Thanks everyone for your feedback. I get that this is a contentious issue, and I appreciate everyone being nice to eachother (and me) while discussing it. (Those of you that didn't, you know who you are)

Based on the upvoted comments and the arguments that I found most cogent, I will be banning generative AI in the community.

A few related issues were raised, and I'd like to explain how I intend to address them:

https://ttrpg.network/post/26260249/17201676 Rhaedus raised concerns about the difficulty in determining if something is AI generated or not. As with all rule enforcement on this site, I'll be relying on you all to report suspected violations, and I promise I'll give you my best-effort attempt to make a fair judgement.

https://ttrpg.network/post/26260249/17206513 Carl and others raised concerns that this might impact posts predominantly about human-created content that have some trivial or incidental amount of AI generated comment. In such a situation, if the use of Gen AI is really that minimal, it would never come to my attention in the first place, and therefore wouldn't get removed anyway.

Several users advocated for an explicit carve out for discussions about the use of AI, which is a good idea and will be included in the rule.

Thank you again for your input and your civility.

Ban GenAI.

As RPG enjoyers, we have an obligation to support smaller creators that ensure the hobby isn't just DnD.

My 2c:
The technology that makes the fediverse is based on open source principles.
The corporate world has made untold billions off of the backs of the open source community, not just by stealing projects outright, but by throwing a closed source application on top of an own source foundation.

Hell, every Linux user in the last 20 years can easily point to features in Windows, Mac, Android and iOS that are blatantly stolen from open source.

Almost all AIs are the exact same they shamelessly steal from the open internet, from all of us.

No AI.

Ban that shit!

I don't see much value in providing storage and bandwidth for things that people didn't put enough of themselves into to bother lifting a pencil. There are enough boosters for that sort of thing out there already that they can do the job of supporting them with material resources.

I think one of the features of the fediverse is that you can have a bunch of subs on the same topic (with the same name, even!) on different instances. I assume someday there will be at least one rpg community that bans ai and at least one that actively encourages it, so I think in your shoes I would be asking myself which one I want to run. Personally, I plan on contributing more to spaces that are human-only, but it puts a lot of onus on the mod team to identify and remove ai content, which is getting increasingly difficult to identify reliably.

I would be okay with a ban on AI generated content.

At the very least, I request a disclosure on any AI content.

So like, if you make a little RPG yourself and used some AI tool to make the art, you are required to disclose that. Likewise, if the flavor text for some of your game came from an AI, would-be consumers should be alerted. Heck, if it was used in the editing phase put that in the ai disclosure blurb.

I support a ban on genAI content.

I personally think it is a good idea. I know I posted about AI in a game I am running, but I was looking for human input about AI behavior to transfer into a game. I am doing my best create the AI manually and with no actual use of AI (a task far harder than I anticipated).

I see nothing of value that AI could add to this industry, and thus this community.

If you decide on a ban, it needs to be clear what specifically is being targeted and banned, not a general "AI slop". Not only because AI is used in so many places that it's that obvious, but at this point AI creations have become very good at looking or sounding like the real thing. There's still some tells, but they shouldn't be counted on as a guarantee something is AI and ban-worthy. Basically don't let the need or desire to shut out artificially generated things catch humans in the crossfire. For a mod, trying to filter out the "bad", trying to figure out what IS "bad", it's a very tough job and not something that can probably easily be automated (ironic, not being able to use bots to remove the AI).

I would propose a rule like this:

Posts solely containing AI-generated content are banned. Posts that contain AI-generated content as part of a larger piece or project that is human-created are okay.

This prevents the potential problem of people just posting their AI-generated character portraits and the feed getting flooded by those (which is the reason why I personally block multiple AI art communities), but does not prevent people who used AI generation in part to put together an adventure or something like that from sharing their work.

I think in general it's a good idea for all AI generated content to be categorically separate from their authentic counterparts. I don't participate in this community.

@sirblastalot
Probably calls for an exception for specifically discussing when a large company (mis)uses "AI", so as not to silence outcry against it.

Concerning those advocating that people "just downvote it"... 1) not everyone who participates in this community does so through a system that allows downvotes (Mastodon doesn't), and 2) IME, people who post "AI" content willy-nilly tend to be so bad at people that they don't understand when they're being told off, even directly.

Yes, always

IMO AI isn't bad in itself. It only becomes bad when it gets overused. When someone rolls the statistical dice instead of having something to say. Or to pad three points that would fit into one post, into three posts with a wall of text each

So for now I would not ban it, as the community does not seem to have a problem with AI-generated content
I agree with the other comment proposing that it has to be marked. That way at least the subset that will be adhering to that rule can be measured

And if/when that time comes, I think the rule would have to remember about gray area: if AI-gen would be banned here, would that mean that products that used AI should also be banned?
I mean, for example, I know of some products on DTRPG that have good contents but they used AI for pictures. Most often, because they are just one guy without any budget. Would such ban mean that I shouldn't point someone to that product?

Don't see a problem with it, let the voting system decide if it's popular in the comm