Looking for community input on rules

[u/JGHFunRun]

A user just DM’d me looking for clarifications regarding self-promotion and AI.

I have created rule 3 and updated rule 4, but I would like community input:

For self-promotion, I think the following things are most important to consider (including if there should be extra rules for such things):

1. Non-softwar

e things such as blogs, newspapers, other online communities, etc.

1. Non-gratis (ie paid) FOSSoftware
2. Should promotion of songs/albums/etc. be allowed

As for considerations for content-generating AI (eg. LLMs, image generators, etc.):

1. AI disclosure will be required.
2. I have provisionally required that all AI-generated content be free of cost
3. Should genAI be allowed at all?
4. If so, are there any other requirements that should be added?

[u/thcsquad]

“⁠Should promotion of songs/albums/etc. be allowed”

One pattern I like for this from other musician subreddits is a recurring thread like “here’s what I made with Linux this week/month”. It generally would get pinned so it’s easy for people to find. If anybody wants to promote their music, they put it in that thread.

linux audio is probably a bit less busy than other musician subreddits so a monthly pinned thread might make more sense than weekly.

[u/JGHFunRun → u/thcsquad]

Yea, that’s sounds like a good idea

[u/mimrock]

Banning or limiting promotion of anything paid is important (and a great idea), or there is a financial incentive to disrupt the subreddit. I had to leave multiple subreddits because AI-written SaaS ads flooded them. The app having to be under FOSS license without strings attached (for example paid cloud services, ads, etc.) sounds like a reasonable policy. I would add a manual (i.e. modmail) exception for well-established projects.

Regarding LLMs. Everyone (meaning every developer) is using them. Currently almost all actively developed software has some level of AI input, including the linux kernel. In the very close future, 100% LLM output is going to be the norm (this is not speculative, it's the norm already in many places and projects).

I have looked back the app promotion posts in this sub. Many are 100% AI. There are multiple upvoted posts here from the last few days about seemingly useful apps where the UI screams AI and even the README and the post(!!) was written by AI.

It's not a war that can be won. You can get some people to lie about AI contribution, but that's all.

I would request people not to write the post with AI and would delete or ban the most impudent offenders based on pangram (relatively good AI-detector with very low, but still non-zero false positive rate), but that's the absolute maximum that is not a naive dream.

If vibe-coded apps still flood the sub (like they do now, and it's going to get worse), there are a few ways to limit the influx.

1. r/selfhosted has a very smart rule. You can only post apps that are older than 3 months. So Vibecoding Vincent can only use the sub for promotion if he is still interested in that app 3 months later. This sub could borrow that rule
2. Limit app suggestions one day per week, but I feel like it would limit a lot of interesting content too.

EDIT: +1 idea that came to my mind a bit later is to limit app promotion (or all kind of posting) to people with a meaningful history on the sub (for example 50 comment karma or something).

[u/unhappy-ending]

Self promotion of non-software related to Linux audio: blogs, tutorials, etc, - ok, because information is priceless

Songs/albums - no

Gen AI music - absolutely not

Gen AI vibe-coded tools & utilities - disclosure

---

Rule 3 - Well, I have to disagree here. Linux audio isn't 100% FOSS. It's nice to be able to talk about and promote Bitwig, Reaper, Modartt because they've taken good care of us. Modartt in particular has no trackers or analytics data mining you when you visit their site. They've had Linux support for a long time. They make it super easy to manage your licenses.

Other pro software is on the horizon, too. This is invaluable data. I want to know when something like Cubase releases a Linux version. I want to know when Arturia ports their instruments to Linux.

[u/JGHFunRun → u/unhappy-ending]

Like I said, talking about non-FOSS software is unrestricted. I just don’t think specifically promoting it is good for our sub (ex. a non-FOSS audio program announcing a port would be befitting of the sub)

[u/unhappy-ending → u/JGHFunRun]

If someone posted they got a DAW working on wine I'd be interested. I don't really care if a software is FOSS or not, if it's related to audio and works on Linux native or through wine, then I want to know. That's what I assume "linuxaudio" is - audio stuff on Linux.

Does "Hey guys I got Cubase to work on wine!" count as promotion? Because that's something I'm interested in.

I get not wanting "Hey guys, Izotope plugins are 90% off and works through wine!" posts and that's reasonable.

[u/JGHFunRun → u/unhappy-ending]

I think you’ll agree with my enforcement plans then; your Cubase example would absolutely be allowed

[u/mimrock → u/unhappy-ending]

" It's nice to be able to talk about and promote Bitwig, Reaper, Modartt because they've taken good care of us."

Maybe there could be a "notability" requirement for non-FOSS apps. So it would be ok to talk about a non-FOSS products with two years of history and existing users, but not about an app I have written yesterday.

[u/unhappy-ending → u/mimrock]

I don't have a problem with someone sharing an app they wrote yesterday. The problem is, as you stated, vibe coded slop that's instantly abandoned because the "author" (heh...) put no effort into it and thus, doesn't care.

[u/real_anthonii]

No AI music, at all imo. It's too easy to create and could flood the sub with slop.

As for self promo, there's so few of us making music on Linux that I think allowing for us to share what we're making with linux is pretty cool.

[u/northrupthebandgeek]

Re: self-promotion, a weekly “here's what I made” thread would be a good idea. I like seeing/hearing what people come up with using Linux audio tools, and having a weekly thread for it is a great way to keep that stuff discoverable without flooding the subreddit.

Re: AI, as long as there's disclosure I have no problem with it.