There's a bot user that seems to crosspost every lobsters story here if it isn't already.

Fine. Looking at today's /active, it's more than half just based on the titles. (Likely 2/3 or more in practice, but I did not delve into each post.) And this does not feel particularly unusual.

(Apologies if you've commented on the following already, but I've not seen it.)

The most concerning growing trend I see is comments that don't violate any guidelines, but are flagged to dead.

I'm not talking about posters that are shadowbanned, but about comments that engaged thoughtfully on a topic but the rest of the thread disagreed emphatically with.

I also don't even mean controversial takes on hot-button issues like vaccines.

Just plain old bucking the trend in a thread about AI, transit, housing, layoffs, etc.

I've been browsing with showdead on for as long as I can remember, and I'm seeing this accelerate. Comments from folks both you and I respect as high quality contributors here.

I don't know what the solution is, but it discourages me (and I'm sure others) from having the kind of thought-provoking dialog I've gotten used to reading here for the last 15 years.