Automod bots are fine I think. They have purpose sometimes. But they shouldn’t show up in the comment count. It’s always disappointing to open a thread with 1 comment and find out it’s the automod.
I don't mind automated bots if it's specific types. For example, r/Music had a bot that would scrub your link or title and basically give you a rundown of the artist including active years, a brief summary, and other informative stuff.
Specific communities having their bots post something I think is totally fine, but I absolutely agree that, in general, bots are bad.
As much as I loved prequelmemes, I avoided the comment section like the plague because I got tired of seeing the Maul, Ahsoka, and Anakin bots having full blown conversations with themselves. It's not funny, it's only relevant in that they're in the universe we posted about, and it just bloated the comment section.
Having like, one bot is a fun novelty. Deep Rock’s sub had the Wandering Dwarf Miner which was fun. But he’d just pop in with a quick “rock & stone” and that’s it.
I know exactly what you’re talking about with prequelmemes where it would summon like ten bots for popular character mentions and just ruin a thread.
DRG's bot was great yeah. Novelty stuff like that can be a fun addition to a community. It just sucks when the entire thread is bots jerking each other off.
Former mod here: The reason so many subs employed automod to leave a message on every post is because most users wouldn't read anything. They wouldn't read the rules, or recent announcements - the only way to ensure that they even saw information you wanted them to see was to literally have a bot reply to every post shoving it in their face. It is annoying, extremely, but it was really one of the only ways.