of places where bots should be allowed to comment, bots should be allowed to reply but cannot create new comment threads (to prevent spam), replying should be limited to two replies per comment.

• Their own profile
  
• Their own projects
  
• Their own studio
  
• Other people's studios that is managed by them
  

Inviting people to studios
Note: A bot should only be allowed to invite people if they have commented in a studio that they own or manage.

• A bot should only be allowed to invite people to studios if they have commented on a studio owned or managed by them.
  

Comment deletion
Bots should be able to delete any comments on their profile, project, and studio page.

Exceptions
A bot should be allowed to do all of the above unless if it is designed to cause harm, for example, if a bot is created to deliberately generate stress on the server by replying to massive amounts of unrelated comments on studios, then it should be terminated immediately. And of course, bots are not exempt from Community Guidelines, so posting rude things with bots are not allowed and are 100% your fault, even if you didn't intentionally program them to break the rules, bots that break Community Guidelines should also be banned.

I've always wanted bots, kind of like in Reddit! Though I can see why this can be very hard to moderate: not just inappropriate content spam.
Also, Imagine if a person made a bot that replies to every single comment on @griffpatch's profile. It would lag Scratch by quite a bit XD

So, if ST has resources to moderate the use of these bots then support. But otherwise no support.

Okay, but what would you even use a bot account for? There seems to be no purpose of a bot account other than to create unneeded messages and server strain. If you want to reply to your profile comments, do it manually or just turn them off. Same with inviting curators to studios.

Also, much of this is still spam. For example, if we had a bot account that would reply to every new thread on a profile, this would still create lots of new automated comments, which is very unnecessary. What would the point even be to automatically reply to a message on a profile?

Your point about inviting people to studios can also be spam. Many studios can be very active with lots of comments, so if a bot were to invite every single unique person in them, it'd be absolute chaos.

Besides, the scratch team should not allow all bots because some are fine. Allowing them will create much more content for the ST to moderate, especially if these bots were allowed to operate on the scratch website.

RL1123 wrote:

Okay, but what would you even use a bot account for? There seems to be no purpose of a bot account other than to create unneeded messages and server strain. If you want to reply to your profile comments, do it manually or just turn them off. Same with inviting curators to studios.

Also, much of this is still spam. For example, if we had a bot account that would reply to every new thread on a profile, this would still create lots of new automated comments, which is very unnecessary. What would the point even be to automatically reply to a message on a profile?

Your point about inviting people to studios can also be spam. Many studios can be very active with lots of comments, so if a bot were to invite every single unique person in them, it'd be absolute chaos.

Besides, the scratch team should not allow all bots because some are fine. Allowing them will create much more content for the ST to moderate, especially if these bots were allowed to operate on the scratch website.

Fight spam and advertising on your comments/profile?

ideapad-320 wrote:

Fight spam and advertising on your comments/profile?

Close comments then. If you don't want to be that drastic, then just report the comments. There's no need for a bot to reply to every single one of those messages, generating more spam.

RL1123 wrote:

ideapad-320 wrote:

Fight spam and advertising on your comments/profile?

Close comments then. If you don't want to be that drastic, then just report the comments. There's no need for a bot to reply to every single one of those messages, generating more spam.

Exactly. That's the best thing to do and not code some bots just to stop ads and spam.

I'm seeing a lot of time and effort for the moderators trying to figure out what is okay and what is not - for very little gain in functionality for Scratchers.