AI slop is killing online communities • Hacker News Board

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#521

Post by slidehero » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:20 AM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #55

I run a niche creative community, and we outlawed AI-generated content in 2022 as it was easy to see how corrosive it would be to the community. It hasn't been easy. We ban fake AI accounts daily and shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. It's a lot of work, extra work that wasn't needed before AI content came around, and of course, that is an extra cost. I fear losing the battle.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

presumably most people running these bots are doing it for some financial gain. as long gain > cost the issue won't go away.

It'll stop the ones doing it for the lols, but I imagine they're a minority anyway.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#522

Post by tomhow » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:22 AM UTC

pibaker wrote: post #457

skupig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are definitely trying to make HN bots because I have seen several get flagged. No idea to what end though.

People still see HN as a valuable place for promoting their businesses. Usually some poorly thought out SaaS. If you look at what people outside HN talk about HN, it's not uncommon to see wannabe tech entrepreneurs talking about how to promote their products via Show HNs and how to stay HN front page. It's honestly a little sad considering that HN has a tendency to rip these projects apart.

People (and bots) who think HN is the place to “promote their products” don't understand HN (though, as you note, that belief is is widespread and is having an acute effect on our inbox!)

Show HN is for showing a cool project you've built. To warrant front page placement, it has to “gratify intellectual curiosity”, just like everything else. There needs to be some kind of novel breakthrough or something for others to learn from. Or, sure, some way it can help others with their work or life.

And yes, a byproduct of all this may be that some people buy a license or subscription. But submitters who are just trying to get attention and sales for a commercial product don't belong in Show HN.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#523

Post by m-schuetz » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:33 AM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #518

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

This does not work, for similar reasons why captchas piss off real humans. You add a barrier here. You think that your solution means that AI is reduced, but you also reduce real humans. I noticed this with other parts too, such as "you need to verify your identity before you can post to the ruby issue tracker". I can do so, but I need my tablet and this takes me more time than before, so I stopped using the ruby iss…

Yeah, I tried to sign up for instagram, but at the fourth captcha I gave up and left. How does instagram have any users with such a hostile sign-up barrier?

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#524

Post by goodmythical » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

rgblambda wrote: post #323

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

Or applying for an account could involve sending a handwritten letter by post.

Right, because I cannot possibly purchase a thousand such letters for less than the cost of minimum wage for an hour or two.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#525

Post by sien » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #518

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

This does not work, for similar reasons why captchas piss off real humans. You add a barrier here. You think that your solution means that AI is reduced, but you also reduce real humans. I noticed this with other parts too, such as "you need to verify your identity before you can post to the ruby issue tracker". I can do so, but I need my tablet and this takes me more time than before, so I stopped using the ruby iss…

Metafilter and Something Awful both do this.

Both sites have survived and continue to work well for their users.

A small cost does definitely work for some sites.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#526

Post by protocolture » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:37 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #366

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #55

I run a niche creative community, and we outlawed AI-generated content in 2022 as it was easy to see how corrosive it would be to the community. It hasn't been easy. We ban fake AI accounts daily and shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. It's a lot of work, extra work that wasn't needed before AI content came around, and of course, that is an extra cost. I fear losing the battle.

>shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. >I fear losing the battle. I was in a small niche creative writing community for a while. Circa 2021\22. AI wasn't why I was there but I demo'd a few LLMs to a lot of the users in the Off Topic section because people were curious. Even with an explanation of how they operated, almost everyone was at least interested. One author told me how he operated similar…

Genuinely dont know how this made at least 3 people angry enough to downvote but not suggest why.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#527

Post by wincy » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:39 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #32

order-matters wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public* online communities are dying. Discord is thriving

This. Everything important has moved to discord. Which is sad because of how undiscoverable and unsearchable it is.

I got banned the other day from the Stellaris Discord server because someone accused me of hacking Roblox accounts. I’ve never played Roblox in my life. So that’s nice.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#528

Post by TeaVMFan » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:40 AM UTC

This bothered me so much that in my tool for HTML-native authors, EPublish ( https://frequal.com/epublish/ ), I automatically insert a no-AI-training clause on the copyright page. Not that it will stop the kind of executives who will authorize mass unauthorized downloading of books to train their LLMs, but we have to at least take a stand.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#529

Post by rglullis » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:41 AM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #518

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

This does not work, for similar reasons why captchas piss off real humans. You add a barrier here. You think that your solution means that AI is reduced, but you also reduce real humans. I noticed this with other parts too, such as "you need to verify your identity before you can post to the ruby issue tracker". I can do so, but I need my tablet and this takes me more time than before, so I stopped using the ruby iss…

> Charging money means you will also offset real humans at the same time.

On completely different scales. Even if it not perfect, it is strong enough of a filter to turn a bot infestation into a mild annoyance.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#530

Post by friendzis » Fri, May 08, 2026, 5:46 AM UTC

m-schuetz wrote: post #523

shevy-java wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not work, for similar reasons why captchas piss off real humans. You add a barrier here. You think that your solution means that AI is reduced, but you also reduce real humans. I noticed this with other parts too, such as "you need to verify your identity before you can post to the ruby issue tracker". I can do so, but I need my tablet and this takes me more time than before, so I stopped using the ruby iss…

Yeah, I tried to sign up for instagram, but at the fourth captcha I gave up and left. How does instagram have any users with such a hostile sign-up barrier?

My profile picture is old enough to open an account on instagram