Edit 3 - further refining.
There are some rather… unique interpretations of what a promo post is, along with an important note that some people lurk. Its important though that they participate somewhere to make sure its not a drive-by ad, but its fair to say that there are users in programming, linux, and other communities whose posts would be welcomed by users here.
Its also important to users here that its not just post and disappear.
So I’m adjusting to:
Promotion posts require your active participation in selfhosting or related communities, or the post will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be self-hosted in full without payment, your post is exempt from this rule as long as you continue to engage in comments.
EDIT 2 AT THE TOP AGAIN:
It seems there is some confusion around the term “promo posts”, so I’m making another adjustment for clarity. If this is muddying the waters instead, please point that out!
Self-promotion posts advertising their product requires community participation, or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be self-hosted in full without payment, your post is exempt from this rule.
I worry a bit that its getting unwieldy, so feel free to suggest options to clean up the language a bit.
EDIT AT THE TOP:
Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be used in full without payment, it will be exempt from this rule.
Intended to clarify on “paywall” - it has to be open source and run in full locally, no one-time or subscription-locked payment for features, to qualify. Donations don’t count as that doesn’t limit use, while something like Kavita (which has non-free features behind a subscription, despite the base being open source) would not have the benefit of exemption. The rule intent hasn’t changed here, just the wording on the exemption limitations.
I’ve gotten through (I believe) all the comments in the meta thread. So I want to establish a few things, first being a better definition on spam.
Spam is not “I don’t like this and its a paid product” or “I don’t like this and they used AI/LLMs”.
Spam would generally be considered:
- Mass-posting - Posting the exact same post across a bunch of of different communities, rapidly.
- Repetitive Content (aka karma farming) - repeatedly submitting old popular content. I’ll note that this is completely irrelevant on lemmy, this was more of a reddit issue due to karma.
- Bot Activity / AI Abuse - Using scripts/bots/gen AI to automate posts and comments.
- Unsolicited DMs - Mass private messages or chats to users, completely unsolicited
I’d say anything other than that deserves a followup rule, and this definition should go in the sidebar.
Regarding the promotional posts themselves, I think something like the 10% rule makes sense - no more than 10% of the account should be self-promotional material or comments within the community.
I do think it makes sense to include an exception for 100% free/libre open source projects. Partially open projects with a closed (paid) component should be subject to the 10% rule. So what I propose as the rule would be:
Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & without any paywalls, it will be exempt from this rule.
Questions, comments, clarifications, and harsh criticisms are welcomed in the comments. As a reminder from my intro post, and because of some comments in the other thread, I will mention:
There are people on both sides of the keyboards, so please be respectful of others.
Nice to see the changes, but may I ask if tagging could be beneficial?
Surely it would help to sort out self promotion, help requests and informational posts.
Also, since we’re all in the lemmy-bubble, a lot of people may despise vibe-coded projects, at least it looks/feels like it, so it may be worth tagging project with AI code?
I’m maybe narrow-minded, but please enlighten me^^
Re: AI tags. I disagree, for reasons I outlined here
https://lemmy.ml/post/48724623/26190950
TL;DR: in 2026, assume ALL projects have AI assist. Then do your due diligence.
Really doesn’t address the issue at all.
Because its not just user due diligence, but what the comment threads become.
This is a discussion for another round though, not for this rule.
We might be talking past each other here or actually agreeing.
But yes, this belongs in a separate [META] thread. It’s a discussion that needs to be had IMHO.
You are welcome to make one, but to note I am avoiding inundating the community with discussions, so I won’t be making one (or a rule post followup like this) until next week. Trying to avoid having too many at once.
So doing nothing is the way? There are useful project created with AI but also a lot of harmful ones.
Even I know, that the bigger part of selfhosters are copy and pasting guides and aren’t developer themselve, so why should we not try and at least warn these people?
OK but isn’t that also true of non AI projects? Famously, XZ utils?
I would hate to see this happen
Tagging something ai or not ai is no guarantee of non-malefescence. Due diligence is required in both circumstances.
It’s a bit like those Nigerian prince scam emails of yore. If you can’t grok why it’s bad, no amount of “this email is probably spam” being appended to the header will save you.
Which is what is happening now without the tag as soon as someone sees “AI”, regardless of what its doing, how it was used, or if its even related to the development.
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. So an AI tag at best does nothing and at worst buries potential useful projects.
I think you’re missing the part where this happens now.
Having an AI tag also means that posting comments to complain about using AI is off-topic and would be removed.
Maybe. So let me steelman what I think you’re saying.
It seems like you’re making a case for some kind of loop - AI tag means you can’t complain about AI tagged posts, and if you do, your post gets removed.
Have I represented your position fairly?
My counter point is - if the hostility already exists without a tag, that confirms the tag isn’t a cultural fix.
If complaints about AI use become off-topic and get removed, you haven’t improved the community’s relationship with AI content, you’ve just suppressed the feedback loop.
Is that really the right direction, given the reality of AI assistance in coding?
The hostility doesn’t go away. It goes underground, or people leave anyway.
Moderating away dissent isn’t community health, it’s just quieter dissent.
The community reacting negatively to AI content is the signal. A tag that makes that signal removable isn’t a solution, it’s a lid on a pot.
I’m not calling for some grand destigmatization of slop, I’m calling for nuance and education.
Which ultimately is beyond the scope of a mod…but you’re the one wearing the cape. What sort of house do you want to run?
Let’s at least not do something that propagates the knee jerk “fuckAI and fuck you” Lemmy is famous for.
It’s a hard problem, to be sure. Maybe your AI tag is a fair enough step for now.
Comment, but yes.
Not my job or in my control to change the culture, only to keep it on topic and appropriate commentary.
I can’t force people to recognize a tool as a tool, and I’m not trying to.
And doesn’t detract from the posts with people who do understand the different ways to leverage an llm, and wish to interact with that content.
Which is what is happening now. So it can either be that, or something else. If you have a better idea, absolutely post about it as I said. Doing nothing, however, does nothing and continues exactly what you’re concerned about.
I’m totally on your side about awareness and “you have to check it yourself”.
Nobody is telling AI aided projects are bad. Nobody is saying vibe-coded projects are bad.
The problem with vibe-coded projects is, that on average, the code isn’t checked by the owner itself. Surely there a some people using AI as aid and check it afterwards but this is sadly only a small proportion.
In my honest opinion, we should not create rules around exceptions.
We’re currently in a timeline, where it’s hard to tell what is right and what is wrong about AI usage but we have to start somewhere…
I actually do want tagging of some sort, I think its a sensible approach overall. I think its a quick way to identify that your project used AI and people can quickly filter, per your example.
That said, I think that should be a separate item, and I don’t want to inundate with stickies either. That was going to be my next “oh look a mod is annoying us with his opinion again” post, but then we ended up seeing a ton of promo content this week. I’m trying to stick to a mod post every week or two so everyone has a chance to see and respond to things.
That said, if you want to get that discussion ball rolling, feel free to make a meta post about it of course!
Thanks for your work, time and effort. I also think, it would be better to separate it and first end the discussion about promotions and co, so it could settle before kicking of another round^^