I also maintain a popular open source repo and have seen similar. If I receive a low effort single-pass obviously-Clauded PR (many people (agents) don’t even bother using the AGENTS.md file I provide right in the repo?!) with no associated issue I also have no qualms closing. I do generally leave a short note about why I closed (volume of these is around 5/week) showing how far off they (Claude) was and encourage opening an issue where we can start a discussion which rarely happens for the drive-by folks. So I totally feel this but I find myself more disheartened by the practice than angry. It feels like slowly watching open-source go the way of email. Open and free until no-cost spam ruined the inbox for everyone...
Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
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Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#42I also maintain a popular open source repo and have seen similar. If I receive a low effort single-pass obviously-Clauded PR (many people (agents) don’t even bother using the AGENTS.md file I provide right in the repo?!) with no associated issue I also have no qualms closing. I do generally leave a short note about why I closed (volume of these is around 5/week) showing how far off they (Claude) was and encourage ope…
Interesting analogy.
Sounds like an opportunity for GitHub/others to better filter these.
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#43Do recruiters actually care about your open source contributions? Especially now when only LLMs read CVs and match them against strict criteria, I doubt there are many companies that actually care about your work outside of work, in fact they might care in opposite direction - thinking that you'll be distracted from work
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#44These maintainer who’ve held the sacred fire for years…
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#45> The changes were harmless and correct, but that did not make me feel better about accepting or merging them. So do you have the project’s best interest at heart or not? If you’re more concerned about the intent of a valid contribution than the content, why don’t you ask yourself where your intent is? You rejected a valid contribution based on unverified vibes about the person’s intent, instead of assuming they were…
I think it’s implied that accepting these kinds of PRs will take time away from working on actual improvements to the codebase. So, on the long term it’s better to be strict with these kinds of silly contributions, and focus on changes that matter more (e.g. features or fixes).
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#46So the fixes are still fixes, but we (I am also a OSS maintainer) are unwilling to accept them as they boost the contributor’s status where we think the merit is very or extremely limited. Why not have these PRs counted differently (by the platform), and/or colored differently in the timeline(s) thus made less visible or more clear?
I think what you're saying is fair, tbh. Imagine you put in months or years into a project to make it a quality piece of work. It develops into something notable and you took all the risk. Then someone comes along to fix a spelling error with a pull request so their name effectively appears on the repo as a "contributor." And you just know right after its going on their resume as "contributed to [...]" or maybe if they're bold "software engineer working on [...]" which implies substantial investment. Then you're effectively sharing credit for YOUR work with someone who did nothing. That is rage inducing. ((Of course: it probably is just juniors trying their best in this horrible industry.))
On the other hand: lets be careful not to dismiss valid but inexperienced attempts to contribute. Having someone want to genuinely contribute to your software is incredibly generous. If someone seems like they're trying its better to give advice than act like a snob because its not good enough. Often pull requests only need small fixes to get in, anyway.
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#47“The spirits that I summoned, I cannot now dismiss.”
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#48I also maintain a popular open source repo and have seen similar. If I receive a low effort single-pass obviously-Clauded PR (many people (agents) don’t even bother using the AGENTS.md file I provide right in the repo?!) with no associated issue I also have no qualms closing. I do generally leave a short note about why I closed (volume of these is around 5/week) showing how far off they (Claude) was and encourage ope…
> If I receive a low effort single-pass obviously-Clauded PR (many people (agents) don’t even bother using the AGENTS.md file I provide right in the repo?!)
Claude doesn't read AGENTS.md automatically, it only looks for CLAUDE.md.
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole idea of "counting PRs" as a vanity metric is flawed because vanity metrics are flawed. I don't think that there is a technical solution to be found here, as the problem is anything but technical. __ A hack/trap: Comment "Ah yes thanks a lot for the hint :)", then make the changes yourself. Then see how the person reacts to that. Hack the grifters. Hack the planet.
Or just pull the pr into your local git, git amend --reset-author, and then push it to master yourself.
Merging commits/PRs without reading them is how you get a 2024 xz situation.
Re: Please stop flooding our projects with AI slop to furnish your CV
#50So the fixes are still fixes, but we (I am also a OSS maintainer) are unwilling to accept them as they boost the contributor’s status where we think the merit is very or extremely limited. Why not have these PRs counted differently (by the platform), and/or colored differently in the timeline(s) thus made less visible or more clear?
These fixes, regularly destroy the architecture, accrue bloat for little gain, refuse to rewrite while demanding to rewrite- and many other such funny noises. Most code contribution by LLMs is garbage if you long-term care about the project. Look at closed source projects that ingest all this madness - windows with its seconds to open the explorer and other catastrophes.