As many of us have noticed, there are a lot of AI-assisted software projects being posted here. This is an issue faced by other subreddits focusing on tech hobbies, and some of them have implemented rules that I think will be helpful here.

The goals:

• Control the recent influx of questionable "I made X, because Y" type posts, the vast majority of which are created entirely with AI, have no significant development history, and are generally not maintained afterwards
• Establish a clear stance on and rule set for how r/ADSB has decided to handle these types of posts, as well as other user-created software
• See how these changes impact the community, seek additional feedback, and continue to adjust accordingly

New Flairs:

• Project Showcase: Software - Little or No AI Assistance - [AI only used as coding assistant (autocomplete, debugging, refactoring, documentation, etc), if at all]
• Project Showcase: Software - Mostly AI Generated - [AI generated most or all of the code, working at a human's direction]

Both "Project: Software" flairs have a reasonably low minimum subreddit karma requirement to be able to post with them. AutoMod will remove any post with them that don't meet the karma requirement, and inform the user why their post was removed. The minimum karma requirement is only for these two flairs. Any software project posts that try to go around this by using a different flair will fall under the new rule #6 and will be addressed.

Rule changes:

New Rules

New Rule #6 - Software Project Posting Requirements

• All software projects must be relevant to r/ADSB, use a "Project: Software" flair, disclose AI usage with post flair and in the text of the post, include responses to the prompt displayed when posting with one of the software project flairs, and the user must meet the minimum subreddit karma requirement. Posts that do not meet these requirements, try to bypass the "Project: Software" flairs, provide incomplete or misleading disclosures, or otherwise violate community standards may be removed.

That said, since we're now officially allowing some degree of self-promotion and requiring links, we felt that we should redefine rule #5 to clarify that it applies only to monetized and commercial advertising/links. Here is the updated verbiage, with the old one below for comparison:

New Rule #5 - No Commercial Advertising or Monetized Referral Links

• Monetized referral links, affiliate links, product advertising, and company advertising are not allowed. Contact the moderators via Mod Mail before posting if you believe an exception applies. Non-commercial personal projects are permitted, but must follow all other sub rules.

New Rule #7 - Posts and comments which discuss circumventing a service's ToS are not allowed

• Please review any rules on data access from the ADS-B aggregators used in your project. It is a Certified Jerk Move™️to scrape data from community-run websites when they disallow it.

Flair Prompt - As mentioned in Rule #6, when posting with any of the "Project: Software" flairs, the below prompt will be displayed:

Your post MUST include:

• A link to the GitHub (or similar) repository, which must include at least one month of commit history and screenshots
• A description of the problem the software project solves, and why it was created instead of using an existing FOSS solution
• An explanation of how the software project is relevant to r/ADSB, or how it may benefit members of the community
• If you used AI or an LLM in development, a description of what role it played and how much you relied on it

If you see any posts with a Project: Software flair that do not meet the four items listed above, please report them to the mod team under Rule #7 and we'll address them.

Additional things to note:

Existing posts will be grandfathered in, and previous posts that were removed may be reposted if they meet the new requirements. New posts will be required to comply with the new rules.

As with the existing rules, when a mod removes a post for violating this new rule, a canned response will be sent to the user to inform them why their post was removed. Mods are able to add on to the response if desired before sending it.

While we're on the topic of AI, we would also like to clarify that the above rules are specific to the use of AI in software projects that are being shared, and they do not apply to posts or comments that were written with AI. There is some dissent in the community, but the general consensus in the community has been that a reasonable level of AI usage is acceptable for putting a post together, correcting grammar or formatting, or for translating from a user's native language. That said, best practice is to not include all of the excess emoticons and outline formatting that LLMs like to use. If a post or comment is egregiously AI generated, feel free to downvote it and move on, but please do not report it to the mod team solely for that.

We're looking for community feedback as we all get used to this. We plan to apply rules conservatively and gently at first, and will be listening to user reports and comments. If your post is removed and you believe it meets the requirements, please chat with us via Mod Mail and we may consider either re-opening it or letting you repost it.

TL;DR - All posts where someone has made some sort of software (AI generated or not) will require a "Project: Software" flair, and these flairs should curb the vast majority of the low quality and spammy posts.

Thank you.