This forum is for humans, by humans

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We’ve noticed a rise in replies that look like they were generated by AI and posted without real engagement with the question being asked. We want to be upfront about where we stand on this.

AI can be a great tool for research, learning, or thinking through a workflow, and we’re not trying to police how you get to an answer. What we care about is this: every reply here should come from someone who actually read the question and chose to help. A simple gut check: if you wouldn’t be able explaining how you arrived at an answer if someone asked you to, don’t post it.

Posting AI-generated content (answers written or produced by AI without your own understanding of the specific problem) isn’t allowed here, no matter how accurate or polished it looks. This includes (but is not limited to) copying AI output directly into a thread, generic answers that could apply to almost any similar question, using AI to reply across many threads to look active, and AI-written “guides” that read more like documentation than a real response to a real person. It applies to new questions as well as replies.

No reply is never a problem. If you don’t have time to properly engage with a question, just skip it, that’s better for everyone than posting something AI wrote on your behalf.

Content identified as AI-generated will be removed as spam. Moderators enforce this, and you can now flag any post as ‘AI-Generated’ for us to review, we’re always learning what this looks like, so if something slips past us, please report it.

This forum is for humans, by humans. Thanks for helping keep it that way.

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Before typing my opinions, I want to state that I made this post on a alternative account as to not get any backlash on my main account for my opinions here. I agree with the statement, “the forum is for humans by humans” however, I feel like Bartv’s new forum helper, is a direct hit against this statement. So far, I have seen it ping users, inactive and active on the forum, and the bot feels more like an alert bot than an actual use to this community. As someone who participates on this forum, and reddit communities a lot, I feel that having my questions partially by an ai model, and then route to humans, is a very inefficient way to handle this. The reccomended posts already shows up before you post, so the bot just feels like a addition we as a community could see having, but not in it’s current state.

Now on another note, detecting AI is a big issue. How can one look at AI, and say, “this is ai” Sure, it may have dashes like - of use a lot of tech language, but there should be like a detector to detect AI, and then a human also reviewing. This would probably also lead to people being detected for using AI more accurately. As someone who helps on this forum regularly, I feel we need a better system in place, though the new moderation tagging may help.

Best to all, - Anonymous

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I think it’s good and right that personal passion goes into it.

For me, AI in the case of posting and commenting (n8n Community, Skool, LinkedIn) is a better secretary. It corrects my spelling (dyslexia says hello), questions my draft (am I actually answering the question asked?), and yes, sometimes also as a sparring partner for finding solutions.

But in the end, it’s always my own assessment that counts, not the AI output 1:1. When I answer here, it’s because I’ve read the question and formed my own opinion on it. AI just helps me put it across more clearly and without errors.

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This is fair feedback, and don’t worry - I would never hold feedback like this against you. My thinking with the helper bot was that it should only provide resources, not answers. It’s like teaching a man to fish, and not just give them a fish. You’re right that the forum suggests related topics when you create a new one, but in my experience 95% of the people who post here ignore those - that’s why I wanted to test something that’s a bit more ‘in your face’.

I already had the same feedback about pinging inactive users. I adjusted it yesterday to only list users who were active during the last 12 months, but I’m happy to adjust that if this shows to be not useful (there’s a tension between last-active and last-relevant post here).

Happy to keep discussing this, but let’s use the Pilot: Forum Helper Bot for that, shall we?

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Of course, thank you for your response bartv! If I notice anything different, I’ll move it to that thread!

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With all due respect, I find this a bit ironic.

From what I’ve seen, a large portion of your replies in the Questions category are AI-assisted, and in many cases it’s pretty obvious. The writing style is very consistent, and sometimes the responses miss the actual point of the question in a way that suggests the person writing them didn’t fully understand the problem first.

I’m not saying using AI is wrong. A lot of us use it to improve grammar, structure, or even brainstorm ideas. The issue is when AI-generated responses are posted without enough personal understanding behind them.

So if anyone should be arguing that AI can still have a place on the forum when used responsibly, I’d expect it to be you—not the other way around.

Also, if using AI is allowed for you because that’s part of your role, then that’s completely fair. There’s nothing wrong with that.

More broadly, I think the idea that people shouldn’t use AI at all is unrealistic. AI is a tool. You can’t stop people from using it, and honestly, I don’t think communities should try. If anything, they should encourage people to use it responsibly.

The real problem isn’t AI.

The real question is: why are people posting low-quality AI content in the first place?

In my opinion, it’s because the forum currently rewards participation. Any system that incentivizes quantity over quality will naturally attract people who are looking to maximize those rewards with the least amount of effort. That doesn’t attract the best contributors—it attracts spammers.

So I think the focus should be on improving incentives and enforcing quality standards, rather than trying to determine whether a post was written with AI.

At the end of the day, AI-generated writing has never been the real problem. Low-quality contributions are. Those existed long before AI, and they’ll continue to exist unless the incentives change.

No personal issue with you at all. I just wanted to point out what feels like a contradiction.

Best to all, - Another Anon maybe - writeen with AI.

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I agree with your point on AI. I’m not trying to argue against it, but rather how we identify, what is AI. I would love to have AI on the forum in some way, or to be able to use it well when writing posts. I myself, as you said use it, but I spend a lot of time on those posts actually verifying the information and rewriting.

I use AI in many ways, as I’m sure we all do, but rather than hate AI, I want to improve the way moderation and us discover what is AI and what isn’t and have a better consistency!

That said, if answer and earn had a different way of earning points, that would be really fun also, perhaps we could get rewarded by not just solutions, but quality of how our posts are, like quality points, maybe points for helping consistently, because at this point, even AI’s can easily solve a problem, like claude.

Anyone can post AI on this forum, and while they get caught, if answer and earn is centered around quality, they cannot bot quality, because quality comes from the heart.

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Will I be able to go back now and properly help the community? :thought_balloon:

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Of course!!! Welcome back, @tamy.santos !!!

Long time no see…

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Agree with this. AI can be a helpful tool for learning and research, but community replies should come from real experience and understanding. A genuine short answer that solves someone’s problem is much more valuable than a generic AI-generated response. Keeping discussions human makes the community stronger.

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Agreed. This is human and common sense, and being respectful. This is a problem across, maybe all communities.

What do you think, will this increase, or will people respectfully abide by set rules?

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@MTraveller Lately it’s been increasing, but we have an amazing community moderator @Anshul_Namdev and he’s really good at reviewing them, so all I do is report them, and then he usually responds to them very quickly, if you ever see a suspicious post, don’t hesitate to flag it, the community has a strong moderation team

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Will do. Respect to you :raising_hands:

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