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Town HallUpdating Sub Rules as a response to increased AI on Reddit (self.boardgames)

submitted by bgg-uglywalrus[M]

It should be of no surprise to anyone who frequents Reddit that the site as a whole has been seeing an increase in bots in the comments as well as posts and content with AI as an origin. By the numbers, the mods are removing over 100 comments daily that are made by accounts highly suspected of being bots or AI users.

Alongside our continued work of removing bot/AI users from the community, we have also added new rules (Rule #9 in the sidebar) to the Contribution Guidelines to tackle some of the major offenders.

Posts Created by AI

As a general rule, AI-created posts are not allowed on the sub. However, we have made exceptions in the past for one particular case which is the use of AI to translate a post. r/boardgames is a global community, and while we have no language requirements to post on the sub, posts in English get more participation. Not all users can write in English, so the use of translators to convert a pre-written post to English has become more prevalent. People should not be barred from participating on the sub for not being anglophone, so we approve these posts on a case-by-case basis.

Users are still encouraged to report posts that seem to be created by AI and the mods will review them as usual.

AI Discussion Topics

There are still pertinent discussions around AI, especially when talking about real games in publication or crowdfunding. These are still important topics that belong on the sub, so we're not implementing a blanket ban on AI topics. In general, topics of the use of AI in board games will be allowed if it's in regards to an actual game. However, there have been a significant increase in low-effort threads such as general "what's your vibe on AI"-style threads which we have been removing and will continue to do so going forward.

Vibe-Coded Apps & Websites

Due to the prevalence of vibe-coding, we've been seeing more and more posts sharing very simple applications and websites (such as first-player pickers or dice rollers). In the past, we've been significantly more lenient on these types of posts as they weren't extremely common.

However, we're seeing more and more AI and vibe-coded code in these projects, as well as an increase in these types of posts overall, and so have implemented a bar on certain types of applications/sites we've seen to be "low-hanging fruit" for AI-created codebases.

A full list can be found in the Rule #9 Contribution Guidelines under the "Vibe-Coded Applications/Websites" section.

We have also added a new report reason you can use when reporting AI content. The purpose of this post is not to start a witch-hunt; overall r/boardgames isn't getting hit nearly as hard by AI bots as some other subs. But the report reason is there should you need it. Finally, we want to thank everyone who have been vigilant in the past months who have helped us keep AI bots off the sub.

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[–]Master-Trick2850 251 points252 points  (27 children)

so many "I've made this app/website for this game/score" and then when you look at the profile theyre just spamming vibe coded garbage across reddit 

The dead internet bots are harder to spot though, seemingly asking engaging questions "[situation X] happened but what you think" or "[Situation Y] what game do you recommend"

[–]CantaloupeCamper 81 points82 points  (3 children)

Software subs are pretty much overwhelmed by that kind "i just made this thing what do you think" spam.

[–]Suppafly 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Software subs are pretty much overwhelmed by that kind "i just made this thing what do you think" spam.

And the thing they want you to look at is usually a vibe coded version of something that already exists, and the existing thing is usually a lot better.

[–]ChemicalRascalWooden Burgers 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Yep, on r/Programming we now automatically filter anything that's linking to github.

All those links have essentially the same format and such, too, I wouldn't be shocked if the number of people ultimately responsible for the spam are rather low.

[–]CantaloupeCamper 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I saw a sub that had a rule where you had to post in your own submission and say why you think your post is relevant.

It didn't actually matter what you said, it wasn't a serious "explain yourself" type situation.

What worked about it is the bots / spammer people don't know the rules and never posted and if you didn't make your post... gone automatically.

Neat idea for now. Very low user cost, high payoff.

[–]communomancer 30 points31 points  (2 children)

The dead internet bots are harder to spot though, seemingly asking engaging questions "[situation X] happened but what you think" or "[Situation Y] what game do you recommend"

You can typically spot them by how they instantly respond to and glaze every commenter in thread for awhile after it's first posted in an effort to farm further engagement. Sometimes there are other tells but that's the most common one I see.

[–]Grahf-Naphtali 32 points33 points  (1 child)

What an insighful comment! I do too agree with your statement and i am very curious how would you deal with this issue? (clank clank) 🤣

[–]bursting_decadence 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Clank! MENTIONED

[–]AndreiD44 29 points30 points  (17 children)

This absolutely sucks as a guy actually making things "since before AI" / without AI.
There used to be a time you could talk about what you did and people would give you a thumbs up, some feedback, or ignore you.

Now you get downvoted to hell for trying to share your work, because you're just one guy in a sea of AI slop and nobody bothers to check if your particular app uses AI or not, And every single time I do manage to post without having it taken down, I have to spend an extra 10 comments answering if and how AI was used - and it's exhausting.

I get where it's coming from, but it absolutely sucks. I don't want to have to justify and defend my app all the time and try to explain "this is not like the other AI apps, this is actually human-made with sweat and tears!" - I'd want to just show my work and discuss about what it got right and what it got wrong instead. But that comes very secondary to the "is it AI?" discussion now :|

[–]RobotDevil222x3 14 points15 points  (9 children)

Yea and similarly, I think most board gamers have that thought in the back of their minds that maybe they'll make a game someday. I'd be terrified to attempt to start up a gaming company nowadays because someone, somewhere would decide that something I did or wrote "looks like AI to them" and then I'd be chased out of town by the mob.

[–]Jaxyl 9 points10 points  (7 children)

Yeah this has been a problem in the art communities nowadays where if a real artist makes an honest mistake the claim is now "AI" and the mob descends. Or people will hyper analyze a picture and 'determine' something was AI for purely arbitrary reasons and then the mob descends.

It's become ridiculous to watch and almost cult like. I'm all for supporting real creators but at this point I'd rather just ignore AI stuff than the witch hunts that are going on.

[–]Guldur 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The funniest thing i've seen was a content creator sharing a real Van Gogh painting and claiming it was made by AI to be Gogh-like, and asking what people thought. There were so many art snobs stating it sucked, it had no soul, it was nowhere close to a real Van Gogh, that AI was souless and could not match true humans. It just goes to show that people are heavily emotional about the topic and they aren't the AI detectors they believe to be.

[–]faelanaeEtherfields 7 points8 points  (2 children)

and heaven help you if you write using the same rules of English that AI was trained on, or you mention a particular product that you found helpful. I've been accused of being both AI and a product spammer :/

[–]lessmiserables 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Y'all will take my em dash from my cold, dead hands

[–]RobotDevil222x3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You don't even need to do that. I've seen the accusations for things like typos which AI doesn't even make.

[–]AdInfamous3953 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As long as an image doesn’t weird me out or give me the uncanny valley effect then I don’t really mind either way.

It’s pretty rare that an AI photo doesn’t do this to me (not sure it ever hasn’t), although I’m not neurotypical and have some unusual visual and brain processing that makes AI and optical illusions stand out. Generally I’ve never been able to see the illusion in an optical illusion.

[–]dodecapodeSad cowboys [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah, I've seen some of this too. Sure, there is a lot of AI slop around, but real humans have been fucking up drawing hands for centuries... :D

[–]CitizenModel [score hidden]  (0 children)

Some of the critiques are like 'and look at this curl in her hair- it doesn't look motivated and that's not how braids work'.

Meanwhile, if I'm drawing hair it's definitely not how hair works in real life and I'm drawing whatever I can get away with visually.

[–]Canis-lupus-uy 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I guess that ship sailed and will never return.

[–]Julien_Ishida 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I downvoted promoters and solicitors long before the ai boom. If some cold call advertisers exist who never jumped on the ai train then sucks for them IG. Hope it gets to sucking worse.

[–]deathsythe -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

This is the part that worries me most about arguably draconian policies like this.

[–]CptNonsense -3 points-2 points  (2 children)

If AI is good enough that people need to make rules to filter out things because they look too much like stuff AI can do, it doesn't matter if you are churning out AI slop or not. It's by definition indistinguishable.

The AI rabble need to realize that and just drop the hate. They are literally admitting they cannot spot AI but want the specter of AI be removed from everything.

[–]AndreiD44 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, this is another thing.

You are not "banning AI", you are just setting a threhold of how good it needs to be to be accepted. Badically offering it a great natural selection to help it improve, and a fertile curated ground to learn from.

I wish we just ignored it and let it die confused, not knowing what it did wrong. Imstead we help it become better and more confusing by constantly analyzing and curating communities.

[–]mrDalliard2024 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your comments are so rabidly defensive that you seem to be one of the slop producers. It checks out, given you clearly have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about

[–]axw3555 2 points3 points  (0 children)

r/migraine recently banned “I’ve made an app” and “I’m doing research” type posts because of the flood.

[–]KittyKablammo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah and they're all like "I spent X weeks working on this app" when clearly they did not

[–]Oughta_Dune 63 points64 points  (4 children)

Glad the mods take this stance. I do feel like there are a bunch of AI written posts that when questioned, OP claims they used AI to translate as a way to skirt the rules, but I suppose it is still best to err on the side of forgiveness there.

[–]bgg-uglywalrus[S,M] 73 points74 points  (3 children)

We can usually determine the validity of such claims based on the user's history as well as sometimes engaging directly with the users via modmail.

It's not a perfect system, but it does help eliminate a lot of false positives.

[–]Oughta_Dune 21 points22 points  (0 children)

No further questions. Appreciate your efforts!

[–]JonBonButtsniff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We appreciate the work. Whenever I am consuming human food and want to learn of board gaming, I do not want bots to have influence! They are the stripped threads of society.

[–]CptNonsense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It helps eliminate false positives after the system tuned too low creates them.

[–]vanGenne Spirit Island 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Good changes, I think!

[–]FireblendClank! Catacombs 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I think these are good changes overall. I would've added "game recommendations/what to play picker" apps and websites to the list in the contribution guidelines doc, which I feel are distinct enough from the other categories and we've also seen plenty of in the past couple of months.

[–]SquireBev 17 points18 points  (3 children)

Hopefully this will mean in the reduction of posts about social dilemmas where the obvious answer is just TALK TO THEM.

[–]Gilchester 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This sub would die without those :P

[–]AsmadiGamesGame Designer + Publisher 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh gosh AI will never change the fact that people cannot talk to each other.

If anything it'll get worse - folks will ask an AI agent how to deal with a social situation and get a sycophantic reply!

[–]CitizenModel [score hidden]  (0 children)

But what am I supposed to do about my one friend who always shows up to game night with a rotting fish in the hood of his hoodie that everyone (including my wife who has packed her bags and is ready to leave me over this) thinks smells bad but he has never acknowledged?

[–]destrinstorm18xx 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the update, really happy to have a new reporting category, been feeling the need for that a lot

[–]TheScienceOfMagic Spirit Island 5 points6 points  (6 children)

What is "vibe-coded"?

[–]Suppafly 14 points15 points  (1 child)

What is "vibe-coded"?

It's an industry team that means you let AI do all the work. It's coding with vibes instead of knowledge. In reality, most vibe coded things still need you to step in and either manually fix things or continuously redirect the AI to correct things. I'd imagine something like a dice roller or first player picker could be completely vibe coded assuming you prompted the AI correctly, those are beginner level projects for anyone with any interest in CS.

[–]wronguses 5 points6 points  (0 children)

More or less asking LLMs to code things and copy/pasting them together into a mess.

[–]irreverent_squirrel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's complicated. Basically, it's very easy now make apps and websites using AI. The apps themselves are varying quality - some have major defects and hosting or scaling issues.

I love that anyone creative enough to think about a problem and how to solve it can now create that solution themselves. I like seeing how people came up with ideas. I probably won't use their solution or trust it with my information though, in most cases.

[–]Suppafly 8 points9 points  (1 child)

However, we have made exceptions in the past for one particular case which is the use of AI to translate a post. r/boardgames is a global community, and while we have no language requirements to post on the sub, posts in English get more participation.

I think in those cases, they should be required to submit the original post that they wrote, along with the translation. That would help them get traction with others that speak their language natively as well as the larger group of us that only speak English. It'd also help prove that they wrote the original content.

[–]gobacktoyourutopia 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good idea: hope that's added to the rules

[–]40DegreeDaysArgent: The Consortium 24 points25 points  (13 children)

Could we also ban comments/threads asking "is this art ai" or accusing art of being Ai?  They always derail things and are constant. 

[–]Odd-Temperature-791 14 points15 points  (1 child)

There is literally a sub called is this AI which caters for that so agree!

[–]Lucius_GreyHerald 0 points1 point  (0 children)

BESIDES, these questions, even that sub itself if I am not mistaken... was made to... "research", improve, and check if what they're puking can be detected.

[–]bonifaceviii_barrie 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Agreed - asking reflexively whether everything and everything is AI is not meaningful or helpful

[–]TheRadBaron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

asking reflexively whether everything and everything is AI

This objectively doesn't happen, questions about whether something is AI are a small minority of comments, and entirely absent from many posts.

If you have to rely on falsehoods to argue for a rule change, maybe you don't have a good argument for a rule change. If you can't handle people being allowed to disagree with you, discussions on the internet might not be the place for you.

[–]TitleOfYourSaxTape 3 points4 points  (7 children)

I mean, the AI art is derailing everything, not the people who rightfully call it out.

[–]namer98Magic The Gathering 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem is those people calling out ai art are often wrong. Both false positives and false negatives. Just report the post.

[–]40DegreeDaysArgent: The Consortium 5 points6 points  (5 children)

What's the point?  Everyone can make up their own mind about the art.  Plus half the time it's a false positive which is hugely insulting to the artist.  I know people have tagged my own comments as Ai or a propaganda bot just because I use proper grammar and spelling.

[–]TitleOfYourSaxTape 1 point2 points  (4 children)

What's the point of any discussion forum? Everyone can make up their own minds about board games too.

Do you have any upvoted examples of this false positive AI accusations on art in this subreddit?

I think AI generated art is bad for the industry, as do the mods of this sub, so the suggestion that we shouldn't be allowed to criticize ai art when we see it is a bit of a non-sensical solution.

[–]40DegreeDaysArgent: The Consortium -1 points0 points  (3 children)

There was the recent Stoneblade thing (they had some lotr art that was accused of being Ai that wasn't, just ugly)  But basically any post of art has someone calling it ai.  At a minimum if you call something ai that was actually made by a real artist you should be banned.

[–]milkyjoe241 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I got bad news

https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1u3e4hc/comment/or5htmn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

That company uses AI. This is a false negative

[–]40DegreeDaysArgent: The Consortium 0 points1 point  (1 child)

They also use Ai.  The specific artist accused originally did not use ai.

[–]milkyjoe241 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The frodo botch job? And you know that how?

[–]CptNonsense -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why? They just enshrined that in the rules

[–]Source9136 2 points3 points  (0 children)

that rule for vibe-coded apps is a great call. lowkey frustrating when actual indie companion apps get drowned out by the 100th ai dice roller.

[–]TheRealVilladelfia 6 points7 points  (1 child)

The allowance of AI translation tools is way too big of an exception, and it will be abused.

Instead, either allow posts in other languages, and we can plug it into our preferred translation tool ourselves. OR bless one specific translation tool that does old-school machine translation and ban all others.

[–]gobacktoyourutopia 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, definitely a loophole that needs closing. Someone higher up suggested having to post the original language text alongside the translated version. Seems like a good solution to me

[–]Mortinho 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should put a guideline for the author to include a disclosure whenever a post used AI to assist in translating or editing.

[–]CptNonsense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are creating rules that require extra scrutiny and pre-approval for entry level coding projects and using lists in posts because AI can do those? AI wins, flawless victory.

[–]mrDalliard2024 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good move. So tired of slop everywhere

[–]StopBootlicking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What methods are you using to determine whether or not a post is in fact generated by AI?

What processes of appeal are there for posters who feel they have been incorrectly flagged?

What processes of public accountability and transparency are in place, for the community to feel confident that moderators are taking appropriate actions solely and exclusively against posters who have been confirmed to have violated the rules?

[–]dawsonsmythe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

[–]Iamn0man -17 points-16 points  (7 children)

The number one thing I'm using AI for is creating apps to automate random setups for specific modular games - things like Legendary Marvel, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Thunderstone Quest, etc. So far I haven't been sharing them much, and I have yet to post about them here. It's not clear to me if that sort of use case would run afoul of rule 9?

EDIT TO ADD: Downvoting a comment about how to post responsibly about AI in this sub, specifically in a thread about how to post responsibly about AI in this sub, is so very, very peak fucking Reddit.

[–]FederalChocolate456 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Lol, editing to add a complaint about getting downvoted, you know, the function the entire site revolves around is probably peak reddit.

[–]deathsythe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

and my axe!

(am I doing it right?)

[–]Iamn0man -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

And the peak just keeps on coming.

[–]bgg-uglywalrus[S,M] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Based on what you wrote so far, that should theoretically be fine as it's not a common tool.

[–]ansible47 2 points3 points  (2 children)

IMO it sounds like you are trying to solve a specific problem, not creating useless generic tools that already exist. Bgg is, in general, a better space for that kind of content I think. If I'm looking for player aids or other user-generated content for games, I will always click a BGG link before a reddit one.

I havent opened Thunderstone Quest yet but that sounds like it might be helpful.

[–]CptNonsense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bgg is, in general, a better space for that kind of content

The hell is this sub for then if not pointlessly replicating what BGG already has?

[–]Iamn0man -1 points0 points  (0 children)

DM me if you'd like to take a look. It's an HTML file so it should be able to run on anything up to an Internet-enabled fridge, and you can see the code to verify it isn't malicious.