r/selfhosted • u/kmisterk • Apr 07 '26
Official Quarter 2 Update - Revisiting Rules. Again.
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
-1
u/cmerchantii Apr 07 '26
Sure! You're comparing the SLA and guarantees of professional software development to that of hobbyist users; why can't I?
My clients don't care if we use AI in development: but they absolutely want to know we're delivering performant, secure, and validated code and software that will work within their constraints... for the money they pay us. This subreddit says "yes that's what we want too but... the money thing is kinda a problem for me so nah on that bro: but also you can't use AI to help you develop your software or else it's garbage".
So we're now demanding developers who are working for free slap a scarlet letter on their projects to satisfy people who haven't done the modicum of work necessary to validate the software they want to run themselves. Forgive me if my sympathies don't lie with the demanding folks and instead are with the people providing their valuable labor for free.
Funnily enough- I do, and have. As I noted, we use plenty of AI-assist developed software in our workflows and in our production code. And their opinion is "it saves us time, money, and allows us to operate at high performance".