That sentence is a self-issued Certificate Of Stupidity.
196
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
What about the even more tech illiterate and careless "I asked AI"?
Being accused of using ChatGPT for the crime of knowing how to properly use em dashes is far more infuriating.
Eh.
It’s in the same ballpark as “my buddy said this while we were high” or “my uncle posted this on Facebook” or “I saw this YouTube video…”
It turns out people, on average, have horrible information hygiene and little incentive to consider this. ChatGPT just made Facebook Uncle Facts more personalized and accessible, unfortunately.
No, because "my uncle" didn't post a 6 paragraph essay that no one has ever read, but you are now expected to read.
People on Lemmy also have horrid information hygiene that's just as bad even though a lot of people like to pretend that they're better than everyone.
Agreed, 100%.
What's worse, few seem to care when a made-up post is pointed out.
"I googled"
Anything that isn't on the first page of google might as well be lost to time.
I had an Uber passenger that straight up said,"well I asked grok about restaurants around here..."
Like no infuriation, as much as pity.
It generally means the person made no effort and information should be taken with a grain of salt. Like "a quick Google".
I can barely use the internet anymore. I have to filter by date to get results from before 2024. Otherwise all the results are obvious AI trash.
When I tried to look up information about storing film negatives. Pretty obscure niche topic these days. The top pre-2024 result was from a well respected national archive, good informative page written by experts in the field.
By contrast, the current day results were an endless sea of random websites who all by sheer coincidence decided to start writing about film archival in the year 2025.

by now, saying "i did a search" and actually having done a search and found stuff AND shared the link feels like a "good skill to have" again.
my brother (14 y/ooooo sooooooo skibidi) uses mister gpt for all web searching which sucks big time. whenever he does use a real life search engine, hes surprised by the amount of stuff he finds by now.
EDIT: fixed some typos...
It would be a "good skill to have" if they haven't actively been making search engines worse, so they can make AI look better.
How the fuck could AskJeeves from 20 years ago work better than search engines of today?
It’s not just them, it’s the SEO spam gaming the system.
AskJeeves would be utterly horrendous today because the web of its time is no longer feasible.
And who is the center cog of this ad-driven SEO apocalypse? Who runs basically all web advertising?
Well… Google, of course.
i believe search engines have been degrading prior to the LMs but might be misremembering...
No, I agree. One indicative moment was when Google stopped showing the "X million results found" and the results ended after 10-15 pages even when the keywords should have millions of results. This was noticed back in 2021.
Off topic: If said in french "ChatGPT" translates back to "Cat, I farted" - you're welcome
Ugh. I once heard someone say "I did a chat" as slang for "asking ChatGPT". It was a software vendor on a call regarding compatibility with our existing systems. We had concerns it wasn't. They insisted it was, because they "did a chat" and ChatGPT said it was.
It wasn't.
Should have gotten them to verify in writing they guaranteed it was compatible and then sued them for it lol
I vibe questioned, and got vibe answered 🌟
"I ask ChatGPT" is the "I consulted the Oracle of Delphi" of our time.