If you say so, I know some people can just have good grammar, but ai checkers usually work, and it was saying 92% of this text is very likely ai written
2 Likes
That’s good. We’ve had some users making obnoxiously long posts using AI, so we are a bit suspicious of long, well worded posts. (LLM = Large Language Model, aka ChatGPT, etc)
This is probably just because I am such an old member, but I honestly don’t mind the current state of off-topic-ness. I do agree with @danger_kitty’s mentioning of some new users being focused more on attention farming than games, but it isn’t many, and it’s not often, and I think the moderation has improved a lot when it comes to such posts. I don’t really think it’s much of an issue, at least not super recently / anymore.
New users usually learn fairly quick that we don’t like engagement farming, especially when their topics get flagged (by me and others, as I have seen at least one “this post has been temporarily hidden by the community”).
The other thing is that @AlexK moderates the forum on weekends for free (Thank you so much!) so if he accidentally lets a post get too off-topic or drag up a 2 year old topic once in a while, I’m definitely not complaining!
Oh the contrary, I think that the moderators have been purposely adding more conversation focused activities to the forum. Namely the weekly topics, which are very well received and enjoyed by everyone! The fact that such conversations often spread into other topics is just an effect of people wanting to talk about other cool things, and that’s alright as long as the topic creator is ok with it, which they usually are. Even in this topic, we had a short conversation about futsal / football and one about what Makecode has done for the users of the forum, and personally it’s amazing to see everyone having fun and being active on the forum, no matter the topic!
At the end of the day, I think that the structure of the other forum you mentioned probably works fine for a larger community of people who are just looking for a place to ask questions and resolve bugs, but that’s not what the Makecode forums are, or what most users want them to be, and I’m very happy you can see and appreciate that! Here we are sacrificing ordered structure for community, and personally that’s a sacrifice I would make any day.
I think that if this community can continue sharing whatever mini projects we are working on, with the option of going off topic to share about other interesting stuff, then the off topic posts should continue in order to inspire others to make and learn about other cool things. (I learned about futsal!)
I don’t think there needs to be any large changes to how we organize topics either (this is probably more of an “old user doesn’t like change” opinion though) and speaking from experience it’s not that hard to avoid all the crazy large off-topic chats and filter out the people who need help.
The reason the moderators often answer questions first is because they are actually really cool people and are very, very active on the forum! They also get instant post approval, so it’s kinda unfair to compare the number of user-answered questions to the number of @richard- uhhhh… I mean moderator-answered questions! (Thanks Mods!)
I feel like I have more to say but nothing is coming to mind, my phone is gonna die and I think that’s long enough, so I’ll end it there. Also I don’t think I’ve said welcome to Makecode to you yet, so yeah, welcome to Makecode and have fun! I really hope you stick around! 
15 Likes
Indeed; I’ve been really strict about those, and I know Richard has, too. “47 likes! Just 3 more!” Yup … instantly rejected. 
Some of the other moderators are a little more lenient, but not much more so.
As I’ve said several times before, please keep doing so! If you find anything that you find offensive, really tasteless, or really off-topic, then please flag it. At the same time, don’t be offended if we disagree with you.
Aww. First, you’re welcome. I’m very happy that I can volunteer some of my time with and for some of my absolutely most favorite people. I do feel bad when I can’t get to the forums on the weekends. (Like this past weekend; you all were busy!) Second, I don’t do that!
I want to go back to something from a few weeks ago that I missed.
No … no, we do not. We welcome all users, long-time users and brand new users, experienced coders and first-time coders. All users should be proud of their work, be eager to share it, be humble when receiving feedback, and be comfortable in asking questions. We all were beginners. Be supportive so that all users – experienced, green, or somewhere in between – can grow their skillsets at whatever pace works for them. This isn’t a race, and we will be here to support all of you for as long as you need.
And, finally…
I love how this thread has morphed. NGL, the thread title is click-bait-y, but it also draws attention to the evolution of this conversation. I can imagine what this thread looks like to new users, who have to wade through a year and a half of historical information and perhaps form an inaccurate image of the current state of the community … especially if they don’t make it to the end of the thread!
These newest posts over the past several months, though, paint a good picture of who we are today. We’re not perfect, but we always work at getting better. As I’ve said before, I brag about you all frequently because I think you’re awesome.
Thank you for being here and for being who you are. With each post (well, each one that gets through moderation, anyway! ), you add value to our community.
29 Likes
Well said!
6 Likes
𝐍𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐲, 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲? 𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭. 𝐂𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝.
10 Likes
wow @AlexK never thought you’d post here this is so true I got many posts flagged ngl
8 Likes
Nah, not really, they just look for patterns, which some people write like. I’m not saying that Oblivious’ writing isn’t AI, I’m just disagreeing with this. If you want to avoid ChatGPTness, just run it through the humanizer-of-the-week, and half the time the AI detectors will say 0%. You could probably ask somebody in school (if you are still in school - hi adults) for one. You can find many stories online of kids who got, you could say, “cooked up” by teachers who 100% believe in these AI detectors, even if they didn’t use AI at all. (or when the teacher pastes the essay into ChatGPT, asking it if it was written by AI 
) Many people could go on and on debating how to prove someone used / didn’t use AI.
Yet, I’d think everybody here would appreciate knowing that they were (most likely) talking to real human beings rather than the overhyped LLM of the week.
14 Likes
@NewUsers don’t read this the forum is growing it dying is sooo last year (literally) leave and make some games create Collab and please don’t yap on game posts only in chatting area
3 Likes
And see here, ladies and gentlemen, is why @AlexK is a Mod.
14 Likes
My bad
Regarding the post, I’m glad that the whole “The forum’s dying” panic is over. (Except for new users who don’t realize this topic’s over a year old. I can’t believe this topic’s a year old now, feels like it should be like half a year old.)
11 Likes
I definitely agree that it is not a 100% indicator, I was just a bit suspicious of that writing. I guess I am too used to seeing people at school use ai to write their massive assignments, or use their phones in a test. It feels bad putting in a lot of work to have somebody do… that.
3 Likes
@AlexK sorry for the ping but I just wanted to ask, what is it like being a moderator? I know that it must be boring but kinda fun at the same time, but on average how many posts do you sift through in a day or week?
3 Likes
If it wasn’t you writing that I would have definitely thought you used a LLM! 
5 Likes
@Fixitude, you can ping me anytime you need.
I’m grateful to the MakeCode team for asking me to be a moderator. By reading so many of your posts, I get a chance to learn about all of you. So, for instance, I know Oblivious does not use AI to write their posts because I have read enough of them to know their writing style. It’s really fun getting to learn a little bit about each of you through your posts. I think I’d have a lot of fun if all of you were in my classroom at the same time!
Most of the time, it takes me an hour to go through the queue. I try to check the queue at around 10:00 p.m. Eastern time as I’m winding down for the night, and I usually have 30 to 60 posts to review. In the morning, if I have time, I’ll hop on and review the 30 or so new posts that arrived overnight from our friends on the other side of the world (or from the night owls in the Americas). On the weekends, I try to hop on three or four times across Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes, I hang out for an hour or two (usually while I’m working on MakeCode myself!); other times, I’ll just plow through the queue and then jump to the next thing on my list for the day. So, in one sitting, I’m reading 30 to 60 posts. Over the course of a week, that’s … what … several hundred posts? Depending, of course, on both how active you all are and whether the rest of the mods are busy with other things.
It’s not just reading. Every MakeCode project gets reviewed, and every link that we see in a post is reviewed, too. So, it might take me an hour to get through “just” 30 posts if there are a lot of projects with complex code.
11 Likes
I agree. Ai checkers always call my essays 98% AI-generated, but my version history can prove otherwise.
5 Likes
I got away way QuillBot’s checker
2 Likes
Not dying on my guard!!!
3 Likes
Time flies by when you’re having fun[?]
wow very well said!
thank you and ALL the moderators for doing what you do and putting up with our… insanity
i am so grateful that y’all take time out of your day (and you arent even paid 
) to keep this community a safe and healthy place!
6 Likes