Ahoy me hearties!

To run alongside the discussion on the simplified Golden Rules for the instance, I decided to post a separate proposal for a single rule addition.

The proposed rule is: Off topic comments and downvote trolling to protest the use of genAI images is not permitted in our communities.


Edit2: The community feedback has been strongly positive, thanks for all your feedback. Notably, quite a few folks would like it to be more generic, to cater for future scenarios as well. So taking that into account, and adding the rationale for the change, I came up with:

To protect our communities, community members and mods from abuse: no comment trolling, dogpiling, or downvote trolling is allowed.

I hope that works for most folks, and please feel free to leave more comments if you can suggest an improved wording. I do read them all.


It would only apply to communities where GenAI art is not disallowed by the community rules, so mods can opt in or out.

Since the rule will likely attract some pushback from the anti-GenAI crowd, I wanted to run this proposal as a member vote to confirm we have broad support.

Exhibit 1 - dbzer0 Main Sidebar for context

Be Weird, Download a Car, Generate Art, Screw Copyrights

Communities about Anarchism, Generative AI, Copylefts, Neurodivergence, Filesharing, and Free Software.

Our instance has been associated with genAI art since its inception, because the founding admin, db0, has also spent years developing and maintaining FOSS Projects like AI Horde (a crowdsourced distributed cluster of image generation workers and text generation workers) and Haidra.

We have a number of popular genAI communities on our instance including:

Exhibit 2 - The Problem

This is the recent experience of one of our community mods:

“From the moment I started the [redacted] community here people have been brigading it trying to suppress it, and had I not had the sense to ban the droves of anti-AI trolls who come to downvote it into oblivion. They probably would be continuing to do so in insanely large volume. A lot of the users who come to downvote do so with empty no content accounts, but a lot are also trolls from the !fuck_AI@lemmy.world community. I’ve also received a fair amount of harassment including threats and bad faith accusations from it like people saying I’m a pedophile or saying I’m pretending to be nonbinary over the fact that I like and use genAI. Really awful behavior that has no place on this instance of this community.”

This sort of thing is hateful and should not have to be tolerated by our users. Let’s call it what it is: bullying and harassment.

Exhibit 3 - Escalating Problems

If you take look at this post from today in the lighthearted Lefty Memes community, it’s a total shit show of offtopic comments. I’m not going to re-litigate the whole experience here since there is a YPTB post about it here.

This sort of brigading is completely unwarranted and I regard it as hostile bullying behaviour towards our community members and moderators. It completely derails the comments and goes way off topic for the community. Even after repeatedly asking these users to open a meta post about the issues they clearly wanted to talk about, instead of brigading the comments, I was mostly ignored and eventually pretty much gave up on trying to moderate the post.

Conclusion

In summary, as an admin on this instance I’ve noticed a significant uptick in the amount and volume of trolling in our communities by this group of users. I’d like to make sure we have this rule in place so that we can continue to effectively moderate the instance for the enjoyment of our community members, and to protect our moderators and admins from abuse.

Thank you for your consideration. If you have any suggestions to improve the rule, or thoughts on the topic you wish to share, then please do so in the comments.

Edit: for detailed voting information see this post. But in summary, please upvote if you support the rule addition or downvote if you are opposed.

  • /0 Bot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/flatworm7591 Early Bird: a parrot, orangered colors Jolly Roger: an icon of pirate jolly roger skull wearing a hat, in orange-red, black and white colors A book with a loaf of bread in the cover  in orange-red, black and white colors Deck Hand: An icon of anchor crossed with two staves in orange-red, black and white colors First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color

    This is a simple majority vote. The final tally is as follows:

    • For: MVP: a star icon, in orange-red, black and white colors (2), Powder Monkey: An icon of powder barrel in orange-red, black and white colors (1), First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color (4), Vouched: a minimalist compass icon. Orangered color (7), Salty Dog: An icon of two crossed cutlasses with a skull in the center in orange-red, black and white colors (2), Threadiverse Enjoyer: An icon of a doubloon with a black hole in the center in orange-red, black and white colors (1), Deck Hand: An icon of anchor crossed with two staves in orange-red, black and white colors (2)
    • Against: Deck Hand: An icon of anchor crossed with two staves in orange-red, black and white colors
    • Local Community: +0.4
    • Outsider sentiment: Positive
    • Total: +18.4
    • Percentage: 95.00%

    This vote has concluded on 2025-05-12 01:19:44 UTC


    Reminder that this is a pilot process and results of voting are not set in stone.

  • Caketaco@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    I love dbzer0 because it’s a pro-piracy, leftist instance with great moderation and a sizable userbase. I just sort of try my best to ignore the whole AI thing, not my cup of tea with the whole power consumption and art theft stuff. I’m all for “fuck copyright” when it comes to big corporations but I become a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to independent creators’ works being used to train AI models without their permission. I dunno, all of this has been said before by a thousand other people, you get the gist.

    The issue I have is similar to the Nazi bar problem; If you have an AI-friendly community, you have an AI community. You can keep ignoring and blocking AI-posting users as they show up, but it’s easier to generate an image than to assemble one manually, so they keep showing up more and more. It becomes nigh impossible to “just ignore AI posts.” It’s part of why people get so hostile towards them, if people don’t react negatively to AI posts when they see them, people will post more and more of them.

    Of course, harassment and bullying is unjustifiable. It’s the internet; some folks are gonna take things too far. Makes me sad to see the effect being separated by screens can produce.

    To summarize, I’m all for pro-AI users to have a space to exist (y’know, like, this instance. maybe I should start searching for a different instance? Like, dbzer0 sans AI?), but it is easier said than done to just “ignore AI” without more of it showing up.

    • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Honestly, I must have blocked most of the AI communities, or I just don’t scroll through “local”, but I scroll “subscribed” and “all”, and I don’t feel like I see a lot of AI stuff. I know it’s there, but I have to look for it.

    • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Comparing AI to nazis is definitely not an intellectually bankrupt argument to make. But yes, we do have an AI community in this instance, and the majority of us want to keep it that way.

      • Caketaco@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Definitely agree, would be intellectually bankrupt to compare AI to Nazis. Glad I compared AI to the “Nazi Bar” problem instead of comparing AI to Nazis.

        And you’re right! AI folks should be able to enjoy their communities. Other folks can simply block them every time they show up over and over again exponentially.

        Hell, I wouldn’t do any good crowding this community if I’m not hep to AI stuff. If you have any good recommendations for Lemmy instances that align with dbzer0s views minus AI, let me know! I’d be happy to hear any suggestions.

        • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          I’m sure there’s something, but people who wanted an instance like that should have looked for one before joining this one. This has always been a pro-AI instance, and ridiculous nazi inferences aside, it’s bullshit that you or anyone else thinks you should be able to come along and turn it from a pro-AI instance into something it is not, and has not ever been, just because of your own personal preferences.

          • Caketaco@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            You and I can agree there! I shoulda looked a bit longer. I saw “leftist piracy-friendly instance” and jumped on ship without thinking about the Ai stuff until I was already on-board. That’s on me. I thought this would be more environmentally concerned leftism than… well, not that.

            No clue where you’re getting the whole “I intend to turn this instance from pro-AI into something it is not” stuff from. Didja see the comment where I asked for an instance to jump ship to? I’m trying to leave, pal.

    • expr@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I agree with this. Been considering switching to the instance, but don’t really like all of the AI stuff. I don’t really care about copyright, more about the effect on humanity in a much broader sense and the environment.

      • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        I agree also with both your comments. I didn’t realize what I was signing onto when I read the rules. Im on board with everything it stands for, until we get to AI usage. Im not inherently against it, but we should be allowed go discuss it in a mature and productive way. It was easy to ignore before, as if it’s not for you dont interject. As this topic has reached the center of the instance, it’s now become more difficult to ignore.

        Someone told me the other day, it was mitual aide to ban speech that was anti-ai, and that I likely never had anarchist ideals if I was against its use (big wut?) Whereas, I believe mutual aide would be to uplift smaller artists, and not using billionaire technology that actively steals from folks without permission, tracks our data, and harms the environment.

        I believe AI can be too easily used by the “upper” classes to disenfranchise the “lower” ones, to that hold power, its not anarchist.

        I don’t want to leave this instance as I love everything else it stands for.

        Edit: Then of course the first thing I see on YouTube

        more perfect union

        Like, this isn’t just about being copyleft, this is detrimental to our country’s earth piece. Corporate overlord shit.

        I been punk too many decades you to tell me data centers align with human existence and free use.

        If you wanna use AI, you are indeed free to do so, I dont think your wrong for doing so, however I suggest and expect you vet the technology you choose to engage with, so that is ethical to your best knowledge.

        In a free society, where today we have threat to climate change, now met here, with deregulation, AI falls so far down the list for me. We don’t yet have free society. It’s like, why are we going to space when the planet is dying? There’s so much poverty and pain and power being held over others I want to puke at the idea of data centers leaking horror into the earth, and they’re not the only ones who do so as such. Corporate filth. I used to make the cable filler for wires that ended up with google running lines under the ocean. Extruded plastic, fucking dirty shit.

        Thats it. That’s the last I will ever engage on the topic. I am staying here, I don’t know how to change an instance, nor do I care too. I like the learning that I get from all you folks out there. I’ve now said my piece to anyone who care to see.

  • whysofurious@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Let me start by saying that I am in favour of the rule. Going into topics-centered community and voicing against that topic is kind of stupid, and everybody should be able to feel safe in their own spaces. All my concerns (generality of the rule, downvote trolling and automating moderation) were already voiced by others and addressed one by one. Also, as a practical suggestion, maybe we can have sticky posts in each community where the rule will be applied? Not forever, but for a set period of time.

    I waited longer to give my answer, as I am very skeptical about AI in general but in favour of many other instance topics, and I wanted to form my own opinion on the topic at hand before commenting. I am really happy at the level of the discussion here and how the feedback was received by OP. I didn’t agree with some comments on other posts leading to this one, but I am happy to see that the discussion was kept objective and on-point, so a huge thank to OP and everyone who participated for showing me how the instance governance and discussion works (I’m relatively new here).

    In the end, while I don’t go specifically go searching for AI content and barely see it in my feed, I am happy that stuff like AI-horde exist, and I really think it’s a good way of doing things. And in general, the governance experiment here and the way this instance is managed is way more important for me than my own opinions on AI.

  • FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Harassing a gen AI instance should certainly be blocked, but calling out ai art in a non ai focused instance should be allowed as long as it’s following other rules of not being shitty.

    • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      I think that should be up to the moderators of the community when they make that decision at the start of the community.

      As it stands now, the anti AI crowd wants everything segregated. They whine and complain even if they happen to see AI used in communities they don’t even belong to.

      Segregating gen AI to only being used in communities that are for gen AI is kind of unfair to those who like to use it, and while people who dislike it shouldn’t be forced to interact with it, people who don’t shouldn’t be disallowed from using it at all times, either.

      • FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Counter point, allowing gen AI in non gen AI communities is unfair to the people who don’t want to see it. There isn’t a good way to filter out AI content other than blocking the community/posters.

        Maybe if we had a gen AI tag like we do for NSFW content.

                • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  2 months ago

                  I agree, and I’ve been trying to get support for getting rid of the downvote on this instance entirely. It shouldn’t even be possible for anti-AI cultists to come to our communities to abuse our instance and harass our users by downvoting posts.

                • jet@hackertalks.com
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                  2 months ago

                  At some people wouldn’t you want to block something you don’t like rather then seeing it over and over and downvoting it each time?

          • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Vegans are free to never see meat in a restaurant… Assuming they stick to vegan restaurants.

            Otherwise, let others eat in peace.

            (This comment has nothing to do with vegans).

            • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              2 months ago

              Right? And to use your analogy, nobody here would go to a vegan instance specifically to post carnivore shit and downvote posts, because you know it’s a vegan instance and they aren’t about that.

              But since it’s genAI, we’re supposed to allow it or it’s “unfair” to the antis.

  • Personally, as an artist and also in regards to sustainability for example, I’m very AI-sceptic, but I get that this instance is pro AI, so I think it’s a fair point. I can disagree but don’t need to shove my opinion into dedicated AI communites/instances.

    I’m just in for the other topics like foss and copylefts to name a few, if anyone wonders why I’m even here with my account.

    • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      One thing I’ve noticed is no one is judging anybody for being here. It makes sense that not everybody is everything.

  • fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    I’m not a huge fan of AI art, but seeing how people go out their way to harass (not just spam downvoting, outright DMing and telling people to commit suicide because of it) something needs to be done, i agree.

    It should be a more general rule imo. i.e.: if you don’t like it, ignore it; type of stuff (excluding fash-shit) if i don’t like piracy for example, instead of downvoting each post and commenting “piracy is theft” under each post i’d just fucking block the community.

    Anyways, i think GenAI criticism should be allowed, and even healthy; but just saying “Don’ like it.” and contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation is just useless.

  • A Wild Mimic appears!@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    I am for the rule change.

    Gen AI is a great invention. That doesn’t mean i cannot be critical of how it gets shoved into spaces where it doesn’t belong, because a shitton of money get injected in it by venture capitalists in their neverending search for the next big thing.

    But that’s not what’s happening here, where people are using (local) models to create images to enjoy and to be creative and not data centers wrongly answering inane questions.

    The current models are snapshots of the current human culture, and should belong to all of us. i don’t think it’s fair to come here and behave like a drunk in a dive bar because they suddendly became friendly with rights holders (who have tried to fuck over single users downloading some shitty pop songs with life destroying lawsuits)

    P.S.: I am a big piracy advocate, since i have been strapped for cash for my whole life and i would have been excluded from a lot of society and culture if it weren’t for the pirate hat. I therefore understand that current models would have been prohibitively expensive to create when taking every single copyright claim into consideration. I also think that for future models there should be a mechanism to make sure that creators get their fair share and the possibility to opt out if they really do not want to be included.

    • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I heartily agree with your comment and it’s points. Your phrasing and insight into the topic is a boon!

      Seriously though, you nailed many of the thoughts I’ve had about this far better than my own attempts at turning them into language.

  • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    downvote trolling

    I think this needs some clarification about what does and does not warrant mod actions.

    Comments are free-form, so are easy to determine as off topic and unlikely to hit bystanders, but downvotes don’t communicate intent.

    Anecdotally I have come across a post in a sub I like, found it glaringly annoying/ugly/wrong etc. downvoted, then seen another one and actually gone into the sub to see if it is a wider trend and specifically downvoted a bunch of these.
    Lemmy is a rating system, I think this behavior is acceptable.

    I would draw the line at coming back repeatedly to keep “filtering” in this way, while not otherwise being active in the community and while not being subscribed to it. (Not that being subscribed is even visible)

    Is it possible to tell apart a lurker superhumanly good at finding genai really ugly, from the 15 downvote bots of an anti-genai brigadier?

    • Unruffled [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      2 months ago

      If someone is systematically downvoting every post in a community, then that is not organic voting imo, it’s an attempt to suppress the community. And it is usually pretty apparent. That’s what the block community feature is for. I think it’s legit for the mods to community ban those folks. I know some folks argue “votes don’t matter” but it can be upsetting to have trolls shit all over your community every day. There’s nothing to be gained from allowing it. We also have an appeals channel if anyone feels the rule was unfairly applied, to help make sure it’s not abused.

      • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Downvoting all posts is problematic, yes. It does not accomplish anything but downrank the entire sub. But that isn’t the matter at hand as I see it.
        What if you downvote all ai posts and don’t touch other posts or upvote them?
        In an attempt to discourage ai pots and encourage other posts on that sublemmy for example.

        Some of the examples given are about generic subs like !leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com, where you see both ai and non-ai posts.

        Someone downvoting every single post in an ai-specific sub is not the edge case I am worried about.

        • Unruffled [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          2 months ago

          I think I understand what your saying. To clarify are you saying that in lefty memes, for example, if someone went through a bunch of posts and just downvoted the genAI ones would they get a community ban? Probably not, and I doubt I’d even notice or care unless the comments were getting dogpiled again, or there was some obvious use of dodgy downvote accounts that needed to be addressed. The rule is intended more for the GenAI specific communities, like the Stable Diffusion ones, which are all GenAI, where the community wants to be able to enjoy their interests in relative peace and safety.

    • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      yeah it’s pretty hard to vote for an undefined term.
      if it’s people subscribing to a community for the sole purpose of downvoting everything, that would feel like downvote trolling… that or brigading….
      if you’re just scrolling through All or something and see stuff you don’t like and downvote, that seems okay.
      (personally i just block communities i completely hate and never worry about them again).

  • vina@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    I would prefer that rule apply to all communities about any topic-- trolling and screeching about something you disagree with that happens to be the subject of the community should not be tolerated. The subscribers of that community should not have to put up with it. Regardless of community.

    I would agree to that.

    Edit: clarifying that communities and topics don’t break instance rules

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      I agree, we really shouldn’t have people trolling, screeching, and harassing other people in any of our communities. It’s toxic as fuck to allow that on an insurance. Like people doing this consistently should be an easy sign to give them the boot.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    2 months ago

    I recommend a moderation bot for controversial communities that

    • bans accounts who only downvote in the community after some number of downvotes if that account is active
    • bans accounts immediately on downvote if they have zero post or comment activity over some window of time
    • bans accounts immediately if they downvote posts and all comments in the posts. That’s a strong signal they really don’t like the community
    • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      I’d want multiple down votes to be the trigger, not a single down vote, and the result to be an alert to the mods/admins, not an automated ban

      • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        personally, I hate any automated bans. I think a human should be responsible for every ban.

        the irony of insisting that a real human be involved, in this thread, is not lost on me.

        • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          I agree in other cases but with this not really. I hate having to manually go through and ban every no-content dipshit downvoting. It’s why I stopped posting to my AI dragon community. Having a bot take care of the low hanging fruit automatically would easily reduce the burden and might make me more inclined to post there again. I’ll obviously still have to take care of the ones the bot misses, but that’s better than having to comb through every one of them to individually ban them one by one.

          • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            I’m not a fan of that. Would be nice if it took out the most obvious downvoters so I don’t have to go through manually banning all of them. False positive risk in my use case is very low and I’d probably need to ban the ones the bot misses anyway. Worst case scenario someone might get an appeal. Probably isn’t going to happen for most drive-by downvoters though.

  • 野麦さん@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    I’m nota stranger to holding wildly unpopular opinions. I’m an egoist, it’s in my nature. Personally, I think genAI is dumb. Harassing and abusing people for liking something is unacceptable behavior, though. I’ve been noticing most of my comments have been vote brigaded recently, especially my comment shitting on Dessalines.

    I vote yea.

  • MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    I think this is an issue with the all feed. Controversial communities would be more peaceful if there was a tick box for “show posts on all feed”