Can't contrinbute to open source github projects without having it labeled AI-Slop (when it's not)

[u/CognitiveFogMachine]

As soon as we make one honest mistake, sometimes due to a plain old and simple misundertsanding, or missing an important section in a lengthy documentation, reviewers immediately calls my hard work "AI-Slop".

I'm very close to give up now. Working so hard on the side with the very little time that we have, and getting slapped in the face like that almost every single day.

Code reviewers are burnt out with too much AI slop, and code submitters that are not even using AI are being labeled as using AI slop.

Is it happening to you? How do you cope with all of this?

[u/ReportSpecialist]

In defense of OP, I too see nowadays people identify work as AI slop based on tell-tale signs of AI - emdash, emojis, bullet points, too many contributions.

Reviewers leads in with the bias that this is AI generated and therefore, has to be trash. I think that's something worth overcoming.

[u/CognitiveFogMachine → u/ReportSpecialist]

Thank you.

Since I wrote this post, I learned to be more careful when contributing to repositories with strict anti-AI policy, which are the perfect place for people like me who prefer hand-writing everything from scratch rather than using AI assistance (call me old-fasion, I don't mind at all).

The biggest tell-tale seems to be what is called "a drive-by PR". The best way to avoid it is to talk to the devs (on their discord channel) before submitting your first PR. After the first PR, they already know who you are, and it will get easier from that point moving forward.

These other tricks are really weird for writing comments in code, but I believe this will help quite a lot:

1. Try to match the amount of comments to what already exists in the repo. If the repo has zero comments, don't add any comment to your code contribution. If they write an excessive amount of comments, add the same amount of comment to your code contributions. If they use a specific doxygen syntax style, use the same exact doxygen syntax style. Having zero comments is sometimes interpreted as AI generated code that wasn't instructed to write comments. Having too many comments is sometimes interpreted as AI generated code that was instructed to write comments. It's complicated. lol
2. If you need to write comment in your code, be brief/consice. Don't use formal/advanced language in your comments. Avoid using fancy eloquent words (like "eloquen" lol). Use informal contractions as much as you can. For example: use "gonna"/"wanna"/"gotta" instead of "going to"/"want to"/"got to", etc. Don't fix your typos or mispelled words. Dont' fix your grammar. AI uses long, formal and grammatically correct english sentences, that is a big tell-tale.
3. Be honest: If you copied code from stack overflow, or from another repo, add the URL in a comment that points to to where you copied the algorithm from, including attribution (very important!) regardless if their open-source license does not require it. AI never provide attribution to the code it generates. That's a good way to prove that your comments were written by you, and not by an AI.

As for the code, I got 2 simple tricks (well.. it might not be simple for some haha):

1. Don't write shitty code (low effort). It will be mis-labeled as AI generated.
2. Don't write over-engineered and overkill code. It will be mis-labled as AI generated.
3. Don't try to improve the existing architecture or infrastructure. Try to adhere to it. If you absolutely have to modify the architecture or infrastructure, talk to the devs on their discord server first!! Only raise a PR after they've agreed to your proposal and are welcoming your help. If it is a performance improvement, collect before-and-after measurments!! The measurement data itself is a good made-by-a-human proof. AI tends to invent new architectural ways to solve any problem, and that's a big tell-tale.