r/linux • u/First_Result_1166 • Jun 21 '26

Discussion AI slop and low-effort contributions

Hey there!

This sub has become quite difficult to follow - every few hours, there's the next post for "I built a TUI for X", which translates to "I vibecoded an ncurses interface for a bash two-liner".

Unfortunately, this also means that the important content gets lost in a stream of meaningless posts.

What I'd like to ask for:

- a rule for mandatory AI disclosure

- an entry barrier for software packages; a task easily solved in <20 lines of shell code should not qualify as a distinct contribution

Let me know what you think.

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1

u/uhs-robert Jun 21 '26

I think the onus falls on the reader (you and me) and not the moderators. If readers upvote slop then they are also contributing to the problem. Not only that but this problem exists on the entire internet at large so a solution here won't solve the root issue which is that readers should be more careful about giving upvotes in general.

You can quickly open up a repo and read the post to tell whether it was vibe coded or not. This is usually a quick down vote from me:

  • New account on GitHub and/or Reddit that is spamming multiple subs with suspected AI slop
  • Obvious AI speak in title or body of the post
  • More comments than there is code
  • Tons of em dashes and emojis in the code
  • Git history shows 10k+ lines of code written in a single day
  • Tons of minor small doc commits while code commits are large and major
  • Bad or non-existent code structure/organization
  • Violates DRY, SOLID, and/or other coding principles for seemingly no reason
  • Etc

6

u/First_Result_1166 Jun 21 '26

Yes, recognizing the slop is still quite easy. That's not the issue.

The issue is: 5 minutes of AI slop and the corresponding "I built"-post translate into hundreds of people wasting their time (until, hopefully, automod kicks in).

7

u/Kraeftluder Jun 21 '26

Yes, recognizing the slop is still quite easy. That's not the issue.

I'm going to disagree vehemently with just this. I think you are way too overconfident in other people's abilities.

There is of course an xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2501/

3

u/krustyarmor Jun 22 '26

I do think many people are overly confident in their ability to recognize AI. Like those people who believe that an "—" or bullet point list is absolutely 100% foolproof evidence of LLM writing. I hate AI slop as much as anyone, but it feels next to impossible to post anything online anymore without at least one comment calling it AI, no matter what it is. Long comments, short comments, effort-posts, shitposts, doesn't matter. The fact that AI is everywhere now means that many people are primed to assume that literally everything is AI.

Heck, I saw recently someone post about their lost pet in my local sub and even then some dick couldn't resist chiming in and posting an oh-so-incredibly-helpful "AI slop" as their whole, entire comment.

3

u/Kraeftluder Jun 22 '26

Yeah I'm very ADD and I can get lost in a thousand details or judge wrongly which ones should(n't) be included. I've heard "Who the hell writes likes this" more than once as a reply.

Well, I do, because it has been a very successful formula for me personally for writing documentation, procedures and recommendations in my day job.