Over the past couple days you may have noticed that our friendly @shinobu@ani.social had not been posting episode discussion threads. The reasons for this can be traced back to a breaking api change on an external website (see here, here, and here for more info). Well, thanks to the work of @chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org , our friendly neighborhood Shinobu is back (sans polls).
However, I thought this might be a good opportunity to gauge the community's feelings about automated episode discussion posts. The fact of the matter is that our community at !anime@lemmy.ml is not as big or active as the anime subreddit that the bot was designed for. Most of Shinobu's episode discussion threads spend their whole lives without ever receiving a single comment.
It makes me wonder if, because of the smaller size of our community, should Shinobu not make posts for shows that the people here aren't really watching/commenting on? Perhaps Shinobu is limited to only posting threads for shows in which the threads have been active? At the moment, there is no automated way of enabling/disabling shows in this way, but it could likely be done manually with some sqlite database tinkering (I say as somebody not running/maintaining the bot).
I am not a mod or the maintainer of the bot, simply an interested party wanting to get others opinions that are active in this community.
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The problem that I see is that Shinobu is playing two roles, both important but neither done flawlessly: gathering info for the series, and episode discussion threads. As such, I'm going to suggest a different approach:
Create a new comm called !anime_series@ani.social. The only user allowed to post/comment there should be the bot.
Once per series, the bot would create in !anime_series a thread containing: JP and EN names of the series, cover pic, short description, external links (MAL, Kitsu, etc.), and a reference code for that series (for example "56498" or "bokunopico".
For each thread created in the !episode_discussion, the bot would add a new comment for the thread in !anime_series. That comment would contain Episode ## discussion: [!episode_discussion@ani.social](insert link here).
The bot would not post threads automatically in other comms. Instead, it would look for posts or comments pinging it, followed by the reference code and episode number. Like this: !shinobu@ani.social 56498 01.
When the bot finds those three things, it edits the relevant comment in the relevant !anime_series@ani.social thread, adding a link to the thread where it found it. Like this: Episode ## discussion: [!episode_discussion@ani.social](insert link here), [!anime@lemmy.ml](insert link here). The bot would also answer the post/comment pinging it, saying episode discussion added to the database! [link](insert link here) or similare.
I believe that this would be the best approach, because:
There's a central repository for information about the series, inside Lemmy. If you want to look for new series to follow, or for a discussion about a specific episode, you go there and follow the links provided.
The most laborious part of creating disc threads is to gather external links. The bot would do it for us.
There's at least one discussion thread about each episode, created automatically. It's also in a centralised place, so nobody can complain "waah bot spam". You're only seeing bot content if you're fine with it.
Even if you're really sloppy creating a discussion thread elsewhere, as long as someone in it pings the bot correctly, people will find it.
You won't see content for series that nobody is watching, unless you follow the bot comms.
I like various parts of this proposal, though most of the feedback I'm seeing is that people do generally want proactive threads as long as they're relevant. The problem is finding a way to continue proactively posting threads in people's feeds while somehow eliminating the following issues with the current implementation:
Too many low-interest series competing for real estate with high-interest series on the community feed
Low-interest series not attracting any attention
Your approach solves the first problem at the expense of severely reducing the discoverability of lower interest series. It seems possible to tweak this proposal in such a way that it solves the original problem without that downside:
Restrict per-episode threads to a secondary community (!episode_discussion@ani.social works, but anywhere else would work just as well)
On a daily basis, post a "Today's Episode Ratings" thread to the main !anime@lemmy.ml community which will simultaneously act as a directory of what's airing today & a ranked board showing each individual thread's current score/ratio/comments
If an episode thread does well one week, then the next episode of that show will have earned the right to get hosted directly on the main !anime@lemmy.ml community feed instead of being hidden away
I think this achieves a good balance between pruning automated posts and maintaining discoverability. The appeal of using a "Ranking" thread as a link directory like this is that it creates a fertile area for low-spoiler crossover discussions/discovery without sapping interest in visiting each of the high-spoiler individual episode discussion posts linked therein. Furthermore, dangling out the ability to "upgrade" a show like this will serve as a general incentive for engagement across all interest levels while still solving the original problem of fairly determining what should/shouldn't be promoted on the main community feed.
When I proposed that idea I might've underrated the second issue, but re-reading the thread I think that you're right - and the tweaks might do the trick.
Thank you for the reply!
And thank you for the very original suggestion! The more ideas going around the better the brainstorm