# Meta annotation sidepost for bots?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [May 12, 2018, 11:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326 "2018-05-12T11:32:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mofosyne](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mofosyne)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2018, 11:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/1 "2018-05-12T11:32:22Z")
I noticed that there are some bots in reddit whose focus is on improving other post via automatically clarifying abbreviations etc..
The problem with such post in discourse, is that it would be too verbose. Reddit has the advantage of subthreading comments, allowing for bot comments to not take too much mental space.
What could help is if we implement the ability to add annotations like shown in stackoverflow, but maybe restricted to bots instead? (But you can arguably allow humans to do so, if we can somehow restrict it to meta commentary. Could help if someone wants to note suggestions on rephrasing sentences for clarity)
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### Author:  [@notriddle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/notriddle)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2018, 12:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/2 "2018-05-12T12:51:21Z")
Could it be built as a plugin that automatically replaces certain text with a link? So, for example, `API` gets replaced with `API`.
Plugins seem more “The Discourse Way” than bots.
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### Author:  [@mofosyne](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mofosyne)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/3 "2018-05-12T13:13:15Z")
that would work at least for text replacement kind of annotations.
But thats only one application of bots used in reddit.
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### Author:  [@jtbayly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jtbayly)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2018, 1:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/4 "2018-05-12T13:26:31Z")
Can you give an example of what other sorts of things can be done automatically, besides expanding/clarifying abbreviations?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/5 "2018-05-12T20:12:00Z")
> [@mofosyne](#):
>
> I noticed that there are some bots in reddit whose focus is on improving other post via automatically clarifying abbreviations etc…
Oh god these things are horrible on Reddit and so annoying. Why would we ever want that in Discourse?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/meta-annotation-sidepost-for-bots/87326/6 "2018-05-13T23:16:27Z")
The way you would implement this in a non-annoying way would be a bot that edits in annotations using [Discourse Footnote](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-footnote/84533)
Hard to get it 100 perfect though.
Also there is: [Auto-Linkify Words](https://meta.discourse.org/t/linkify-words-in-post/82193)