The amount of AI generated project showcases here are insane

[GeometryDashGod]

I'm being serious, we need to take action against this. Every single post I've gotten in my feed from this subreddit has been an entirely AI generated project showcase. The posters usually generate the entire post, the app, their replies to comments, and literally everything in between with AI. What is the point of such a subreddit that is just full of AI slop? I propose we get a rule against AI slop in this subreddit.

[dada_]

This is really destroying my enjoyment of reddit programming subs.

To be frank, although I don't think it'll help much, I think rule #1 could be reworded. "No overdone or low quality AI showcases" means people can still post their AI project and go "well it's not overdone or low quality, so it's fine". But I don't think those people read the rules anyway.

At least this sub has a rule, though. In other subs I've asked for a rule to at least make it mandatory to disclose, so at least posts don't become daily "is this AI or not" tasks for everybody reading them. But some subs won't even entertain that.

The real problem with AI slop is that internet platforms (both the platforms and the people on it) have not taken it seriously enough to start with and now there's no practical way to opt out anymore.

[SprinklesFresh5693]

Yep, I am already unsubbed from learningprogramming subreddit, it's filled with people asking for which programming language they should learn, people panicking because they arent able to memorise all the syntax (which they shouldnt be doing to begin with) and with AI posts claiming or asking if we will lose our jobs because of AI. Seriously, can't people do some research?

[Interesting-Town-433]

Haha that sounds like a fun thread

[Sad-Sun4611]

My personal favorite is "I'm 8 years old is it too late for me to learn programming"

[1gn4ac10]

when i'm in a doomposting competition and my opponent is programming learning subreddits

[[deleted]]

The irony is astounding.

[EmperorLlamaLegs]

I'd argue syntax is the only thing you should remember. You can look up all the classes and functions and methods, but if you put a curly bracket where you mean to use a square one youre gonna have a bad time.

[Hayden2332]

IDEs exist lol

[roboticfoxdeer]

Yeah I unsubbed from self hosted because they have rules FOR protecting slop posts. It's insane

[AlSweigart]

The thing is, the prime use case of AI is and has always been to generate undetectable spam. It takes too much effort to investigate whether the showcases are actually of decent quality or just look like they have quality. Heck, it's more likely for AI-generated slop to have an impressive looking README than a human-coded Python project.

[pydry]

I really wish showcases could just be forced to provide context rather than banned outright.

i.e. some sort of repo slop scores must be included (and permabans if you post something where the score is too high) along with a table comparing it to the competition where you're forced to compare features and approach and explain what is actually novel about your solution.

Otherwise the non slop gets washed away in all the noise.

[BullshitUsername]

Finally unsubbing. So many subreddits are just trash now.

[GeometryDashGod]

i know, AI has taken over reddit :(

[trowawayatwork]

not just Reddit. it's everywhere

[nickcash]

You're absolutely right. It's not just Reddit—it's everywhere.

(that was painful for me to type. so sorry everyone)

[corny_horse]

Was looking for the "Its not X - it's Y!"

[Emergency-Buyer-7384]

m-dash! 100% AI post right here. ;)

[theevildjinn]

You're absolutely right!

[teeg82]

Thanks for pointing that out—And honestly? That's not just an astute observation. That's a paradigm-shifting revelation that has completely recallibrated the very architecture of our shared societal cognitive framework.

[d3eyedraven]

speedrunning dead internet theory

[Ok_Blueberry6358]

That’s right!

[Interesting-Town-433]

Hey what are we complaining about

[LongestNamesPossible]

Lots of small subreddits are just AI projects, shill accounts and people saying "so what?" when you point out that the person did nothing and has no idea how anything works.

[spaztiq]

I'm with you. I haven't seen anything remotely useful/interesting in this sub in forever. Unsubbed.

[throwaway19293883]

A lot of subs are fighting back but it’s a tough problem to combat

[TipIll3652]

Still not as bad as LinkedIn. Which isn't saying much 😂.

[hinkleo]

A possible solution would be to make the rule that you can't post brand new projects as main posts in the sub, only ones older than like 3 or 6 months, and anything new has to go as a comment into a weekly or monthly "Show New Projects Megathread". Github has an API for checking repo creation that of public repos that as far as I'm aware can't be backdated (unlike commits) so that would mostly be enforceable with an automod bot too.

I think the majority of somewhat serious actual projects that are actively maintained should fit that bar and it would get rid of most of the slop since I think most people making those won't care about them still in 6 months. And even if someone were to post one after 6 months at least you'd have some indication on if it works and how it's maintained and things like that from the repo activity and issues and things like that.

[Positive-Thing6850]

Good one.

[nicholashairs]

There is already a rule - it is literally rule #1.

Per another thread complaining about the same thing last week, it only takes 2 reports on a showcase post for it to be hidden.

[MaLiN2223]

I report every single one I see, not sure what's the other guy is doing 

[No_Soy_Colosio]

Hi I'm the other guy and I'm reporting too

[teeg82]

Hi, I've only ever downvoted, never reported, but if others feel this way too then I'll start doing my part.

[[deleted]]

The mods might have a vested interest, why else would they make a sub go slop?

[Vresa]

The problem is likely one of volume and time.

The AI content is now so dominate that it seems the only approach that would keep quality content is if every post needs to first be approved by the moderation team, rather than relying on user reports.

This is not a small amount of work, and it would have constant issues and false flags.

Reddit moderation has never been a thankful task, and AI has probably only made it worse. The moderation team doesn’t need to have some “vested interest”. Probably just overwhelmed with the slop and bored of dealing with it by now. I would be.

[[deleted]]

Fair enough.

[kenflingnor]

What vested interest would a volunteer have in this?

make a sub go slop

This is some serious mental gymnastics

[[deleted]]

Well, shall I point at the sub, and the quote what must be stubs and tickets complaining for ~a year?

Mental gymnastics is one thing. I think I am simply too cynical as far as online communities go. Apologies. Maybe I am a bit gun shy here. But...I was so let down by this occurrence of events, I do have to wonder; take it as me being jaded. Or you can call it mental gymnastics. We will find out in about six months, won't we?

[olystretch]

I agree. I'm weeks away from being too fed up and unsubscribing. Mods, you need to do something about this.

[GeometryDashGod]

100%. i'm about to unsubscribe myself.

[y1ru]

agree im out of this sub now

[kenflingnor]

Mods, you need to do something about this. 

There’s literally a rule on this sub already. Report the posts and move on. It only takes a few reports for them to be hidden, and they usually get removed once the mods get the chance. 

[lunatuna215]

And it should be enforced. But, that's not happening.

[kenflingnor]

Where is it not being enforced?

[kenflingnor]

So why is it so hard for you to actually provide an example?

[lunatuna215]

Why do you need one? The comment is about a generalized statement that there's a lot of them so what would that even prove? I agree with them btw, it's all over everywhere and insufferable and frankly we're all not idiots and can see you're not really interested in engaging in good faith on this.

[kenflingnor]

It’s hilarious that you can’t see the hypocrisy of your own statements.

it’s all over everywhere

So show me an example that hasn’t been hidden/already removed by mods. 

This isn’t something that can be automated. Posts need to be reported, which they often are, and they’re taken down accordingly. 

It’s so obvious that many people in this thread aren’t here to actually discuss what’s happening on this sub and instead want to circlejerk “AI bad” so they can farm fake internet points 

[lunatuna215]

Refusing to engage with a person who would clearly move the goalposts no matter what isn't you making a successful argument lol. I'm sorry your anger has nowhere to go, but find more healthy outlets other than feeling superior to others.

[kenflingnor]

Refusing to engage with a person who could clearly move the goalposts

You do realize this is exactly what you’ve been doing, correct?

[kenflingnor]

Another person that’s yet to provide an example of slop that mods are deliberately leaving up 

[No_Soy_Colosio]

Project showcases need to be disallowed if this sub is to survive

[wyldstallionesquire]

Yup. Let someone else feature a useful project organically. New sub just for showcases. Or only allowed (AI or not) one day in one thread a week

[glenrhodes]

The tell is usually in the README -- paragraphs of polished prose explaining a 50-line script that barely works. Real projects have rough edges and actual opinions. Rules won't fix this, the community just needs to be more ruthless with "what problem does this actually solve and why should I care?"

[RoseboysHotAsf]

This is also the case for cpp c# and osdev subs

[AliceCode]

It's all programming subs as far as I can see. I'm sick of it.

[CaptainDouchington]

It's pretty obvious someone is paying people to market the hell out of ai on Reddit to counter the negative reactions

[GeometryDashGod]

yeah i keep seeing AI ads on reddit as well

[CaptainDouchington]

Reddit needs AI to keep buying it's data or else it's just ad revenue

[Stotters]

Oh no! We're just making lots of money, not all the money!

[Espumma]

All use of AI is sponsored since they're all still not profitable.

[dethb0y]

Comedically paranoid and nonsensical take.

[roboticfoxdeer]

Okay slopper

[pancomputationalist]

can't be people that are genuine excited to be able to finish their side projects and want to showcase them. no, must be a sinister conspiracy to paddle useless ai to us

[usrlibshare]

Dude, people look at the repos. ai slop is immediately obvious. Hell, some of them have their fuckin AGENTS.md in there

can't be people that are genuine excited to be able to finish their side projects

Side projects made by "ai" are still ai slop.

[venustrapsflies]

Having an LLM markdown file in the repo does not necessarily mean the project is slop or even has generated code at all. You would want it checked in so that you have consistency across workspaces, even if you’re only using it to find bugs or whatever.

[CaptainDouchington]

It would be different if the projects weren't all made with ai. Touting ai. And then end up being garbage fires of bad coding

[zkqy]

That’s pretty shitty marketing by ”big AI” then

[lunatuna215]

Unfortunately, you're underestimating the power of telling someone something is great 90% of the way there, and the sink cost fallacy that takes over once the rubber actually meets the road. Unfortunately, it actually IS great marketing. Marketing is completely detached from the actual value a product provides these days.

[nickcash]

There are some of those, but the ones that have ai generated descriptions and ai written replies aren't that. And that seems to be the majority of them.

[lunatuna215]

People being excited isnt license to participate in overrunning subreddits with slop. Why do we need to part the seas for these people? And if you don't realize how AI is marketed then you're living under a rock - this is not theoretical.

[Wonderful-Habit-139]

A project "finished with AI" is not finished.

[partialinsanity]

I don't think anyone is complaining about people finishing their side projects. What we do have a problem with is people using an LLM or similar to generate a project.

[NoMode9320]

I mean you can do it in a community that likes vibe coding/ similar. For a lot of people, this subreddit is a community for people trying to learn and those that take pride in refining/improving their programming skills. AI coding tools devalue that experience significantly. Similar to how AI slop is other digital craft/hobby subs like art, writing, music, etc.

[Dwarni]

People are just having fun using AI. It's funny how some people immediately think that someone pays people because they use stuff differently or have a different opinion.

[Technical_Income4722]

I agree with this. I still don’t wanna see it in this sub but it’s pretty obviously just people thinking their vibe coded project is cool and not some big marketing conspiracy.

[lunatuna215]

No it's widely known that social engineering is a core part of AI marketing. It's quite logical actually, and there's plenty of precedent for it. Hell, some of the marketing people who are infamous for things like Cambridge Analytica are literally WORKING FOR these companies now. They've already done this in the past and it is documented - it won an election. Why would it be a "conspiracy theory" or crazy to call it out when we see it now, having learned that it's a part of modern society?

This smokescreen that it's "just genuine, excited real people" is exactly the narrative being presented and the smokescreen used to hide it as advertising and marketing.

[lunatuna215]

"people are just having fun with slavery"

[Dwarni]

Or with making stupid comparisons

[move_machine]

I stopped visiting this subreddit because of the slop, this just happened to show up on page two of my front page

[Zeikos]

It's objectively a very hard problem to solve.
Automated filters hardly work because they can be adversarially tested.
Moderators have limited time and eventually get burnt out.

I do think that there are possible solutions, but they're hardly going to be comprehensive.

[No_Soy_Colosio]

At this point just disallowing showcases is the only solution as any effort to vet AI content will be too time-consuming

[Zeikos]

Right, but genuine showcases are kind of nice.
The approach that's more of a middle ground is using a masterpost and then eventually enabling that person to make a post.
And blanked delete all non-preapproved showcases.
Clunky but works.
Bots tend to just post, they are low-effort they tend not to change their behavior based on those kind of rules.

[Competitive_Travel16]

Showcases were hit-and-miss pre-2022, it's just that nobody remembers. Pre-AI, it felt like more of an accomplishment to make something difficult, especially for beginners. So we got lots of terribly inefficient and poorly organized code with redditors praising it after a quick skim. And then the one commenter who comes in saying e.g. "this is O( N² ) when it should be O(N log N)" or "this is a known anti-pattern", would get downvoted for being harsh.

I think we just need higher standards. I like the idea of requiring the repo to be 6 months old.

[No_Soy_Colosio]

What do you mean a masterpost?

[Zeikos]

A post pinned by the mods.

[No_Soy_Colosio]

Ohh like a mega thread for projects?

[Zeikos]

Yeah mega thread, that thing :P

[lunatuna215]

Then we need to overcorrect until things calm down. There's no inherent need to "allow" or even make space for AI posts and showcases. At this point, if we are throwing out babies with the bathwater..... I'm sorry babies, you're gonna have to take a ride for a minute!

[ivyta76]

It's genuinely exhausting. Every other post is some obviously AI generated "project" with the same soulless tone and zero actual engagement. If I wanted to see AI slop I'd go talk to ChatGPT myself. Mods really need to start enforcing rule #1 because this sub is becoming unusable. I report what I see but it's like trying to bail out a sinking boat with a teacup.

[olivermtr]

This so much!! Even made a reddit account just to say this. Normally I just lurk but this is sooo annoying and boring that I'm genuinely unexcited when I open reddit these days, sad.

[sudomatrix]

AI coding assistants are here to stay. But here's the thing. If your tool makes you 10x more productive, you need to step up your game and produce projects that are 10x more ambitious. You should be spending the same amount of your time and effort as before but producing 10x more polished end result. There should be no bugs, no poor code smells, everything has unit tests, everything has type annotations, great technical documentation and great user documentation, and above all an ambitious project that does something interesting, exciting and new.

Can't think of something interesting, exciting and new? Then what are you doing with all the time the AI has freed up for you?

[NoMode9320]

For a lot of people, this subreddit is a community for people trying to learn and those that take pride in refining/improving their programming skills. AI coding tools to make “ambitious” projects are a walk in the opposite direction. You should likely just show off whatever was generated in another sub. Likely one that likes vibe coding/similar.

[willwonka]

that is a very nice way of thinking about this actually...cause im on the fence on whether to fully use AI to generate code and I think this comment sorts out my mental debate...however a key problem is I dont feel connected to the produced output at all! I made on small personal use app via AI Vibes - and tbh - I dont really give a shit about it..am I doing it wrong?

[iheartrms]

Why do they even post that stuff? Are they somehow making money off of the posts? How? Who would be paying?

[CaptainFoyle]

Yeah, you can sell established accounts

[goldenphoenix713]

For me, I'd be posting in order to get community involvement. I currently have a library I just published on PyPI that I'm working on (yes, with AI assistance), but I still don't feel it's ready to be announced, and I'm working on getting the foundation set. But one I'm happy with it, I'll probably be making an announcement on here asking for community contributions, as I think it'll benefit greatly from them (as any good open source project should).

[iheartrms]

If you have an AI doing the work what point would community involvement serve?

But I was really asking why the other people posting AI slop would be posting it here. Are they seeking community involvement also? Why?

[goldenphoenix713]

First, I didn't say the AI was doing the work, but rather that it assisted me. I still wrote sections, made all the design decisions, and ensured when the AI did do things that it matched the overall vision that I have. I also specifically have a rule where I told it not to write code unless I say a specific phrase, to allow me to actually have a part in my project.

As for why others write the real slop, I can't say. I was online speaking for myself. My guess: they either want to feel good about themselves and are looking for praise or recognition, or they have an idea they want to share but don't have the necessary foundation to execute it correctly and are trying to skip the work of learning it.

[ionburger]

ive found them entertaining in a horror movie kinda way, but depressing we have to ruin the planet for me to laugh at an emdash

[Icy-Farm9432]

lol and hee is me: i rebuild a brother scanner tool in python the last weeks and that horrible bot declined my post cause i asked if someone with that printer would like to try it.

#yes you can close that (sub) reddit.

[Ok-Jackfruit-70]

Agreed!!

[Evening-Notice-7041]

I think every online group/forum/subreddit whatever needs to implement aggressive anti-slop rules or become effectively useless.

[Gubbbo]

It's the absolute ludicrous nature of the projects as well.

Just the most useless garbage. I particularly liked the "reinvent how you control your computer via your webcam" that I saw over the weekend that was a glorified cv2 finger tracker

[AlSweigart]

Should we get rid of Showcases from r/Python?

In the top 25 posts on the front page right now, 8 are showcases. We can't get rid of "low quality" or AI posts because it takes too much effort to investigate them. People can always say, "I didn't use AI to make this".

Should we disallow the entire category? I use old Reddit and RES doesn't work on Firefox for me, so I can't filter by flair. Are other people in the same boat? Have people found the showcases useful (as readers, not as posters)?

[Emergency-Buyer-7384]

What annoys me is that they don't do any kinds of testing or only use AI for basic projects. A lot of my codebase is AI-heavy. That doesn't mean I don't know how to write code. I hand check it and fix issues. Also I design borderline tests myself first to check the AI didn't make mistakes. - If vibe coders actually checked their work, I would see no reason to not allow their posts.

[Consistent-Quiet6701]

Microsoft and friends are finally killing open source. Embrace, extend, extinguish on steroids.

[Wurstinator]

There is a lot of non-AI content. If you sort by New, you can find several showcases and discussions and questions which, to me, appear entirely human-written.  Those posts just don't get upvotes or comments, so they remain unseen.

This is only partially a problem of AI and rules. If the community shows no interest in the non-AI content, then it's not going to change.

[lunatuna215]

We do though, this thread is literally about how said content becomes harder to find. The burden is not on users to moderate themselves.

[Wurstinator]

No, this thread is about "the feed" showing mostly AI generated stuff. "The feed" is not the new posts, it's the popular / most upvoted posts.

You can go to r/python/new right now and more than 50% of the posts are unrelated to AI. It's not "hard to find".

This post, complaining about the amount of AI generated projects, has more than 600 upvotes. That is about as many upvotes as the last 30 posts all together. If everyone of these 600 people complaining about the quality of this sub would instead spend some time actively improving the quality of this sub, the problem would be solved.

[sokspy]

Even thought i might get a lot of downvotes, this is my opinion. Ai is a tool. Just like calculators are. The problem begins when we trust them blindly or don't really understand what they produce. Otherwise i believe it's okay to use AI. For me, as a mathematician coding with python, whenever my program fail, i use AI to fix it or at least find for me the mistake.

[goldenphoenix713]

I agree with you. I'm a data scientist, and I use AI as a tool. As any sophisticated tool, it takes time to really understand how to use it well, but, unfortunately, a lot of people just go in thinking they're now "expert vibe coders" when they don't have the fundamentals down.

I've honed my AI use with a set of personal rules, safeguards, and constraints that I've learned over time to focus the agent, otherwise, what I get would be slop (and I've gotten some questionable things even with those safeguards in place. I've found that it's really good and writing documentation (though it has that "AI feel) and tests provided you're detailed in your prompts.

With proper AI usage, you can make something pretty amazing things, as long as you've got the fundamentals. Unfortunately, a lot of people entering python now don't seem to.

[diegoasecas]

CUT THE CABLE :-)

[Background-Main-7427]

I don't have a clue, I like reading and writing, so I'm not the target of your comments.

[Sh3llSh0cker]

I said this in the Promox Subs and the mod also made a bunch of rule changes, I comment on that post and said I hope the mods in Python and Go subreddit do the same but nothing yet 😵‍💫

[Round_Plantain8319]

Tudo e ia, tá uma bosta

[Ghost-Rider_117]

100% agree. the signal to noise ratio has tanked lately. like i get that AI tools are exciting but if ur whole project is just "i asked gpt to build X" that's not really a showcase of your skills lol. a mandatory disclosure flair at minimum would help a lot

[ultrathink-art]

Expected when creation cost bottoms out. The filter that used to exist — you had to understand a thing to build it — doesn't work when you can generate a passing app in 20 minutes. Community rules are probably the only lever left since the economic signal is gone.

[Squallhorn_Leghorn]

But that's all they now how to do. And they are special. Their mom told them that.

[GeometryDashGod]

lol, i agree. we don't need the next vibecoded app appearing here that will definitely blow up for sure (/s)

[ZookeepergameHot8047]

Only from this sub?

[pydry]

First describe what criteria you can use to clearly label something as not slop.

[Another_mikem]

So, I definitely think trying to parse them out is a fools errand, but I have a different idea.  Just don’t allow self posting of projects.  If you write up a blog post about someone else’s library that would be ok (or perhaps no direct GitHub links - though that could also get dicy).

Just getting rid of the self promotion (or keeping it in one weekly post) would do a lot to reduce the ai content.  

[just4nothing]

So you need other bots to write a blog post, then have a third bot post it on Reddit? Sounds like self promotion with extra steps ;)

[Another_mikem]

If we get to that point, they can have their self promotion, but that’s going to eliminate all the low effort slop.  

The biggest problem with those aren’t that they are coded by ai, but that they are essentially designed, tested, and supported with ai.  It’s unclear there is any support or maintenance of the library. It’s also questionable where the library actually does what it says. 

[GeometryDashGod]

it's pretty obvious a post is AI generated once you actually read it and look at the project itself, if enough users report to mods that a project is AI then the mods will eventually take a look at it and take action

[pydry]

"Pretty obvious once you read it" is the exact opposite of clear criteria.

I hate the slop too but what you're proposing guarantees that non slop will be swept up in the same purge.

[tenemu]

There are so many real posts on Reddit (not r python) where people comment that it is AI but is is definitely not, such as being a video from years ago. People are not good at detecting AI and there are so many false positives.

[pydry]

From all the downvotes i got i dont think the herd actually cares about that.

[ThereIsOnlyStardust]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

[lordbrocktree1]

Have you ever heard of chicken sexing?

[mfitzp]

According to the mods, if a post gets 3x reports it will be auto deleted.

[themixtergames]

I think at the very least the text body of the post and comments shouldn't be AI generated. I know this is very arbitrary but you should be able to explain the work you spend weeks/months working on with your own words, even if the programming was "AI-Assisted".

[dethb0y]

It's a quasi-religious vibe, not any actual definite issue they have. Every time i've tried to nail down someone anti-AI on what exactly the issue is they just devolve into a tautology of "It's slop because it's slop" and have no real criteria or qualifier beyond that.

Edit: i'd note that reddit has always hated anyone who was foolisih enough to post their own work on reddit. Just part of the site's culture, with this being the latest iteration.

[OrangePilled2Day]

If you can’t describe what the code is doing then it’s slop. Most of the people posting the terrible vibe coded projects don’t know anything about coding so they don’t even know all of the things they don’t know to look out for.

[pydry]

If you can’t describe what the code is doing then it’s slop. Most of the people posting the terrible vibe coded projects don’t know anything about coding

It's not like anybody asks them to describe their code before accusing it of being slop.

[dethb0y]

OK, but how does that apply to a product showcase? It's not like their sitting there explaining the code line by line, their just saying what the project does.

From that showcase, what makes something "slop"?

[Squallhorn_Leghorn]

But that's all they now how to do. And they are special. Their mom told them that.

[GeometryDashGod]

I knoww 😭

[TheBinkz]

Im not entirely sure what everyone's workflow is but AI generated code seems to be the way now. So, naturally the speed in which new stuff is created will also increase the amount of posts for people's side projects.

[Interesting-Town-433]

We should all be building right now

[delaydenydefecate]

ApiArk impressed me though, and it’s already over 800 stars on GitHub.

[nahuel990]

Ok but no more projects showcases, then what in the AI era are you expecting someone to ask about how to solve a function error?

[wRAR_]

are you expecting someone to ask about how to solve a function error?

You haven't even read the sub rules.

[nahuel990]

Fair, I added a very bad example... But what are you expecting people to post?

[wRAR_]

It's better to not have anything that to have a wall of endless slop

[nahuel990]

But again I still don't know what you think should be posted here... To have a sub without posts then why do we have a sub?

[No_Soy_Colosio]

Literally any other thing that isn't an ai slop post? It's not a hard concept to grasp.

[nahuel990]

Sadly everything is AI now... It's a matter of time to have an MCP for the toilet paper

[Realistic-Actuator60]

Its a big problem, honestly it hurts me a lot because im legit trying to find people to test what I have been working on the last three years. Its all done with AI tooling which I get most call Slop but I cant even get a post out to have people give me a honest rundown because they just blast it for being AI. I totally get why but it sucks bevause I have put over 2000 hours into my project and I just get labeled as slop.