I’ve been guilty of using one back when I first started [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] but that was three years ago as someone who was not active in any communities on reddit in my around 10 years of being on there outside the occasional comment. A critical mass of active users and posts is needed for people to engage with the community, leave comments, post themselves, and I was just one guy trying to build something from nothing. I don’t have a lot of original thoughts to share, so naturally I tried a bot out to have some semblance of activity over there. People complained about the constant bot posts, I gave it some thought and removed them in the end. Things have been going pretty well with [email protected] as a combined community, but it was definitely tough to get the ball rolling.

Nowadays, I’m not too fond of seeing bot posts myself, but I wouldn’t judge people who do use some in their communities especially if it’s limited to small communities that are yet to find their footing in the Fediverse.