Open Park Slop Contributions
So lately there have been a couple of news stories about open source projects closing external contributions because of AI slop issues and pull requests. And after watching ThePrimeagen's rant about it, I thought of an anecdote to picture the situation for non-tech people (because I'm definitely gonna bring this up at my family dinner).
Imagine this,
You own a park that is open to the public, people like to use that park for running, walking their pet turtle, doing matcha labubu pilates, and other activities. Frequent visitors often want to contribute to your park, for example David wants to add more trash cans for his gopher pet, Lucas wants to clean the benches from rust. You also post about improvement or "pls fix" posts on your park Facebook group, where people can chime in and volunteer to contribute.
But sometimes you gotta decline some contributions because they don't fit your vision of the park you own, and you still appreciate it.
Then one day, a university student wearing a massive fluid tank on his back and that you never saw before suddenly comes up to you and says: "Sir, can I spray this weed killer? I saw your Facebook post about some weed problem in the park, please kindly accept my request".
Naturally, you ask: "Will the spray affect other plants? We got a lot of wildflowers and native plants that we want to make sure they are not affected by the spray. Do you even know what plants are there?"
And then the student replied: "No idea, I just know you have a weed problem. You gotta do what you gotta do. I need this for my university social contribution score"
So you rejected the student's request, so naturally he mocked you for being a fascist that is against democracy. But then day after day, a dozen university students come to your park saying that they want to contribute, like bringing rat poisons to solve the park's rat problem, and they didn't even check if it will kill pets or not. They should have known that your park is often used for people walking their pets if they ever visited and used your park before.
So with a heavy heart you decided to close your Facebook group and close off public contributions because of the amount of people wanting to contribute without knowing your park. The sheer amount of meetings and discussions takes a toll on your mental health because they keep calling you an authoritarian owner. Your goodwill is responded to with hostility and unnecessary work.