Based on recent feedback, PieFed v1.8 includes functionality that lets instance admins flag accounts as being a “Reposter”. Other than putting a little icon next to their name this has no effect on anyone until viewers opt in to filtering based on this flag.

It works just like how filtering for bots or NSFW content does - in your Filtering settings you can select to Show, Hide or Make Semi-Transparent posts by reposters, independently from bots or NSFW.

In your filtering settings (at https://piefed.social/user/settings/filters ), look for the field “Posts by reposters”. By default this is set to ‘Show’ so unless you opt in to this everything will be the same as it was before.

Admins: to flag an account, go to their profile and click ‘Edit in admin area’ (or find them at /admin/users), then tick the “Flag their posts as from a reposter (bot)” checkbox. PieFed v1.8 includes a raft of different tools for finding inauthentic behaviour, some of which falls under the umbrella of “reposting”, which you can employ. They are fairly complex so I will need to write more about how to use them, later.

If you are unsure, you can just ask the potential reposter. Go to their profile and click ‘Ask if reposter’ and they’ll receive a direct message from you. Bots will ignore it and PieFed will automatically apply the reposter flag after some time.

Each instance will need to define for itself what the difference between a bot and a reposter is. Some might choose to just ban all reposters rather than get into it. Many will just do nothing. For piefed.social I define a bot as automated posting of content, usually from a RSS feed or similar, always in the same community with no pretense of being human, no comments and no voting. A reposter is an account with automated posting of content, often from reddit or similar, often in a variety of communities, usually with a human operator that participates in discussions and votes.

There are a lot of different reposters. Some limit their automated posts to a single community and perhaps do some manual posts in others. Some blast out all kinds of posts and manually delete off-topic or undesirable posts later. Some reposters are part of a swarm operated by a single person. Often their content is interesting, relevant and generates a lot of discussion. I don’t know how the threadiverse is going to look with them hidden from me but I’m keen to find out.

This is a complex issue and it might take a few tries and experiments to find a good way of managing it. I hope you can bear with us as we feel our way forward through it.