Automation is a nice tool, like any tool they can get lost or misused. The charity automation, lost, contact with why it was started, and contact with the people behind it. We can fix that by setting reminders, (more automation).
Misuse is not so easy sometimes, we forget the original reason behind the automation, we never revisit it and then when asked about it we don't know. For me it is my mute list. I add people, I very very rarely revisit my choice and my decision as to why a person is there.
When a person is added do they deserve to be their for life? When I moved from Steem over to Hive, a short time after the move I removed all the people I had muted, close to 100, I now only have six people on that list. (first time I had looked in a month).
We do need to revisit why we set any automation up, evaluate is it still effective, can it be improved, is it still needed.
I can't remember the last time I muted someone, other than those automated report messages that spam statistics and tag people.
That is a lot of mutes! :D
You are right about the loss of connection with automation and I think a lot of people who rely on automation tend not to be too great at engaging. Not all, most.
Four of the six I have muted are dead accounts now, they were spammers, the other two are the same person, one persona of which was plagiarizing pictures and is powering down to support the new account, so if one persona would do it so would the other, people do not change, down voting them is worthless as they have mrbig/mrbigger support now.
It is sad when people who scam get support...
It is, but if a person has the mind and the time, and the complete lack of moral principles it is better to be spent on Hive/Steem than in the streets robbing people on the way to the store to feed their family. Thieves will always have an excuse, they needed to feed their families too whether they have one or not. In their moral compass they are doing good for the people they steal from reminding them of what they had and how easy it is to lose it all. There is no reasoning with them, They apologize for their mistake, yet go on about business like nothing happened. The enablers are no better when it comes to the chain, it's just business, is their excuses.