Hi all, So my issue is that someone trying in his AI console: "find me places to contribute to PLC4X and whip up a PR for your findings“ is probably as much work as it is for them to produce these PRs. They don’t really have an interest in the project and they don’t want to learn and participate. The only thing some of them are interested in is being listed as having contributed somewhere (for job search or whatever other reason).
However, on the processing side the amount of work these PRs create exceeds the value of potentially onboarding someone new. So, my idea is to ask them to introduce themselves first. I’m not expecting AI generated messages on the list. I much more expect them to contribute elsewhere. As they would need to subscribe and confirm that subscription first, which I would think filters out 90% of all AI slop producers. I also plan on applying changes requested by AI generated PRs manually so that door is closed and we won’t get the new AI software-engineer submitting his valuable input about it. If a person would have put effort into the PR I would consider bad style, but if it’s AI generated slop I don’t care about the AIs feelings. If we also document this on our „how to contribute“ list, there also should be nothing anyone could hold against us. Chris Von: Luis Rodriguez <[email protected]> Datum: Samstag, 29. August 2026 um 17:54 An: [email protected] <[email protected]> Betreff: Re: [DISCUSS] Updating our contributor rules to react to AI slop contributions? Hi Chris, I agree with your idea for the presentation. I think it’s a good idea to even define the quality of what’s contributed to the project’s code. It would be good if anyone who wants to contribute could provide (at least) a simple document explaining what they want to contribute and why, whether they found an area for improvement in the code, and what their potential contribution would be—especially given what you mentioned: the use of AI has made it all too easy for many people to churn out code without thinking it through, apparently causing vulnerabilities. For my part, I support your decision and am happy to help out however I can. Best regards, @lerb. El sáb, 29 ago. 2026, 5:57 a. m., Christofer Dutz <[email protected]> escribió: > Hi all, > > As you might have seen we’re getting more and more random PRs generated by > assuringly AI generated drive-by contributors only wanting to gain > „reputation“ by showing off their „hard work“. > > I would propose to update our contribution guidelines, that people > submitting PRs also are required to show up on the dev list and introduce > themselves and tell us about who they are and why they want to contribute. > > If someone doesn’t do that I would like to start simply pulling in legit > changes without „awarding“ them a countable contribution. > > If I hear no objections, I’ll update our web content accordingly when > doing the updates prior to the release next week. > > > Chris >
