Honestly, a mandatory tag or complete non-allowance for games with no free demo posted would go a long way to solve a lot of the issues people have with AI on the forum.
Really, better tag management by thread makers would go a long way to fix a lot of problems on the forum. Perhaps a way to get tags added to a thread as well (though that could be a system that could be abused, so there’d need to be a way to contest it).
Regulars (the user classification) have the ability to add or remove tags to posts. Posts can also be flagged to have their tags updated by a mod
Ah yeah, I forgot about that. Disregard, then.
You really think you’re going to get honest opinions from people who are against AI when you basically said you’re gonna silence the “radical fringe” if they oppose it too strongly? Okay, sure. I’m going to be as level-headed and respectful as possible. But, to paraphrase your words “it is going to really sound like I am going after the people with a pro-ai viewpoint”.
TL;DR, besides all the ethical problems, I’m particularly opposed to the support of genAI and LLMs on the site(and allowing them to be here explicitly supports it) because this place became SO MUCH WORSE since it drove out all the creators that put this place on the map in the past game jams and such. Also I believe your intended moderation plans will unfairly target people who express this opinion.
I can ignore this place for weeks and when I come back there’s only half a dozen new and unread posts a day. And most of them are people begging for help or updates or new stuff. I remember when I got more than that in a day, and it was actual new projects with tangible work to show, or people actual discussions, reviews, and updates. That’s gone now, unless maybe it’s all crawling around behind the AI tag I blocked. But I doubt it, if the Discord is also any indication.
And, again, with all due respect, it’s because of your choices. Doing nothing is not “neutrality”. It’s a choice. And you chose not to defend the people who built this forum for you, by allowing people to use something that takes their creations without permission and uses them to mimic the things they put real time and effort to, just by putting some prompts into a text box.
I don’t know your motivations for siding with them, if you were hoping to increase traffic to the site, or believed that people would actually use it ethically(are there even any options offered for that?), or just wanted to avoid conflict from having to take a stance on anything. But it doesn’t really matter why. You made your choice, and this is the result. Your experience with the creator community’s stance on AI is skewed by the fact that most creators have given up on fixing this place, or have abandoned it entirely. Of course you’re gonna get a “mixed” response when most of the people opposed to it aren’t even going to bother trying to talk to you after you’ve repeatedly showed that you wouldn’t support them.
And that’s just gonna get worse now that you’re “taking the gloves off” and said you’re gonna start deleting and silencing and banning without warning. I’m legitimately worried that it’ll happen to me for this, despite my best efforts to avoid any harsh language or insults or whatever. But I guess I’ll be the canary in the coal mine.
im sorry, you decided the best course of action is to not choose a side??? thats what both sides wanted from you, this just causes more problems for both sides in the long run, as someone who is anti-ai, i feel like the conversations on here have devolved into screaming matches (even i have participated in them) but silencing both sides isnt a feasable solution
I’m afraid you aren’t going to solve anything with “enhanced moderation” unless you start handing out mutes/bans, and if you do that you have de facto (if not de jure) banned the conversation - because the effect will be to make every conversation surrounding the use of AI into an “I’m not touching you” competition on both sides, trying to goad opposition into an explosion moment that they can report to have their philosophical opponents banned.
The unintended consequences of a “civility required” rule without a content restriction subset on the rule is exactly this - it allows the argument to fester and small acts of resentment to build until otherwise-desirable members of the community have a blow-up moment and wind up getting banned when they really shouldn’t have been allowed to be pushed into that position in the first place.
I can guarantee you that this is not going to solve your problem. It might make things worse, even, depending on how the moderation crackdown is implemented. You are opening the door for moderation to be weaponized as a part of this conflict, by making it so that late night or busy day conversations can be led to spiral out of control and generate offenders to be reported by bad actors. I can tell you that, within the year, you will be changing this policy further due to poor outcomes. Just get ahead of it.
This is a fetish game forum, it does not need to be the battleground for this matter; let it be hashed out elsewhere. I have not seen a single person in all the threads here on this subject who has gone “gosh, I’m glad we had this discussion” about this. It’s just been anger and defensiveness and recrimination. Has anyone’s opinion been changed to the point that they’re glad these big debate threads keep igniting on here?
There’s no need for it. The sides are dug in. There is a perception of monetary interest driving both, be it the idea of potential lost income or the idea of potential cost savings, making it far more contentious as people assign a physical value to the use or lack-of-use for genAI. Regardless of my personal opinion on the subject of the technology, I simply don’t think this is the place for it. Especially since developers are actively allowed to use genAI in producing their games for posting here, which means those people have a target painted on their backs for doing something they are actively permitted to do because the rules also allow them to be criticized for it as long as “civility” is deemed to exist.
For reference - yes, there are ‘ethical’ genAI out there. Models that have only been trained on public domain works of art or writing. They are rare, and do not see much use (since they are by default “out of date” with modern sensibilities), but they do actually exist. You can find them on the various archives of models out there.
What does this mean? Basically nothing. But I figured you would appreciate knowing regardless.
The problem with ethical methods of genAI/LLM use is that they require putting in effort to set up, which is what people using it are trying to do less of. It’s also awful that creators have to hobble themselves to avoid being exploited by it. Being forced to hide finished work behind curtains and things like that is going to harm the artist by not allowing them to showcase their full talents to appeal to people. Putting all of the burden on the people who are being ethical is not the way to go about things.
I want to put this as politely and neutrally as I can.
At the end of the day, Weight Gaming is a private business owned by grotlover2. Discussion of “the community” is always going to happen on his terms and within the boundaries he chooses to set.
He’s pulling down at least a few grand a year from Patreon alone, with who knows how much more coming from other sources. He’s made it clear in this thread that he’s decided that the best way to capitalize on his ownership is to embrace AI.
I think it makes sense for artists, programmers, etc. to seriously consider whether they want to continue to contribute work to supporting a company that’s making its priorities clear.
I’ll post my full response to this in a bit, but this is just misinformed. Weight Gaming operates on a loss, every month. This is a passion project, not a viable business for Grot.
I’m gonna stop you there. This is complete misinformation. The fact of the matter is this site makes zero profit and never has. In fact grot spends thousands of dollars a year to keep it going out of his own pocket. The idea that AI or anything on the site is here because it benefits a bottom line is at best naive. You can look at every financial report that’s been submitted to the site. Grot spent a ton of time and money to keep this community going and acting like anything else is going on to fit a narrative that his stance is the way it is on AI is completely false.
Just because a business loses money, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a private business.
Everything Grot says is implicitly backed up by his legal ownership of the site.
You seem to have glossed over the point of what I was saying to just point out something that no one is saying isn’t the case. Yes weight gaming is a company in the terms that it’s an LLC. You’re point
I don’t know if this was your intention but it sure comes across like this decision of AI is for capitalizing on the fact that he owns weight gaming. Which completely disregards his entire post as to why he allows AI, and his own viewpoint on it in the grander scene of the site and implies that there is a financial benefit for this and that’s the (real) reason. Which is misinformation. And you seem to be implying that you need to filter what Grot says through the lens of someone who needs to worry about their business first over everything else. Which might make sense if the site was not making money because of bad management.
It’s however never made money so as to not impact the user experience. It could be more geared to making money at the cost of hurting the community at large and general user experience and it’s been decided to stay away from practices like that. The site could be flooded with ads in really intrusive ways and have sponsored content, and things to drive up site traffic but Grot has made the decision to not do things like this.
Grot is 100% the owner of weight gaming and can do what he wants with the site no one has ever said different but Grot would not put so much time, effort and money into the site if they weren’t as much of a part of this community as any dev, you, or me. Grot reaches out to devs and community members often to try to help improve the site or get feedback on their viewpoints and things from their perspective.
While he can simply impose his viewpoint or cut people off from the site that’s never been the goal. Grot has done many things to try to keep this as a place that doesn’t bar people who want to get into game dev or need support from getting the help or resources they need. This is a site to help develop and would-be devs get into the swing of their craft and is there as a way to help support those who want to give development a shot or refine their skills. While trying to keep the user experience still intact.
The fact of the matter is no one gets paid to run the site and it’s done from us volunteering our time because we care about the site like everyone here does. The site makes no profit and not even close to any money to cover operating expenses and this is done the best it can be in that situation. Which unfortunately means that Grot has spent his own money year and year to keep the site going. Grot has always been very transparent and honest with the community about things that’s why posts like this exist.
I mean no slight to you but misinformation like this is really harmful to everyone involved. It’s okay to not like certain decisions or voice your opinion on complex issues but spreading speculation or wrong info is just harmful to the community at best.
EDIT:
I misread your post for year vs month that’s my bad. But I would get this might come from a place of not understanding how expensive it is to run the site. At best you can say if patreon was consistent that a few grand a year gets made from patreon. It is way more expensive than 5K a year to run the website just incase you are not aware. The finance reports in previous years can indicate that to you.
Latest Forum/WG Finances topics - Weight Gaming
Since the site’s operating at a loss and is considered grot’s passion project, why can’t I shake the feeling it’s not treated with any passion for its users? Apologies if I’m jumping ahead in what may be covered in the next post regarding moderation going forward, but why do I get the impression bad actors will get a free pass after all that’s said and done? I feel like by not addressing this issue out of concern of trying not to cut out anyone from the site, we get into more “Life of Rose” situations and only negatively impact the existing community, which seems counter to the intentions of how the site is run.
Now, to clarify what I mean by a bad actor, I don’t mean someone who uses AI in their game. I’m somewhat neutral towards AI usage if it’s used appropriately. However, I believe the level of entry for using AI sloppily makes it easier for bad actors to shill their patreons/3rd-party-sites to make a quick buck. Don’t know how to code, draw, or write? Just have AI do that all for you, and you can even use it to market your game. Wish I’m overexaggerating, but this has been caught with one game that released recently.
With AI out of the way, I’d define a bad actor on these forums as someone with either malicious intent, repeated behavior patterns, or lack of communication/transparency on the forum that negatively impacts a user’s experience when a monetary product is involved. For example, when a developer constantly releases unfinished game after unfinished game that’s paywalled by a patreon or requires purchase on a 3rd party website, if there’s open communication on a somewhat routine basis, they’d be fine. However, if this same user shows no effort in finishing any of their games, typically shown in lack of communication or transparency, I’d deem them as a bad actor that needs to be addressed by moderation.
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is I feel like users’ voices on this site go unheard by admin/moderation, especially when recent posts typically feel like another bad actor is out to swipe my wallet with their slop (be it AI or non-AI) and for me to be left feeling disappointed as I ask, “Why does it have to be like this?”
A few grand year, not a month. Obviously not enough to live off of, but more than enough to fund a basic forum’s expenses.
Edit in response to your edit:
I do think that if the server costs are an issue to the point where they’re negatively affecting policy, we should prioritize sustainability over chasing new revenue, even if it means we lose things like the ability to see when people are typing and other hypermodern forum features.
*Sorry I was just editing that. My bad.
It’s for sure not my brother. I don’t know where you get your info about how much it costs to run weight gaming but you can look at the financial reports of old. Grot has to sit down and run all the numbers to make those reports which takes a ton of time, so there hasn’t been a new one. But it’s around 1000+ dollars a month to run the site to my knowledge.
Well this is certainly a step. In which direction though? …probably sideways.
I don’t want to rehash everything @TheWell-Being has said in my own convoluted form of speaking, so I’ll just be blunt: when it comes to GenAI your hands-off approach will not work. It hasn’t worked for years, has allowed resentment and division to fester between users, and now committing to simply quashing the arguments sooner than you used to will not change anything. Arguments will still spring up, users will still get heated and now you’re going to have more people getting angry for what they will see as unjust punishment.
Through the noise of the most recent boil-over, the one thing I think everyone could agree on was that we wanted clear rules. Whether that be full support for GenAI, a ban on all discussion on GenAI or a ban on all GenAI in general, there needed to be some line drawn in the sand to stop the constant feuding between both sides. You’re going to upset some people no matter what you do, but going with this (again) middle of the road option pleases nobody and upsets everybody. It keeps the doors open for exactly the sort of scenarios that @TheWell-Being pointed out.
You say you still see benefit in discussing GenAI and exploring the technology, but honestly, what benefit? When has there ever been a calm and reasoned discussion involving GenAI on this website? People are too emotionally invested for that to take place, whether that be from a developer/artist standpoint looking to protect their trade, or a consumer standpoint seeking higher quality products. Those who are fervently against GenAI will always come out to attack those who support it, which will inevitably draw those supporters into fighting back.
And as for not feeling like you’re in a position of leadership: you own this website. You couldn’t be in more of a leadership position if you tried. Maybe you don’t feel that way because you don’t speak often, maybe it’s something else, but when you do speak people listen. This recent series of threads is exactly proof of that. You have people replying and conversing because the owner of the website is opening up and discussing the various issues people have had recently. These responses don’t come from nowhere, they come from everyone’s shared love of this website and desire to see it thrive.
…with the exception of those brigading your DMs. Unfortunately, that’s just the internet for you.
On everything discussed so far, I am seeing a lot of positive change. With this though, it just feels like more of the same.
It’s cyclical. One project gets targeted, users argue, more projects get targeted, more users argue, moderation steps in then a huge Site Feedback thread gets made and more users argue still. Everything calms down for a few months then we get back up for another round.
However, the fact that we haven’t seen such an explosion in over a year now is I believe in part due to the promise for these threads. It’s not as though projects with GenAI have stopped appearing, and people’s feelings on the matter certainly haven’t gone away, so I do feel as though people have been holding off to see what these threads would say. That’s important, because it tells us that (at the very least some) users here were willing to put their beliefs aside for a while to see what an official ruling would hold. That means people still want to see positive change for this website, whichever side of the argument they fall upon.
But going with the “we’ll stop these arguments sooner” approach goes against all of that. You’re treating the symptoms, not the root cause (okay, you’ll never threat the root root cause, but we’re talking within the bounds of this website). There needs to be a solution that stops these arguments before they begin.
If I somehow haven’t made my stance abundantly clear already, I absolutely want to see this website and the overall community thrive and flourish. It’s such a rarity to find a space online like this, and my complaints have come from nothing but love for how amazing this place is overall.
Personally, I would push for a ban on all discussion on GenAI. I just don’t see how it brings any benefit to anyone. Users get pit against each other, and (at least publicly) it seems to be the largest source of moderation work. Why allow something that is so clearly divisive and anger-provoking when nothing of use comes from it?
Yes, the development of GenAI is unethical, and yes, unless you’re using one of those rare public domain models then everyone who has used GenAI has participated in “legal theft” to some degree. But there are also a bunch of games that never would have been made without GenAI, and developers who never would have become interested in the hobby for the same reason. It does also lead to a lower barrier of entry and more “slop” games, but I just see those as the next phase of all of the basic unfinished Quest and RPGMaker games. Same newbie projects, now with added visuals.
As a secondary goal, some clear guidelines on tagging threads would be great. Regulars like myself can keep threads tagged correctly (and I do try to keep an eye out for them), but only if we happen to see those threads. If the thread authors had a clear set of guidelines by which to tag their threads with, I believe that would reduce at least some of the annoyances people have with seeing projects they aren’t interested in/would otherwise have been filtered through their ignored tags.
Just before I finish, in regards to the points @LurkingLemming brought up: I do share similar concerns, but I would classify that as a broader site issue, not GenAI specifically. As such I’ll hold off on talking about it in case it gets addressed later (and also to save my own time. It’s taken me over 2 hours to write this?!).
So in summary, I just don’t see this approach working. I’d love to be proven wrong, and for everyone to actually be civil and respectful, but it was proven how naïve I was when I talked about the Gain Jam last year. Continuing as you are with a slightly sterner frown just isn’t going to stop this issue or make it go away. A line has to be drawn, otherwise we’ll just end up with another one of these threads in a year’s time.
so many people never learned their lesson from older generations being virtually ignored that morally nagging isn’t a constructive argument to anyone other than those who share those morals and it’s showing
Holy cow, so wanted to try to respond a bit tonight but I didn’t expect it to quite kick off like it did. I dont have the time tonight but I will do what I can to respond to some people tomorrow.
While I understand that simply stricter moderation is not going to be enough and tbh we may have to pull the trigger eventually anyway, this is me doing one last hail marry just to see if we can make it work. That all being said, this is not the only planned changed though and there will be some big changes coming down the pipe here which I will be getting into in the 5th and final post so I would suggest everyone to at least hold a bit of their judgment until then.
And @Korota I think you expressed your views very civilly and respectfully. It does hurt me that you do feel that we would go after you just for expressing your views but its a fair concern since it is such a hard line to walk.
It does hurt me that you do feel that we would go after you just for expressing your views
Unfortunately, that’s because if you can’t commit to something as fundamental as “don’t allow things on the site that screw over the people who built this community for you” then I just can’t trust your ethics in any other respect. Doing that hurts a lot of people far worse than me being honest could hurt you.
You just started working on a game collaborating with a ton of different artists. How many of them know you’re defending the use of generative AI on this forum? If you told them you were allowing it here, and allowed them to have their contribution removed from the game if they didn’t like that, how many would be left?
