[staticassertion]

What exactly is the goal? By laying out exactly the issues, expressing sentiment in detail, giving clear calls to action for the future, etc, the feedback is made actionable and relatable. It works both argumentatively and rhetorically.

Saying "fuck off Clanker" would not worth argumentatively nor rhetorically. It's only ever going to be "haha nice" for people who already agree and dismissed by those who don't.

I really find this whole "Responding is legitimizing, and legitimizing in all forms is bad" to be totally wrong headed.

[dureuill]

The project states a boundary clearly: code by LLMs not backed by a human is not accepted.

The correct response when someone oversteps your stated boundaries is not debate. It is telling them to stop. There is no one to convince about the legitimacy of your boundaries. They just are.

[staticassertion]

The author obviously disagreed, did you read their post? They wrote the message explaining in detail in the hopes that it would convey this message to others, including other agents.

Acting like this is somehow immoral because it "legitimizes" things is really absurd, I think.

[PKop]

> in the hopes that it would convey this message to others, including other agents.

When has engaging with trolls ever worked? When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?

[staticassertion]

I think this classification of "trolls" is sort of a truism. If you assume off the bat that someone is explicitly acting in bad faith, then yes, it's true that engaging won't work.

That said, if we say "when has engaging faithfully with someone ever worked?" then I would hope that you have some personal experiences that would substantiate that. I know I do, I've had plenty of conversations with people where I've changed their minds, and I myself have changed my mind on many topics.

> When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?

I suspect that if you instruct an LLM to not engage, statistically, it won't do that thing.

[LexiMax]

> If you assume off the bat that someone is explicitly acting in bad faith, then yes, it's true that engaging won't work.

Writing a hitpiece with AI because your AI pull request got rejected seems to be the definition of bad faith.

Why should anyone put any more effort into a response than what it took to generate?

[staticassertion]

> Writing a hitpiece with AI because your AI pull request got rejected seems to be the definition of bad faith.

Well, for one thing, it seems like the AI did that autonomously. Regardless, the author of the message said that it was for others - it's not like it was a DM, this was a public message.

> Why should anyone put any more effort into a response than what it took to generate?

For all of the reasons I've brought up already. If your goal is to convince someone of a position then the effort you put in isn't tightly coupled to the effort that your interlocutor put sin.

[KPGv2]

> I really find this whole "Responding is legitimizing, and legitimizing in all forms is bad" to be totally wrong headed.

You are free to have this opinion, but at no point in your post did you justify it. It's not related to what you wrote above. It's conclusory. statement.

Cussing an AI out isn't the same thing as not responding. It is, to the contrary, definitionally a response.

[staticassertion]

I think I did justify it but I'll try to be clearer. When you refuse to engage you will fail to convince - "fuck off" is not argumentative or rhetorically persuasive. The other post, which engages, was both argumentative and rhetorically persuasive. I think someone who believes that AI is good, or who had some specific intent, might actually take something away from that that the author intended to convey. I think that's good.

I consider being persuasive to be a good thing, and indeed I consider it to far outweigh issues of "legitimizing", which feels vague and unclear in its goals. For example, presumably the person who is using AI already feels that it is legitimate, so I don't really see how "legitimizing" is the issue to focus on.

I think I had expressed that, but hopefully that's clear now.

> Cussing an AI out isn't the same thing as not responding. It is, to the contrary, definitionally a response.

The parent poster is the one who said that a response was legitimizing. Saying "both are a response" only means that "fuck off, clanker" is guilty of legitimizing, which doesn't really change anything for me but obviously makes the parent poster's point weaker.

[PKop]

> you will fail to convince

Convince who? Reasonable people that have any sense in their brain do not have to be convinced that this behavior is annoying and a waste of time. Those that do it, are not going to be persuaded, and many are doing it for selfish reasons or even to annoy maintainers.

The proper engagement (no engagement at all except maybe a small paragraph saying we aren't doing this go away) communicates what needs to be communicated, which is this won't be tolerated and we don't justify any part of your actions. Writing long screeds of deferential prose gives these actions legitimacy they don't deserve.

Either these spammers are unpersuadable or they will get the message that no one is going to waste their time engaging with them and their "efforts" as minimal as they are, are useless. This is different than explaining why.

You're showing them it's not legitimate even of deserving any amount of time to engage with them. Why would they be persuadable if they already feel it's legitimate? They'll just start debating you if you act like what they're doing deserves some sort of negotiation, back and forth, or friendly discourse.

[staticassertion]

> Reasonable people that have any sense in their brain do not have to be convinced that this behavior is annoying and a waste of time.

Reasonable people disagree on things all the time. Saying that anyone who disagrees with you must not be reasonable is very silly to me. I think I'm reasonable, and I assume that you think you are reasonable, but here we are, disagreeing. Do you think your best response here would be to tell me to fuck off or is it to try to discuss this with me to sway me on my position?

> Writing long screeds of deferential prose gives these actions legitimacy they don't deserve.

Again we come back to "legitimacy". What is it about legitimacy that's so scary? Again, the other party already thinks that what they are doing is legitimate.

> Either these spammers are unpersuadable or they will get the message that no one is going to waste their time engaging with them and their "efforts" as minimal as they are, are useless.

I really wonder if this has literally ever worked. Has insulting someone or dismissing them literally ever stopped someone from behaving a certain way, or convinced them that they're wrong? Perhaps, but I strongly suspect that it overwhelmingly causes people to instead double down.

I suspect this is overwhelmingly true in cases where the person being insulted has a community of supporters to fall back on.

> Why would they be persuadable if they already feel it's legitimate?

Rational people are open to having their minds changed. If someone really shows that they aren't rational, well, by all means you can stop engaging. No one is obligated to engage anyways. My suggestion is only that the maintainer's response was appropriate and is likely going to be far more convincing than "fuck off, clanker".

> They'll just start debating you if you act like what they're doing is some sort of negotiation.

Debating isn't negotiating. No one is obligated to debate, but obviously debate is an engagement in which both sides present a view. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I think debate is a good thing. I think people discussing things is good. I suppose you can reject that but I think that would be pretty unfortunate. What good has "fuck you" done for the world?

[PKop]

LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy.

Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies. Not for someone spamming your open source project with LLM nonsense who is harming your project, wasting your time, and doesn't deserve to be engaged with as an equal, a peer, a friend, or reasonable.

I mean think about what you're saying: This person that has wasted your time already should now be entitled to more of your time and to a debate? This is ridiculous.

> I really wonder if this has literally ever worked.

I'm saying it shows them they will get no engagement with you, no attention, nothing they are doing will be taken seriously, so at best they will see that their efforts are futile. But in any case it costs the maintainer less effort. Not engaging with trolls or idiots is the more optimal choice than engaging or debating which also "never works" but more-so because it gives them attention and validation while ignoring them does not.

> What is it about legitimacy that's so scary?

I don't know what this question means, but wasting your time, and giving them engagement will create more comments you will then have to respond to. What is it about LLM spammers that you respect so much? Is that what you do?. I don't know about "scary" but they certainly do not deserve it. Do you disagree?

[staticassertion]

> LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy.

The comment that was written was assuming that someone reading it would be rational enough to engage. If you think that literally every person reading that comment will be a bad faith actor then I can see why you'd believe that the comment is unwarranted, but the comment was explicitly written on the assumption that that would not be universally the case, which feels reasonable.

> Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies.

That feels pretty strange to me. Debate is exactly for people who you don't agree with. I've had great conversations with people on extremely divisive topics and found that we can share enough common ground to move the needle on opinions. If you only debate people who already agree with you, that seems sort of pointless.

> I mean think about what you're saying: This person that has wasted your time already should now be entitled to more of your time and to a debate?

I've never expressed entitlement. I've suggested that it's reasonable to have the goal of convincing others of your position and, if that is your goal, that it would be best served by engaging. I've never said that anyone is obligated to have that goal or to engage in any specific way.

> "never works"

I'm not convinced that it never works, that's counter to my experience.

> but more-so because it gives them attention and validation while ignoring them does not.

Again, I don't see why we're so focused on this idea of validation or legitimacy.

> I don't know what this question means

There's a repeated focus on how important it is to not "legitimize" or "validate" certain people. I don't know why this is of such importance that it keeps being placed above anything else.

> What is it about LLM spammers that you respect so much?

Nothing at all.

> I don't know about "scary" but they certainly do not deserve it. Do you disagree?

I don't understand the question, sorry.

[techpression]

”Fuck off” doesn’t have to be, it works more than it doesn’t. It’s a very good way to tell someone that isn’t welcome that they’re not welcome, which was likely the intended purpose, and not trying to change their belief system.

[staticassertion]

It works at what?