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Opt-out sucks because you are forced to deal with it. Opt-in makes the most sense because there are no hurdles to jump in order to not be bothered. If no one f

Opt-out sucks because you are forced to deal with it. Opt-in makes the most sense because there are no hurdles to jump in order to not be bothered. If no one finds or wants to use your service without it being forced on them, it can not be that great of a service.

zem 14y ago
you could have a single opt-in to bots-as-a-whole (as a github account setting rather than per-repo), and then blacklist individual bots if they end up being spammy. that seems like a nice balance between "do nothing by default" and frictionless adoption of the feature.
- thwarted 14y ago
  While this is a fine idea, why can't that be "opt-out to bots -as-a-whole (as a github account setting rather than per-repo), and then whitelist individual bots if you want to find out if they provide some utility"? That seems like the proper balance between "do nothing by default" and the lest friction required to use bots without requiring those who don't want to be involved at all needing to do anything? If it's about discovery of bots, then come up with some meaningful way to make them discoverable (presumably better than the Apple App Store zing) without people needing to be exposed to them by default.
  - zem 14y ago
    white listing individual bots is not low-friction. ideally i want the bots to discover me, not vice versa.
    - thwarted 14y ago
      You do, but no one else does. How about a header in email that the sender can include that forces the email to the top of your inbox and makes it undeleteable? You can opt-out by having an email address of user+optout@example.com all the time.
      - sillysaurus 14y ago
        You do, but no one else does. How small-minded. There are many of us who want to be discovered by bots. We just keep quiet because people like you have such strong opinions and aren't afraid to be mean about them. Wouldn't it be ironic if your opinion was in the minority?
        thwarted 14y ago
        The people who want opt-in are not the bad guys here, and neither are the people who want opt-out. The bad guys are those who poisoned the well, tragedy of the commons, by abusing the system. Unfortunately, there is a greater chance of abuse than there is utility, and it's more difficult for everyone to manage opt-out on an individual occurrence basis than it is to manage opt-in centrally by trying to ban bots across the board. And neither are that actually that successful, despite there having been individual successes in some communities.
        gbog 14y ago
        Yes, I want bots too.
      - thomaslangston 14y ago
        Reddit's user made bots are an awesome addition and I'm very glad they are not opt-in. I think there is room in every community for automated users, if the tools for managing misbehaving users is strong enough. Github however has been known to not have strong moderation tools, so perhaps a temporary opt-in policy could be used until those tools improve?
hartez 14y ago
I'd prefer opt-in, and a nice directory of robots you could essentially subscribe to. I did a little thinking about this a while ago when the Gunio robot was annoying some people about whitespace: https://github.com/hartez/vcs-robots https://github.com/hartez/vcs-robots

zem 14y ago

you could have a single opt-in to bots-as-a-whole (as a github account setting rather than per-repo), and then blacklist individual bots if they end up being spammy. that seems like a nice balance between "do nothing by default" and frictionless adoption of the feature.

thwarted 14y ago
While this is a fine idea, why can't that be "opt-out to bots -as-a-whole (as a github account setting rather than per-repo), and then whitelist individual bots if you want to find out if they provide some utility"? That seems like the proper balance between "do nothing by default" and the lest friction required to use bots without requiring those who don't want to be involved at all needing to do anything? If it's about discovery of bots, then come up with some meaningful way to make them discoverable (presumably better than the Apple App Store zing) without people needing to be exposed to them by default.
- zem 14y ago
  white listing individual bots is not low-friction. ideally i want the bots to discover me, not vice versa.
  - thwarted 14y ago
    You do, but no one else does. How about a header in email that the sender can include that forces the email to the top of your inbox and makes it undeleteable? You can opt-out by having an email address of user+optout@example.com all the time.
    - sillysaurus 14y ago
      You do, but no one else does. How small-minded. There are many of us who want to be discovered by bots. We just keep quiet because people like you have such strong opinions and aren't afraid to be mean about them. Wouldn't it be ironic if your opinion was in the minority?
      - thwarted 14y ago
        The people who want opt-in are not the bad guys here, and neither are the people who want opt-out. The bad guys are those who poisoned the well, tragedy of the commons, by abusing the system. Unfortunately, there is a greater chance of abuse than there is utility, and it's more difficult for everyone to manage opt-out on an individual occurrence basis than it is to manage opt-in centrally by trying to ban bots across the board. And neither are that actually that successful, despite there having been individual successes in some communities.
      - gbog 14y ago
        Yes, I want bots too.
    - thomaslangston 14y ago
      Reddit's user made bots are an awesome addition and I'm very glad they are not opt-in. I think there is room in every community for automated users, if the tools for managing misbehaving users is strong enough. Github however has been known to not have strong moderation tools, so perhaps a temporary opt-in policy could be used until those tools improve?

hartez 14y ago

I'd prefer opt-in, and a nice directory of robots you could essentially subscribe to. I did a little thinking about this a while ago when the Gunio robot was annoying some people about whitespace: https://github.com/hartez/vcs-robots https://github.com/hartez/vcs-robots