this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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News

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Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi all!

As many of you have noticed, many Lemmy.World communities introduced a bot: @MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world. This bot was introduced because modding can be pretty tough work at times and we are all just volunteers with regular lives. It has been helpful and we would like to keep it around in one form or another.

The !news@lemmy.world mods want to give the community a chance to voice their thoughts on some potential changes to the MBFC bot. We have heard concerns that tend to fall into a few buckets. The most common concern we’ve heard is that the bot’s comment is too long. To address this, we’ve implemented a spoiler tag so that users need to click to see more information. We’ve also cut wording about donations that people argued made the bot feel like an ad.

Another common concern people have is with MBFC’s definition of “left” and “right,” which tend to be influenced by the American Overton window. Similarly, some have expressed that they feel MBFC’s process of rating reliability and credibility is opaque and/or subjective. To address this, we have discussed creating our own open source system of scoring news sources. We would essentially start with third-party ratings, including MBFC, and create an aggregate rating. We could also open a path for users to vote, so that any rating would reflect our instance’s opinions of a source. We would love to hear your thoughts on this, as well as suggestions for sources that rate news outlets’ bias, reliability, and/or credibility. Feel free to use this thread to share other constructive criticism about the bot too.

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[–] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 37 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This thread is a mess.

users: "bot is awful"

mod: "ok so it's not terrible so that's good"

[–] stormesp@lemm.ee 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah lol, i cant help but laugh every time i see the mods replies in this thread. i dont understand shit about his train of thought, i dont know if he is denyal or was surprised most people didnt end up aligning with his bias and is in damage control replying nonsense.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The thing I don't get is why are they so insistent on this change that is so overwhelmingly not wanted?

Who is pushing this and why are so many mods backing it?

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I apologize if this thread was misunderstood. Perhaps I was not clear that this was meant for improvements, it is not a vote on removal. Should that vote ever happen, the post would be clear about that.

All of my questions were only seeking to gain more information about people’s feelings. I apologize if it came off as a promise to enact anything in particular or an endorsement of any particular stance on the bot.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The problem is with MBFC, and you have no control over them. Therefore, the only way you can improve the bot is to remove it entirely.

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes, you've been very clear from the start that you do not want to remove the bot. However, the feedback you've consistently received is that it provides no benefit, is misleading, reductive, and the best improvement you could make would be to remove it. You don't seem willing or able to respond to that.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Correct, I am unable to supersede admin decisions as a mod. I am here collecting feedback on improvements. Again, I am looking for feedback on improvements, as the decision to remove the bot is not in my control.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Then you're just wasting both your time and ours.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[–] jeffw@lemmy.world -4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok. Sorry you’ve never been on a functional team before.

[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It clearly seems as though you aren't either.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I feel as though the admin team and mods have never truly developed a product for market as they seem incredibly desperate to cling to whatever this bot is to become.

In any case, that thread just points to further team discombobulation and a poor handling of user wants and desires.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

We're not developing anything for market and had no role in creating or implementing the bot. Also we have full time jobs, are volunteering our time, and had to convene to review the pros and cons. If you think you can run things more smoothly, you are welcome to join the team and contribute time and energy to the effort. Don't expect users to show any gratitude though.