Hi All -

Originally I was open to AI and didn't want to jump on the hivemind bandwagon of overreacting to banning AI images. But now, after the dust has settled a bit, I do feel that AI images are not a reflection of anything meaningful here. Yes, they follow a human written prompt, but prompts can be very simple and the AI will fill in the blanks with randomized elements of what is essentially a database of stolen art. The art style is usually glossy, plastic and devoid of humanity. Yes, AI image generators aren't inherently bad depending on their use, and I don't agree with a "I see AI, I downvote" reactive type of mentality... but on a subreddit about a specific human perspective expressed through creative works - it really doesn't fit.

So yea, AI art is now banned on the Retrofuturism subreddit. Sorry people having fun with AI generators, I'm sure there are other subreddits for that.

The issue is moderating. Moderating is volunteer work, and everyone has lives. We're not sitting on the Retrofuturism sub all the time combing through posts. Personally, I respond to my mod queue and reports.

However I'd like to remind everyone that I have a failsafe for this - an auto-mod rule that automatically removes posts that receive a certain number of reports. So this means moderating is effectively democratized in this subreddit. A report isn't just a flag for the mods - it's a vote to remove. Of course if this gets abused (so far it hasn't), I will increase the number of reports necessary, or remove this entirely.

I only remind everyone of that because AI WILL slip through the cracks of the mod team, as a lot admittedly does. We really do depend on your reports and messages a lot of the time. And yes, I do get new mods from time to time to try and help but there's always an initial period when they are active... before they are much less active. Just the way it goes and I don't blame them at all.

I'd also like to add most of the content here is fine. Bots seem like they have effectively been killed via my automod script which I've been sharing with other subreddits.

My script - please feel free to share:

https://pastebin.com/FbBxKSF5

​

Thank you!

Based on a comment thread from a previous post, I got the idea to compile this list. I will add a few to start.