I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.

It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion – let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.

But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it’s the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways…so really no difference).

What’s the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there’s people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don’t see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck…

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
    993·
    5 months ago

    Some people are pissed that the format is spammy? That’s the complaint I’ve heard.

    I’d certainly prefer something like post tagging/labels but within the current feature set of lemmy I think it’s about as good as it could be.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
      425·
      5 months ago

      That’s my gripe with it. Its single comment fills the entire screen of my phone when scrolling past and it uses gigantic font, a big separator line (?), and links mixed with text mixed with more links.

      Additionally, it fucks with the “new comment” and “hot” sorting, depending on how active Lemmy is at the time, by spamming post after post with a comment even though there is no actual discussion happening.

      • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
        247·
        5 months ago

        You should use a client that supports all of the text formatting. On Voyager the bot’s comment is smaller than most when collapsed (which it is by default).

        • Alteon@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 months ago

          Yeah, I’m not changing my entire client that I’ve gotten used to just to deal with a single bot that annoys me.

        • Vanon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          Yes we can. It’s in my blocked users, like any others (using Sync app). I’ve blocked it mostly because the formatting is lazy and word count excessive. It just “gets in the way”. Plus I generally already know the bias of most reputable sources, as do most news junkies.

          • AnActOfCreation@programming.dev
            1·
            5 months ago

            Like I commented above, I wonder if other spoiler tags work in Sync or if there’s something about the way this bot posts that breaks it.

            • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              2·
              5 months ago

              Looking at the buttons that they give me when I’m commenting it looks like it does support spoilers when done in the >!text!< syntax, but the other alternative version definitely took over.

              I’ve never seen the ::: spoiler text ::: version work

                • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2·
                  5 months ago

                  That’s great to hear, I love eternity as a client because none of the other ones that I’ve tried so far have come close to what I’m looking for in a UI and I like the ability to block comments and posts by specific keywords, it really helps when the entire platform as a whole becomes hyper focused on one subject because I can just add that subject to the block list and filter out the flood

    • Don_Dickle@lemmy.world
      1954·
      5 months ago

      I have never seen a bot that does good. Got sick of them on reddit and other sites. So when I see it here which is my safe haven. I will downvote or report it because it has not place here.