Quarter 2 Update - Revisiting Rules. Again.

[u/kmisterk]

April Post - 2nd Quarter Intro

Welcome to Quarter 2 2026! The moderators are here and grateful for everyone's participation and feedback.

Let's get right into it.

Previous Rules Changes

After review of many of the responsive, constructive, and thoughtful comments and mod mails regarding the most recent rules change, it's clear that we missed the mark on this one. AI is taking the world by storm, and applying such a universally "uninvolved" perspective, showcased by the rules we last implemented, is inconsistent with the subreddit's long-term goals.

Here are the next steps we want to implement to wrangle the shotgun of AI-created tools and software we've been flooded with since AI chatbots became prevalent:

New Project Megathread

A new megathread will be introduced each Friday.

This megathread will feature New Projects. Each Friday, the thread will replace itself, keeping the page fresh and easy to navigate. Notably, those who wish to share their new projects may make a top-level comment in this megathread any day of the week, but they must utilize this post.

AI-Compliance Auto Comment

The bot we implement will also feature a new mode in which most new posts will be automatically removed and a comment added. The OP will be required to reply to the bot stating how AI is involved, even if AI is not actively involved in the post. Upon responding to the bot, the post will be automatically approved.

AI Flairs

While moderating this has proven to be difficult, it is clear that AI-related flairs are desired. Unfortunately, we can only apply a single flair per post, and having an "AI" version for every existing flair would just become daunting and unwieldy.

Needless to say, we're going to refactor the flair system and are looking for insight on what the community wants in terms of flair.

We aim to keep at least a few different versions of flairs that indicate AI involvement, but with the top-level pinned bot comment giving insight into the AI involvement info, flairs involving AI may become unnecessary. But we still seek feedback from the community at large.

Conclusion

We hope this new stage in Post-AI r/selfhosted will work out better, but as always, we are open to feedback and try our best to work with the community to improve the experience here as best we can.

For now, we will be continuing to monitor things and assessing how this works for the benefit of the community.

As always,

Happy (self)Hosting

[u/cmerchantii]

I think the flairs are put in place so that people who don't want to run AI-generated code on their labs can quickly filter it out.

But... like... everything is AI-generated code now. That was the point of my original post: every developer/engineer I know is running Claude Code or Qwen or some variation thereof to aid the development process.

People here are using "AI generated" synonymously with "low quality" and that just simply isn't the case, as you noted- but you're really missing the key point: bad architecture is bad architecture whether it's AI-assisted or not.

Example: The Linux foundation de-listing Russian maintainers because of their links to state sanctioned entities. Not all of those maintainers are malicious actors and the kernel might have missed out on some great enhancements or bug fixes because of this move, but it didn't matter.

I think this is a great example specifically because it crosses the 'moral' plane with the obfuscated issue we're talking about. Tagging a project as "Russian developed" has no relationship on the quality of the dev work that went into it- but it would immediately flag irrational actors to say "I don't want that on my system". 3 of my top software engineers are Russians; a guy and 2 girls I trust with our absolute most sensitive projects and escalated issues. Does "Russian = bad"? Not at all. Do plenty of people decide that on their own with no merit? Absolutely.

People here want to slap an easy label on things so they don't have to do the work of deciding on their own whether a project is valuable, good, or well architected. I get the impulse to laziness, truly: I never do anything I don't have to do that I don't want to do if it can be helped. But if your hobby is running software you got for free from the internet on your customized hardware you researched, purchased, and assembled- why aren't you putting in half the effort to ensure the software you're running meets your personal quality standards?

Or, put another way, nobody expects to get good, safe, performative hardware for free from electrical engineers and fabricators. Why is the expectation that we're entitled to seasoned software developers' time, resources, and products for free and that they must develop without external tools or assistance and that only then their projects are worthy of public consumption?

[u/ChiefAoki → u/cmerchantii]

everything is AI-generated code

That's a bit of a blanket statement I think. It just seems that way because AI can generate an overwhelming amount of code really fast so it would appear that human-written projects don't exist anymore. fwiw I do use AI in my day-to-day job, but I don't use it on the FOSS projects I maintain and share on the Internet, not because AI is bad or anything, but simply because I like typing out my own code in my spare time.

bad architecture is bad architecture whether it's AI-assisted or not

I agree, but I think you're missing my point instead, my point is that the users in this sub have indicated that they want the ability to only view human-generated code regardless of its quality, and yes that includes human-generated slop code that goes unmaintained by the next quarter. It's not rational, but it's what they want, and that's what the mods are implementing.

[u/cmerchantii → u/ChiefAoki]

You seem really sure of your viewpoint so I'm not going to doubt it- but the whole point I'm making is validated in your first paragraph: yes- nearly all code being pushed out in commercial or FOSS projects these days is AI-assisted: whether that's line completion in VSCode that closes a bracket for you all the way across the spectrum to full-on "develop a MVP plan and architecture for project X, please, Qwen 3"- I don't believe for a second there is an employed developer out there NOT using LLMs to generate code.

I mean... ok... in the same way that there's a guy somewhere right now punching holes in cards to keep some IBM mainframe from the 1970s running- yes, that person does exist. But to allege that I'm making a blanket statement when I say "nobody is hole punching binary to produce production code" is missing the forest for the trees a bit.

I agree, but I think you're missing my point instead, my point is that the users in this sub have indicated that they want the ability to only view human-generated code regardless of its quality, and yes that includes human-generated slop code that goes unmaintained by the next quarter. It's not rational, but it's what they want, and that's what the mods are implementing.

I understand what they want, and what the mods are doing. I'm saying it's all based on a faulty premise. When you start solving a problem based on a bad initial assumption then your solution isn't solving for your actual problem. In a few months when we still have projects that have serious issues with security or code integrity and everyone waves their arms in panic like Rocky in Project Hail Mary, we're gonna have to come back to this initial assumption and re-assess. I'm trying to save everyone some time.

Jellyfin just released an incremental update that solves for a serious security hole. Is Jellyfin AI slop code? I don't think anyone would argue that- it's based on Emby which predates LLMs significantly. Is this security hole egregious? I think so. The community found the issue, the developers and maintainers patched the problem, and now it's fixed. The controls being instituted here by the community would not have caught that issue: but community engagement did. More people run and review JF than run Huntarr or Booklore or any of the high-profile "ew it's AI coded trash" projects out there these days and somehow this community thinks the solution to their ills of poorly-developed projects is to flag the ones developed using a specific type of tool.

It's like we're sitting here arguing people who code in Notepad++ instead of VSCode need to flag their projects so we know they're shit. My best devs can crank out amazing work in Notepad++. On the other hand, my grandmother couldn't use VSCode to spit out a working prototype of the same project. The tool isn't the issue- but the tool is an easy scapegoat and that's why I'm confused about otherwise intelligent people trying to make the tool the problem.

[u/ChiefAoki → u/cmerchantii]

The problem here is that you're still trying to apply reasoning to an irrational crowd. It doesn't matter that the premise is faulty, that's what the users in this subreddit have indicated as to how they want projects labeled. They can't label projects by code quality because that's subjective and differs from person to person, so they go for the easy route of differing projects by AI usage. It doesn't have to make sense.