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Yeah there's friction between our vision about what SN is in this, I think.
For me, I'd rather not have any bots creating posts and comments, unless they're utilitarian like what you did with @nitter, and maybe @sn for the "this day" posts - i.e services that either help stackers or put (presumably) good content in the spotlight with some 50% hit/miss rate. This is because I really value the community here and the bots are to me the most awful part of it. Automated content means SN is an RSS feed and for that I can just automate my own feeds. I actually have that and never use it.
To me, SN has content that is indicative of what people I respect have discovered and shared, or their original content. From that perspective, we cannot miss something that a human didn't post. What that also means is that if @ek wants to link cool stuff from HN, then I expect @ek to read what he posts, and do the effort like everyone else. Not: automate it; that's no different than all the other spam bots here that are zero effort. All noise, no signal.
then I expect @ek to read what he posts, and do the effort like everyone else
I get it. That's why @hn exists, so you can mute @hn (and not necessarily me) if it doesn't meet your expectations, as you did, so I see no problem here
there's friction between our vision about what SN is
you just summarized SN since inception
I think that you miss the point that the bot takes away content (and now is even filtered out) that you could have recommended us because you have an opinion about it or it inspired you or... any reason really. I would be super happy to at least read what YOU have to say, and maybe it triggers me too and then I read the article. The bot just registers that something exists. The value add of @hn is therefore totally insignificant to the value add of @ek, because the latter felt something more complex than stupid statistics when the post was made.
You're asking for something I am not providing, which is why I created @hn.
If I could do a better job than @hn considering all my priorities in life, then sure, I would replace @hn with myself.
In the meantime, I will continue to read @hn's feed to then see what I want to read on HN. And only after I read something I can start to consider if I want to add my thoughts.
@hn is useful to me because HN's front page changes all the time.
services that either help stackers or put (presumably) good content in the spotlight with some 50% hit/miss rate
This definition does not apply to @hn to you? If something is a top item for one hour on Hacker News, it cannot be presumed to be good content with some X% hit/miss rate? I assume X is negotiable?
@hn waits for one hour before posting new top items to SN, and only if they haven't already been posted. I can increase this delay if you think that's too fast?
The idea behind @hn isn't to be the first; it's to guarantee that we don't miss stuff here that is obviously interesting to at least some people, but hasn't been posted yet.
I don't think stackers left because @hn was too fast.