Generative AI tools are proliferating, and this is impacting forums like ClojureVerse in multiple ways.
People are less likely to post questions, when they can also ask a chatbot. There’s often some anxiety to post questions publicly, for fear of being perceived less than competent, so why not get an answer in the relative privacy of a conversation with an LLM. This place is clearly less active than it was a few years ago, and this is likely no small factor.
We face a trust issue, we find ourselves carefully scrutinising messages to assess whether a human wrote them. When we expect to be connecting with another person, and then find out instead we’ve projected humanity onto a machine response, we feel violated.
We hold dear the value of creating, of being creative. But LLMs have devalued creativity. This means when people share projects, we face a similar trust issue. What are we actually looking at? In a creative community, the end result isn’t the point, it’s appreciating someone’s skill, taste, tenacity, and it’s connecting with each other over our shared interest and appreciation.
Finally we have to deal with aggressive scrapers, so hosting costs are up, site reliability is down, and operational efforts have become more involved.
For all of these reasons, we’d like to make ClojureVerse first and foremost a place for human interaction and connection, which is why we are implementing this AI policy. We also recognise that many software developers use AI tools on a daily basis now, sometimes by choice, sometimes by mandate from higher ups. This is part of a lot of people’s reality, and they should be able to talk about that here in a safe and friendly environment.
Concretely that means:
We expect messages posted on ClojureVerse to be written by you, a human. We want your own words, however rough and unpolished. If English is not your first language, you can use automated translation tools. In that case, you must mention that you used a translation tool, and post the original message in your own language, below the English post.
We have an existing Machine Learning & AI Category (subforum), which is the right place for discussions about (generative) AI and AI coding tools. Discussions about tools, workflows, models, etc. should be confined to this subforum. Moderators may move topics there if appropriate.
We will have a higher bar for announcements. This is a forum, a place to connect and discuss, not somewhere to place free advertising. Tell us why you think your project is interesting, tell us about your process. Post an announcement if you want to have a genuine conversation about your project, not if you are just looking for eyeballs and clicks. We also encourage people to be active in the forum before posting announcements.
As before, our Code of Conduct still applies as well. That means we will not tolerate hostile behaviour (towards people who use AI, or anyone else). This policy intends to create social norms, not to turn people into vigilantes. It’s not always easy to tell if something is AI, and we as moderators will have to navigate that. Egregious violations should be recognisable however, and people should use the existing reporting mechanisms if they think something is out of place, so the mods can decide on the appropriate action.
We hope this policy will help to keep ClojureVerse a place that people want to frequent. We encourage both first time and long time visitors to post their questions and share their experiences. What have you been up to lately?