9 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
Do you actually track how many people use your spam? Bots like this add a ton of visual noise to reddit, and are pretty unpopular. Do you have any data that suggests that people actually appreciate this bot? It's annoying as hell and the feedback in this subreddit seems to bear that out. At best, you save a small percentage of people exactly two clicks and you spam people's inboxes and threads.
I would be interested in trying to understand your thought process in creating this and releasing it into the wild and thinking that it's a net positive for the site. And based on how you promised opt-in and then said you're not really interested in maintaining the bot, why not just take it offline? If you are providing a service to anyone (which is not something I'm willing to admit), you're paying for it by annoying the bejesus out of how many other people?
So what are you thinking that this is a good idea? Or do you just not care? You made it and it's on reddit and fuck anyone who has a problem with it?
The fact that you're hiding your real account behind the bot speaks a lot for what you really think about its quality and purpose too.
Comment by sneakpeekbot at 11/04/2017 at 18:21 UTC*
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's not costing me anything to keep it running and it *does* benefit people. My stance on opt-in changed from "yes I'll add that ASAP" to "I don't have the time" to "I think it's better as is because the bot's supposed to help everyone other than the person it's replying to"
No, I don't have any concrete data no. But if I go on what I do know, the bot is received well. It's reflected in the karma score (especially because I try to filter out all of the meme mentions), the comment replies and it's reflected in the messages I get (which is also saying something because the people who hate tend to be more vocal). And it's not about the "two clicks", it's a convenience to people who are mostly mobile users. People find purpose in the bot all the time too, which is discovering new subreddits they're interested in.
If you did a bit of sleuthing you could probably find my real account. I just removed the link between the two as I realised I'd talked about certain things that could identify me both ways which I didn't want to happen so easily.
Thank you for the feedback.