[HN Gopher] Stop Sloppypasta
___________________________________________________________________
Stop Sloppypasta
Author : namnnumbr
Score : 43 points
Date : 2026-03-15 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stopsloppypasta.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (stopsloppypasta.ai)
| namnnumbr wrote:
| Tired of people at work pasting raw ChatGPT output into chats, I
| coined the term "sloppypasta" and have written this rant to
| explain why it's rude and some guidelines for what to do instead
|
| sloppypasta: Verbatim LLM output copy-pasted at someone, unread,
| unrefined, and unrequested. From slop (low-quality AI-generated
| content) + copypasta (text copied and pasted, often as a meme,
| without critical thought). It is considered rude because it asks
| the recipient to do work the sender did not bother to do
| themselves.
| stabbles wrote:
| I wouldn't call "ChatGPT says" an equivalent of LMGTFY. The
| former is people in awe with the oracle, the latter is people
| tired of having to look something up for others.
| verdverm wrote:
| I would say LMAAFY is like LMGTFY, where as the sloppypasta is
| more like pasting search results list without vetting them.
| That is, there are two phases to this phenomenon, query and
| results.
| uniq7 wrote:
| This article's proposal for stopping sloppypasta is to convince
| the people who does it to stop doing it, but I am more interested
| on what someone who receives sloppypasta can do.
|
| How do I tell my colleagues to stop contributing unverified AI
| output without creating tension between us?
|
| I've never did that so far because I feel like I am either
| exposing their serious lack of professionalism or, if I wrongly
| assumed it was AI, I am plainly telling them that their work
| looks like bad AI slop.
| verdverm wrote:
| I've had some luck pointing out where the AI is wrong in their
| sloppypasta, delicate as one can. Avoiding shame or
| embarrassment can be a powerful motivator.
|
| The most interesting incident for me is having someone take our
| Discourse thread, paste it into AI to validate their feelings
| being hurt (I took a follow up prompt to go full sycophancy),
| and then posting the response back that lambasted me. The mods
| handled that one before I was aware, but I then did the same
| thing, giving different prompts, and never sharing the output.
| It was an intriguing experience and exploration. I've since
| been even more mindful of my writing, sometimes using similar
| prompts to adjust my tone or call me out. I still write the
| first pass myself, rarely relying on AI for editing.
| namnnumbr wrote:
| I wrote this intending it to be directly sharable and/or to
| provide a framework for how to have that discussion, kind of
| like a nohello.net or dontasktoask.com.
|
| I've found success having sidebar conversations with the
| colleague (e.g., not in the main public thread where they
| pasted slop), explaining why it was disruptive and suggesting
| how they might alter their behavior. It may also be useful to
| see if you can propose or contribute to a broader policy on
| appropriate AI use/contribution with AI, and leverage that
| policy as the conversation justification?
| kace91 wrote:
| >How do I tell my colleagues to stop contributing unverified AI
| output without creating tension between us?
|
| Pattern rather than person? General team reviews or the like.
| As long as it's not tech leadership pressing for it..
| incognito124 wrote:
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44617172
| namnnumbr wrote:
| 100% - was inspired by and quote "It's rude to show AI output
| to people" in this. Thanks for linking the discussions!
| madrox wrote:
| I find that I don't have a lot of sympathy for people angry at
| this type of behavior, even though I share the disdain for
| someone else's AI output. The people doing this kind of thing are
| not the kind of people to be reading this manifesto. We've been
| creating bait content for a long time, and humans have never been
| given the tools to manage this in any sophisticated fashion. The
| internet was not a bastion of high quality content or discourse
| pre-AI.
|
| I do find it interesting that people don't mind AI content, as
| long it's "their AI." The moment someone thinks it's someone
| else's AI output, the reaction is visceral.
|
| I suspect the endgame of this is probably the fulfillment of Dead
| Internet Theory, where it's just AI browsing the internet for
| content, and users will never engage with it directly. That
| person who spent 10 seconds getting AI to write something will be
| consumed by AI as well, only to be surfaced to you when you ask
| the AI to summon and summarize.
|
| And if that fills people with horror at the inefficiency of it
| all, well, like I said, it isn't like the internet was a bastion
| of efficiency before. We smiled and laughed for years that all of
| this technology and power is just being used to share cat videos.
| valicord wrote:
| > I do find it interesting that people don't mind AI content,
| as long it's "their AI." The moment someone thinks it's someone
| else's AI output, the reaction is visceral.
|
| Isn't it obvious? If I'd wanted to see AI response to my
| question, I'd ask it myself (maybe I already did). If I'm
| asking humans, I want to see human responses. I eat fast-food
| sometimes, but if I was served a Big Mac at a sit down
| restaurant I'd be properly upset.
| madrox wrote:
| > If I'm asking humans, I want to see human responses I find
| this fascinating, honestly. It shouldn't matter as long as it
| addresses your ask, yet it does. I also wish I could filter
| social media on "it's not X. It's Y"
|
| Because it's probably not actually about the content but the
| sense of connection. People want to feel like they're
| connecting to people. That they're being worthy of someone's
| else's time and attention.
|
| And if that's what people are seeking, slack and social media
| are probably not the platforms for it (and, arguably, never
| was).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-15 23:00 UTC)