Amazing the tone that can come out when reading something....
You have a history of reading a lot of "tone" into posts that isn't actually intended. Probably should start from the standpoint that there's not one, may help you under react in a way that isn't intended.
Anyway, the "bot", has no opinion, no comment, just the rumour/report and link.
No contribution whatsoever to the continuing thread.
This to me seems very impersonal.
I see thanks for clarifying. The intent of News and Reports is to report the news and allow the community to comment and discuss so it seems to be working as we envisioned it at this point.
I would add that prior to the news bot, a majority of the news threads posted also were without comment, and often without even any text of the article. So overall, the experience isn't much different other than it's not being posted by a fellow Australian.
The new feed does a better job of including article text where copyright allows as well as less biased and more timely news based on the majority national user base of Mac-Forums. For example, rather than a bunch of news being posted overnight the day after it happened or was reported, the reporting is much closer to the time the news is actually made.
The process isn't perfect, but then no process ever is, and we'll constantly be looking at how to improve it.