Reddit’s r/opensource AI Ban Targets the Wrong Problem

But it’s not the one Reddit’s largest open source forum just tried to solve. The subreddit’s October 24 post, titled “Your tokens aren’t valuable: No more AI,” lays out four main rules: projects must be at least a year old, have multiple contributors, be posted by someone who speaks English, and cannot be made by or intended for AI.

Tools built for AI are out too, and MCP servers are named as an example. Projects need an OSI license, an existing community, and “subjectively 3+” contributors.

The poster needs a Reddit account at least a year old with significant activity. Anyone who messages the moderators asking for an exception after trying to post gets a permanent ban, a rule tied to an estimate of 20 such messages a day.

And the language rule drew the loudest reaction. Non-English speakers are told to find a different community, because moderators say they can’t tell AI-written text from AI-translated text.

Even the moderation team is split. Moderator ssddanbrown said they disagreed with the rule and learned about the changes through mod-review notifications.