Announcement Welcome to Technical Projects! (READ ME BEFORE POSTING)

[iforgetwhyimhere]

Welcome to Technical Projects!
Technical Projects, or TP for short, is where the community makes and shares tools for all things Pokemon--damage calculators, replay analyzers, teambuilding tools, custom styles, and more.

Before posting, please read the following rules.
General Rules
1. Your post should be of a project you have worked on. Don't post other people's work, no matter how cool it is.
2. You should explain what your project does.
3. Be prepared to answer questions. You as the author should have a thorough understanding of how your code works.
4. Projects should adhere to the scope of Pokemon/Smogon/PS!. This forum is not for your other projects.
5. Including a way to financially support you is okay, but no subscription services or otherwise paywalled content should be shared here.
6. Users should be able to interact with your project in some way. The exception to this is PS! Bots.
7. No ROM hacks, pirated content, or other illegal/sketchy content.
8. Never collect personally identifiable information (PII) for any reason.


AI Use Policy
As it currently stands, AI assisted code is allowed in Technical Projects under the following restrictions:
1. Your project should not be entirely guided or developed by AI.
2. You should understand how your project works. If you can't understand it, you shouldn't expect others to do so.


Links
Coming with the nature of the forum, many threads will have off-site links. When sharing links, make sure to follow these rules:
1. Links should be relevant. On- or off- site links to research, code repositories, and the project's active website are all perfectly acceptable.
2. Don't self-advertise. If you know or have published a video with an explanation of your project, or a great answer to a question, please do share it, but don't share links just to gather views.
3. If you shared a link that has expired or changed, be sure to update it.
4. Don't share excessive amounts of links. People here know what most coding languages, basic methods, etc. are.
If any link seems suspicious, please feel free to message any forum moderator about it and we will take a look.


Asking Good Questions
We love to see discussion around projects -- that's the heart of the forum. When asking a question (for technical help, or about someone else's project), please follow these few extra rules:
1. Your question should be specific. A good question is, "What are the best methods for deep reinforcement learning on a small-scale?". A bad question is, "How do I train my model?"
2. Your question should adhere to the forum, and project, if applicable. Don't hijack other threads into your personal tech support thread.
3. Never ask someone to make something for you. Feature suggestions are OKAY unless the OP has requested not, but do not request custom projects. In this same manner, do not privately message users about creating a project for you.

 

[iforgetwhyimhere]

Tagging onto this: Don't mindlessly doompost about people's projects or the future of AI. It doesn't do anyone any good. If you don't like the project, don't engage in it.

 

[Runo]

AI Use Policy
As it currently stands, AI assisted code is allowed in Technical Projects under the following restrictions:
1. Your project should not be entirely guided or developed by AI.
2. You should understand how your project works. If you can't understand it, you shouldn't expect others to do so.

Click to collapse...

In regards to AI usage in projects:
Due to the nature of AI being relatively hard to deduce the degree of its involvement, we (the forum moderators) will be applying moderator discretion to decide if a thread is worth taking action on.

To reiterate, you should not be using AI to do all of the work for you. AI-assistance in projects is meant to be a tool, not a crutch. Having a good concept for a project, but off-loading massive amounts of the work to an AI-assistance tool is unsatisfactory. If you cannot create a sizable bulk of the project yourself, you should not be posting it here or calling it your own creation. The point of this rule being in place is to encourage development of high-quality, human-lead projects.

If you do opt to use AI in your program, and are concerned about being flagged, here are some steps you can take to minimize your risk:

1. Add an AI-usage disclaimer to your post.
   • If we have to spend a great deal of time confirming our suspicions we are more likely to dole out a harsher punishment.
   • A disclaimer helps further to elaborate to what extent AI was used in your project (where, and why, it was used)
2. Avoid using AI/LLMs (or an equivalent tool) to write your post(s).
   • Using an LLM to translate your post from another language is tolerated as long as you declare it, however you should not blindly copy-paste your responses.
3. Check to see if your project is redundant or derivative of other active projects.
   • Projects that fulfill any of the following criteria are less likely to be infracted:
     • The project fills a particular niche (nobody else has created a project similar to yours, and it serves a practical application).
     • The project takes an existing project/idea and builds upon it in some way.
       • If you are doing this, prepare to explain what it does better than any similar tools.
4. Consider making your project open-source so your code can be analyzed.
   • If your project is related to Pokemon Showdown! battle bots, we ask that you do not do this for now. Failure to abide by this policy may result in your post being deleted, accompanied by additional punishments.
5. Try to avoid using website UI that has overly-professional / corporate design and formatting (AI-generated sites have a very distinct look and "feel" to them).
   • If it feels AI, it's probably AI. Note that this won't get you infracted for its presence alone, but it is incredibly indicative of AI's involvement in the project.

Following these guidelines will not guarantee your post is safe from being flagged. However, being clear and honest in your explanation of your project makes it less likely to be removed.

The main purpose of this rule is to ensure people are putting effort, creativity, and innovation into their projects.