keenmaster486 wrote on Yesterday, 15:38:

It’s not at all unreasonable for an internet forum to be hostile to AI generated posts. The entire point of Internet forums is that they are a human social setting. We want to feel like we’re in a room with a bunch of other human beings, talking about our computers, not wondering whether you’re talking to the guy or just talking to his computer directly.

Exactly. I don't know why this is so controversial. Replying "I asked AI your question, and this is what it came up with" to me is a low effort post similar to replying with a suggestion that the OP google it. And like you say, engaging in a discussion with AI-written posts is like going to dinner and everyone else stares at their phones the entire time.

Snover wrote on Yesterday, 07:50:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-05, 22:44:

In another thread a user offered paid-for services to solve a user's problem. […]

Thanks for the detail. I certainly understand why this seems inconsistent. There was never any internal policy discussion about it one way or the other as far as I can see, so what happened there was some ad hoc decision-making. It is a decision which fits with the overall approach of only intervening to restrict a class of activity when it is systematically problematic, but it seems like this was not communicated clearly, and what did get communicated was mixed with one personal opinion about compensation.

As much as I personally find that ‘beg bounty’ kind of behaviour viscerally repugnant, my feelings are derived from my personal values. Not everyone shares those, and that’s OK. I feel it would be a misuse of my power and a failure of leadership if I were to maraud around prohibiting conduct and making rule changes just because I found something personally upsetting. VOGONS is a community of people who are mostly not me, after all. There may be some case to be made that this sort of conduct does do harm to community—I’m sure game theorists would have some ideas—but whether or not this rises to the level of a pattern of problem behaviour that needs a formal rule clarification, as opposed to just an occasional thing which warrants informal social disapproval from others in the community, really depends on how disruptive it is when it happens, and whether it is happening with regularity. These are facts I do not know, but I will keep this in my mind for future rule updates.

It's actually simpler than that.
In almost all jurisdictions selling/buying goods or services are regulated as the same.
It's not goods or services but selling/buying the important bit, if here it's not allowed for goods than it shouldn't be for services.

When money comes into the equation and something goes wrong things get ugly.
An update would be welcome to clarify things.
Thanks for answering, very much appreciated!!

Nexxen wrote on Today, 00:19:

It's actually simpler than that.
In almost all jurisdictions selling/buying goods or services are regulated as the same.
It's not goods or services but selling/buying the important bit, if here it's not allowed for goods than it shouldn't be for services.

My 2c, a forum doesn't need to follow the regulatory framework of state level jurisdictions which have classifications that encompass significantly more effects (e.g. taxation). If product trading is causing issues for the forum and people offering services isn't, it's perfectly reasonable to have a distinction. In the case where someone joins the forum purely to promote their paid services they would be moderated under rule #1 in the first post. That leaves a quadrant of allowed activity that is users with a vested interest in being part of the community offering services (e.g. repair, diagnosis, design etc) to other users which the moderators are not getting any heat for currently and don't see the need to moderate.

Nexxen wrote on Today, 00:19:

It's actually simpler than that.
In almost all jurisdictions selling/buying goods or services are regulated as the same.
It's not goods or services but selling/buying the important bit, if here it's not allowed for goods than it shouldn't be for services.

No, please read what I am saying. Regulations aren’t relevant to whether a class of activity has been systematically problematic on VOGONS. Regulators don’t care if people run auctions, or promote YouTube channels, or write comments with LLMs, or behave badly to each other, but we do here, because these things were problems here. The ‘marketplace rule’ is a response to a problem that happened here. We make rules about things which are problematic for here, not according to what someone else decided somewhere else. The rules are written to ensure that VOGONS can continue to serve its purpose, and they exist only to the extent that they must exist, and no more. So which forms of commerce the ‘marketplace rule’ covers are dictated by whether or not they have caused problems here, or whether it seems very likely that they are about to. Does this make sense now?

vvbee wrote on Yesterday, 15:01:

There are various approaches to AI. HN's has similarities but use more neutral language, which makes it easier to change course if needed. I don't know how their admin describes the rule's motivations, but you used some colorful language about AI users before editing it down, and one user is posting in this thread with a signature equating AI use to fascism. Freedom of expression even if it might not reflect well on the person, but the idea that Vogons is hostile to AI doesn't seem groundless. Feel free to correct if that's not the intent.

It seems to me as if the vast majorty of us here despises the dystopian hellscape directly enabled by “AI” descending upon us.

(Almost) nobody is saying that it cannot be used as a tool in very specific, focused and applied use cases to save time and effort. Unfortunately, that application of “AI” is absolutely, totally not how the vast majority sees and uses it. It is, however, the barrel of a weapon pointing at society.

“AI” is indeed a tool of fascism, if you stop and think about it. It makes it possible to parse unfathomably large sets of mostly useless individual stolen data points we all generate for somebody else all the time in the digital ecosystem. It is already being done. The machine that will make fascism possible has already mostly been built. ”Trust” in and aquiescence of the evildoers wielding power in this world, it is a mistake we as a collective are already paying dearly for and it will only get worse.

I agree that it is rude to give people generated replies on an internet forum setting. If I wanted that confidently wrong expression in the form of a heap of generated tokens, I would let such a thing generate it for myself, and I think I am far from alone in this sentiment.

The opinions expressed about such things are clear and strong, sure. Even satirical and funny. (Yes, “grunting in LLM” is a hilarious statement of parody on an envisioned dystopian future, of which the writing is already on the wall.) That is a good thing. None of it is as far as I can see out of line, being ad hominem or harassing or anything such. Nobody is calling any specific person a “insert your favourite slur” here, which is also good. That is not the intention.

I do not see anything wrong with the new rule. There is nothing vague and hidden about it. Our collective sentiment about the thing it forbids is also no secret.

The rule does not prohibit valid applications of LLM’s.

Snover wrote on 2026-05-02, 18:19:

#1: You won’t use VOGONS to promote social media channels.

VOGONS is a community, not a promotional marketing service for content creators. Over the past year or so, there’s been a noticeable uptick in accounts that are posting to promote their social media channels (usually YouTube). This is now prohibited.

As with the existing restriction on auction promotion, this rule is intended to discourage spammer-like activity from people who are not actually interested in being part of the community. As such, please use your best judgement when reporting this kind of post. For example: did an established community member do something cool and posted a link to their video about it here? Great, watch and discuss! On the other hand, is an account mostly only posting about their YouTube or TikTok or YouTok or TikTube videos and not really engaging with other community content? This is the sort of unwanted behaviour this rule aims to prevent.

I know I rarely post much on the VOGONS forums anymore, save for whenever I get a new ADG video out, but I do want to mention a couple things in response to this new rule.

In terms of the thread I've had going here on the forums since 2010 related to my Ancient DOS Games videos, I've been keeping that thread going mostly out of a sense of duty, as this was one of the communities which helped get me my initial push into making videos back in 2010, and so despite my attention being pulled away I still make an effort to post about what I'm up to and reply to feedback. Reciprocally, every once in awhile someone comments on one of my videos on YouTube asking questions I don't have answers to, but which are the kinds of things everyone here at VOGONS understands, so I direct them here to these forums.

The thing I am weary about is that I am reminded of a moment back in 2008 when I was trying to broaden my scope into the retro-gaming community at that time and a different forum kicked me out the INSTANT I had joined and posted a reply about something I had information about, not because of what I had posted, but because I had the gall to put my website address in my signature. (Yes, I was told this by the moderator.)

It is EXCEPTIONALLY difficult as an independent creator to create something and get feedback anymore because many gaming communities outside of social media are locked down something fierce when it comes to anything even remotely promotional, and of course, everything else is overshadowed by the mega-popular or corporate entities who can afford many thousands to millions of dollars in traditional advertising.

I find this new rule, as it is written, is ambiguous. There needs to be a clearer definition of what kind of behaviour is allowed and what is not because that is what will define VOGONS going forwards in terms of how people interact with the site. The way the rule is written, despite everything I have said, I don't actually know if I am still allowed to keep my ADG thread going or not.

Hi,

I have joined this community recently, but this topic seem to have exploded, so I think I give my own opinion on this.

It seems to me that much of the discussion is about what is in the 7th rule of the everything else category of the terms of use.

In my perspective the discussion and arguments about that rule happens because unlike every other rule in the terms of use that one is ambiguous as written. It might be not ambiguous the way it is actually enforced, but if I were a content creator on a site that might be considered social media, I'm currently not, but I sometimes do think about starting a Youtube channel about how programming were done in the 90s, and then I would be wary of posting links to my content due to this ambiguity even though it might be useful/interesting for members of this community.

Anyhow I made this post as I saw that mostly long time members of this community makes posts in this topic and the perspective of a newly joined member might be useful. I will still be a member of this community if this rule stays the same way as it is written now, but I will not post links to content authored by me if it can be in any way considered to be social media just stay on the safe side.