Re: The Slopification of the CCG

Alan wrote: "in the interest of people with less time to read than I, any
post longer than a paragraph or two should start with a tldr."

Unfortunately, the utility of concision is inversely proportional to the
novelty of the expression. But, while that sentence is fairly concise, if I
didn't know the word "concision," or if I assumed you didn't, I might have
written many more words, e.g. "The utility of expressing ideas clearly,
using the fewest necessary words,..."

bob wyman


On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 1:29 PM Alan Karp <alanhkarp@gmail.com> wrote:

> Not to denigrate anyone's posts, including this one, but one complaint
> seems to be the length of posts contributed by AI.  I find it ironic that
> many such posts are quite long.  I personally find that content
> interesting, but perhaps, in the interest of people with less time to read
> than I, any post longer than a paragraph or two should start with a tldr.
>
> --------------
> Alan Karp
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 10:20 AM Moses Ma <
> moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com> wrote:
>
>> Nikos,
>>
>> I wanted to applaud your candor, which was refreshingly straightforward.
>> However, I urge everyone to adhere to the unspoken goal of inclusivity
>> here. We need to be peacemakers.
>>
>> Anyway, your post primed the pump of ideas.
>>
>>  1) A small experiment I ran recently showed ~25% of people in this forum
>> can’t reliably distinguish LLM output from human writing. So some of what
>> gets labeled “AI slop” is actually just perception. But that’s almost
>> beside the point here. The real issue isn’t AI—it’s verbosity as a
>> strategy.
>>
>> 2) Standards groups generally follow a few structural dynamics:
>>
>>    - inclusion > exclusion
>>    - visibility = influence
>>    - language = control
>>
>> What’s changed is that AI has reduced the cost of writing. So individuals
>> who were already inclined to, ah, “over-contribute” can now scale that
>> behavior, flooding the channel with low-signal, self-promotional, or
>> tangential content. These people are like the blowhards at a company who
>> believe that talking really loud and constantly mansplaining is a success
>> strategy. This is not the kind of leadership we need in the 21st century.
>>
>> The failure mode isn’t just annoyance—it’s attention capture by volume,
>> where a few verbose participants degrade signal-to-noise for everyone else.
>> What we really need is an AI with a  *bloviation sensor*. Most of us do
>> this internally by simply not reading certain posts, until we’ve had enough
>> and lash out. Then the bloviator is justified in feeling attacked.
>>
>> Therefore, instead of  debating tools or reputation, it may be more
>> productive to consider the possibility of placing lightweight guardrails on
>> contribution quality:
>>
>>    - Contribution caps per cycle (forces prioritization)
>>    - One idea per message (no multi-topic dumps or longwinded responses
>>    like this one)
>>    - Editorial compression rights (chairs or AI can edit and summarize
>>    without loss of weight)
>>    - Track signal-to-noise to reward reputation for increased caps (what
>>    actually survives into the draft)
>>
>> Something like this would get us out of policing individuals or tools,
>> and back to protecting the quality of the work.
>>
>> 3) I think that in a few years, people who refuse to use LLMs—essentially
>> “artisanal writers”—will seem as quaint as luddites who refuse to use
>> Google.   I added the em dashes to show that a human generated response can
>> still use em dashes, they are not the six fingers of LLM writing. I like
>> them because they force the mind to “slow the breath” while reading.
>>
>> To wrap up, the happy ending I’d love to see is something likely
>> impossible. My preference is a new kind of process that nurtures growth, by
>> encouraging the hesitant to find their voice, novices to get up to speed
>> faster, and the emergence of greater self-awareness by the bloviators.
>>
>> I’m actually working on a Web 89.0 vision of this vision (haha)….
>>
>> My incubator is building a “stealth-ish mode” startup called EmergentYOU
>> with the goal of creating something that could provide a labor transition
>> cushion for the AI era—using longitudinal coaching, hyperpersonalized
>> learning pathways, and an AI career co-pilot to continuously align people
>> with opportunity. It converts disruption into mobility by linking skills,
>> employers, and outcomes in a closed-loop system that compounds human
>> potential over time. We’ll announce the EmergentYOU concept at Human
>> Tech Week in San Francisco next month.
>>
>> Anyway, I’ve been thinking about we’re extending EmergentYOU into
>> EmergentUS, to support teams: an intelligence layer designed to increase group
>> cohesion, reduce participation disparity, and enhance group consonance.
>> The system nudges quieter participants to contribute, modulates dominant
>> voices, and elevates high-signal input—creating balanced, adaptive dialogue
>> and measurably stronger collective performance. However, the real issue is
>> that the entire team would need to agree to undergo the process. If there
>> is interest in piloting EmergentUS in an SDO context… let me know.
>>
>> – Moses
>>
>>
>> PS, if you’re in the SF Bay Area and would like to attend our event at
>> Human Tech Week… let me know too.
>>
>>
>> <moses@nureon-eda.ai>
>>
>> On Apr 23, 2026 at 12:55 AM, <NIKOLAOS FOTIOY <fotiou@aueb.gr>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>> I think we are losing the context here. The problem is that certain
>> perfectly identifiable individuals spam the list with mostly meaningless,
>> self-promotional content. For example, every couple of messages I receive
>> some web 7.0 irrelevant, non sense. AI tools have just made their job
>> easier to generate content. Blaming AI tools is just a polite way to say to
>> those individuals “please stop you are creating too much noise”
>>
>> Best,
>> Nikos
>>
>> 23 Απρ 2026, 10:36 πμ, ο χρήστης «Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com>»
>> έγραψε:
>>
>> 
>> Hi Adrian,
>>
>> I do not think the concern is about restricting the use of tools. People
>> will use whatever tools are available to them—that’s inevitable.
>>
>> The issue is that reputation alone is not a strong enough primitive for
>> systems that aim to operate at scale and across jurisdictions.
>>
>> In distributed environments, we typically rely on properties like:
>>
>>    - verifiable provenance
>>    - non-repudiation
>>    - integrity of authorship
>>
>> These are not about limiting expression, but about ensuring that
>> contributions can be evaluated independent of the individual’s perceived
>> credibility.
>>
>> Saying “my reputation will suffer if I’m wrong” assumes:
>>
>>    1. reputations are consistently observable across contexts, and
>>    2. reputational consequences are sufficient deterrent
>>
>> In practice, neither assumption holds reliably—especially in global,
>> asynchronous systems.
>>
>> On enforcement: Global enforcement is not realistic. That’s precisely why
>> systems tend to push guarantees down to verifiable layers rather than
>> relying on behavioral expectations at the application layer.
>>
>> So perhaps the problem is not tool usage vs. responsibility, but:
>>
>> how do we make authorship and intent more verifiable without constraining
>> participation?
>>
>> Regards
>> Amir Hameed
>>
>> On Thu, 23 Apr 2026 at 12:15 PM, Adrian Gropper <agropper@healthurl.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It’s fundamentally unfair to restrict my use of technology if I’m
>>> willing to take full responsibility for the posting. My reputation should
>>> suffer just as much if a post offends regardless of what tools I may have
>>> used.
>>>
>>> The problem seems to be that we have no way to enforce human
>>> responsibility.
>>>
>>> As I see it, this is the only problem. I wish we were discussing
>>> solutions.
>>>
>>> Adrian
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 9:04 AM Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> We are discussing decentralised standards on a centralised email
>>>> mailing list which is open to receive anything , it worked earlier because
>>>> there was a limited capability a user had in terms of what they could
>>>> research, type an email, structure it well and then send it to the mailing
>>>> list, we had very few people who really were willing to put their work and
>>>> time and help develop standards , few years back the same user has been
>>>> handed over a tool where he can write a sentence and get multiple
>>>> paragraphs answer that too structured in a intelligent way but may not be
>>>> factual, it’s obvious that users who ever wished to write an email to the
>>>> mailing list but could not do that due to lack of both energy to research ,
>>>> draft and put it forward for discussion might think of using these tools to
>>>> overcome that barrier to entry, it’s similar to industry revolution, there
>>>> was a time when only elite could afford a car because there was no assembly
>>>> line and it was done with hands manually , once we had assembly lines
>>>> anyone could buy a car if they had money.
>>>>
>>>> Our current technology has reached another assembly line moment, this
>>>> time it’s not cars but human skills, reasoning ,  and information systems.
>>>> So this points us to something deeper and that is we need to rethink the
>>>> entire process now, patching doesn’t always help like Kyle said ,
>>>> reputation is not helpful in open ecosystems , we may have to elevate the
>>>> criteria of what is valuable once intelligence and skills become a
>>>> commodity and we need to think of humans as artists in the industrial
>>>> world. Technology is not always the only answer , before we decide anything
>>>> , let’s step back and rethink how the whole thing has changed ever since
>>>> intelligence became commodity and generative tools became digital
>>>> replacement of human skills. We may not have the mailing list itself in
>>>> future , transition period is always chaotic and we collectively navigate
>>>> it, I strongly believe for a better solution we need to rethink and come up
>>>> with some fresh perspectives like verifiable provenance, proof of
>>>> expertise, proof human , otherwise human signal will drown in this
>>>> asymmetry.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> PS: it’s written by me no tool was used in this except the mail itself
>>>> , It took me few more minutes but it’s worth it
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 21 Apr 2026 at 11:27 AM, Kyle Den Hartog <kyle@pryvit.tech>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Reputation systems work well as a heuristic metric when you’re
>>>>> operating in high re-interaction environments. That’s not really the case
>>>>> on the Web because of its openness properties where it's easy to build up
>>>>> and spend down identities in an automated fashion. It's made even easier
>>>>> with LLMs now too.
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, on this mailing list spammers could form new emails in
>>>>> seconds and form new identities to continue their attacks. If you set up a
>>>>> guard to prevent it you've now accepted the tradeoff of reduce openness and
>>>>> entered a cat and mouse game at the same time. There are discourse forums
>>>>> (polkadot and ZCash are 2 examples where I've encountered this) that have
>>>>> these techniques built in where you can only post once you’ve built up a
>>>>> reputation. They have specific threads that allow people with low
>>>>> reputation to engage and then you earn reputation over time. This comes
>>>>> with the tradeoff of reducing the openness of the system in exchange for a
>>>>> higher bar of entry. Maybe a poster has something legitimate to add to the
>>>>> conversation, but because they didn't build their reputation up enough they
>>>>> can't contribute. With automation like LLMs given to attackers these days,
>>>>> it's producing an asymmetric attack surface and reverting the solution more
>>>>> towards option one (Dark Forest theory - retreat to safe communication
>>>>> channels).
>>>>>
>>>>> Another example where we're dealing with these sorts of low value
>>>>> sybils is in Brave's hackerone bug bounty programs. There's evidence[1]
>>>>> from BugCrowd this could be security vendors using this to gather training
>>>>> data, but it also simply could be someone operating out of a lower wage
>>>>> country where one bug bounty report can be worth a month's salary or more.
>>>>> So they're incentivized to use an LLM to generate new identities on the
>>>>> fly, spam bug bounty programs, and if their signal degrades too much they
>>>>> drop and swap them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Additionally, I’m not sure how much you’ve been following the Web3 and
>>>>> public goods funding/DAO spaces, but they’ve actually been relying on these
>>>>> identity credential systems as a sybil resistance mechanism for a bit now.
>>>>> While there’s been mild success shown, the system over time has had to add
>>>>> capabilities to address different attacks that have been conducted. For
>>>>> example, Gitcoin Grants 24 saw a 60% reduction in sybil attack influence
>>>>> from their GG23 round[2]. They’re the most widely deployed system that I’ve
>>>>> seen trying to actively go down the route of identity based protections for
>>>>> Sybil attacks and spam. Worth a look for you at least but it's also worth
>>>>> pointing out they're producing a system that structurally still faces the
>>>>> problem as long as the incentives for conducting the attack are still high
>>>>> enough ($1.8 million dollars was given out in GG24). For their system they
>>>>> rely on over 20 different potential signals including government IDs,
>>>>> biometrics, social signals, and financial signals (Binance accounts which
>>>>> require KYC)[3]. Even then, people are still successfully conducting
>>>>> attacks against this system and as more systems are built on the same
>>>>> identity credential based sybil resistances (aka the reputation system atop
>>>>> it) the value of conducting a sybil attack grows because it can be
>>>>> repurposed across multiple systems.
>>>>>
>>>>> There's 2 other deployed identity credential systems that have also
>>>>> been working on this problem as well in the Web3 space with some issues.
>>>>> Idena[4] and Worldcoin[5] have fallen susceptible to some form of Sybil
>>>>> attacks also. From what I've seen, people are conducting "puppeteer
>>>>> attacks" where one person "puppets" many people who have digital IDs to
>>>>> coordinate in the system and conduct attacks. These typically occur
>>>>> through an attacker paying for some action to be taken in order to conduct
>>>>> the attack. Again, these attacks are usually successful because they're
>>>>> operating out of lower wage countries where the seemingly smaller amount of
>>>>> money paid makes the attack worth it.
>>>>>
>>>>> The point here is that attaching reputation systems onto this means
>>>>> you're in for a attack surface that has historically struggled to keep up.
>>>>> I'm not convinced that an email list is ready to deal with this let alone
>>>>> technology built through a standardization process that takes years to
>>>>> iterate on. Especially when the human(s) who are participating is actively
>>>>> coordinating with agents to conduct the spam or sybil attacks. So yeah,
>>>>> that's why I'm not really convinced identity credentials are going to be
>>>>> that useful. I'd be happy to be wrong, but what I'm seeing both in terms of
>>>>> real world adoption as well as attacks I've had to deal with (we've seen
>>>>> these sybil attacks against other systems in Brave too) identity
>>>>> credentials only go so far in solving the problem and they come with
>>>>> tradeoffs that normally aren't worth it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's some links for the citations made above as well.
>>>>> [1] Bugcrowd:
>>>>> https://www.bugcrowd.com/blog/bugcrowd-policy-changes-to-address-ai-slop-submissions/
>>>>> [2] Gitcoin reduces attacks:
>>>>> https://gitcoin.co/research/quadratic-funding-sybil-resistance
>>>>> [3] Gitcoin Signals:
>>>>> https://support.passport.xyz/passport-knowledge-base/stamps/how-do-i-add-passport-stamps/the-government-id-stamp
>>>>> [4] Idena:
>>>>> https://stanford-jblp.pubpub.org/pub/compressed-to-0-proof-personhood/release/5
>>>>> [5] Worldcoin:
>>>>> https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/singapore-officials-warns-against-worldcoin-account-trading/
>>>>>
>>>>> -Kyle
>>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>>> On Tuesday, 04/21/26 at 05:16 Casanova, Juan <J.Casanova@hw.ac.uk>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Kyle,
>>>>>
>>>>> You say
>>>>>
>>>>> Identity credentials are highly unlikely to stop this either which I
>>>>> suspect is where many in this community would want to turn. Identity
>>>>> credentials just turn the issue back into a key management problem and we
>>>>> don’t really have a great way to prevent a user from sharing their keys
>>>>> with their agent. That problem persists whether the system has a delegation
>>>>> solution or not too.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think there may be an important "but" to this. I think some of the
>>>>> things you suggest later may relate to it, or some of the ideas that Will
>>>>> discussed later. I'm definitely sure that there has been much more
>>>>> discussion about things like this and more attempted approaches to similar
>>>>> things that I am aware, as I still consider myself a newbie here. However,
>>>>> let me state my view...
>>>>>
>>>>> While you can't prevent a user from sharing their keys with their
>>>>> agent, you can have, like you said "pseudo-reputation" systems attached to
>>>>> keys, that take time and good contributions to build, and are deteriorated
>>>>> when providing lower quality contributions. I believe this can be achieved
>>>>> without systematically breaking sovereignty. These hypothetical system(s)
>>>>> could span across multiple mediums, they don't need to be constrained to
>>>>> single contexts, and be optional and complementary rather than strictly
>>>>> enforced, but they could help both as a deterrent for people haphazardly
>>>>> sharing unfiltered AI contents (I refuse to use the word slop because I
>>>>> feel it has connotations that challenge civil conversations and is pretty
>>>>> much a slur, even if I understand what people mean by it), and as a way for
>>>>> people to identify and neutralize persistent sources of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> In my view, this is no different to what we already do in our physical
>>>>> embodied life. We have face recognition embedded into us (most of us), and
>>>>> we learn to create an internal opinion of other people based on their
>>>>> interactions with us. When somebody consistently steals our time with
>>>>> pointless drivel and unfiltered contributions, we don't need to put them in
>>>>> jail, put a sign over their heads that says they are unworthy, or
>>>>> (generally speaking) prohibit them from participating in public life. We
>>>>> simply don't pay as much attention to them, because we know who they are
>>>>> and what their usual approach to contributions is. Identity online simply
>>>>> can replace the face recognition in a way that is more flexible and
>>>>> preserves sovereignty better, as well as being better equipped to deal with
>>>>> the volume.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I said, I'm sure I am unaware of the extent to which similar ideas
>>>>> have been proposed and explored. I am also very aware that in the same way
>>>>> that some people here are using questionable predictions of what AI *
>>>>> will become *that, whether grounded or not, remain just a prediction
>>>>> and not a current reality that can be wielded as a definitive argument for
>>>>> what to do right now; what I am discussing here is also a prediction or a
>>>>> hope, rather than a current reality. But in the same way that I think it's
>>>>> valid to work towards better AI tools, I think it's valid to work towards
>>>>> systems that enable us to better * filter through the ocean of
>>>>> information* in ways that respect sovereignty for all sides involved,
>>>>> can be personalized, and respect our own intelligence. I think it's a dream
>>>>> worth pursuing, and I believe it relates directly to the current matter.
>>>>>
>>>>> But in the meantime, I feel that discussing like we are doing seems to
>>>>> already be shaping a lot of moderate people's views into compromises that
>>>>> may make this mailing list more comfortable for everybody involved. One way
>>>>> or another, we will find out.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Juan Casanova Jaquete*
>>>>>
>>>>> Assistant Professor – School of Engineering and Physical Sciences –
>>>>> Data Science GA Programme
>>>>>
>>>>> *j.casanova@hw.ac.uk* <j.casanova@hw.ac.uk> – Earl Mountbatten
>>>>> Building 1.31 (Heriot Watt Edinburgh campus)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Email is an asynchronous communication method. I do not expect and
>>>>> others should not expect immediate replies. Reply at your earliest
>>>>> convenience and working hours.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I am affected by Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. This means that I am an
>>>>> extreme night owl. My work day usually begins at 14:00 Edinburgh time, and
>>>>> I often work late into the evening and on weekends. Please try to take this
>>>>> into account where possible.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>> *From:* Kyle Den Hartog <kyle@pryvit.tech>
>>>>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2026 06:28
>>>>> *To:* Steve Capell <steve.capell@gmail.com>
>>>>> *Cc:* Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>; Marcus Engvall <
>>>>> marcus@engvall.email>; Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>;
>>>>> public-credentials@w3.org <public-credentials@w3.org>
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: The Slopification of the CCG
>>>>>
>>>>> You don't often get email from kyle@pryvit.tech. Learn why this is
>>>>> important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
>>>>> ****************************************************************
>>>>> Caution: This email originated from a sender outside Heriot-Watt
>>>>> University.
>>>>> Do not follow links or open attachments if you doubt the authenticity
>>>>> of the sender or the content.
>>>>> ****************************************************************
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In case it helps, here’s how things are going in terms of AIPREFs WG
>>>>> and the impact on search crawlers:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://x.com/grittygrease/status/2044152662673752454?s=20
>>>>>
>>>>> In other words, we don’t really have any enforcement mechanisms here
>>>>> to stop this. In fact I highly suspect some people are using them in this
>>>>> conversation right now unless their writing styles dramatically changed in
>>>>> the past few years. My email client started noticing it via machine
>>>>> learning I suspect and filtering threads to my spam inbox like this most of
>>>>> the time given I engage a lot less these days. Personally that’s been a
>>>>> good enough solution for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Identity credentials are highly unlikely to stop this either which I
>>>>> suspect is where many in this community would want to turn. Identity
>>>>> credentials just turn the issue back into a key management problem and we
>>>>> don’t really have a great way to prevent a user from sharing their keys
>>>>> with their agent. That problem persists whether the system has a delegation
>>>>> solution or not too.
>>>>>
>>>>> So where do we go? I’m not exactly sure. Here’s the leading theories
>>>>> and their tradeoffs that stand out to me for the generalized solution of AI
>>>>> generated content:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. https://www.ystrickler.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-internet/
>>>>> - users just stop engaging in these spaces and retreat to closed door
>>>>> forums. Then we lose the open collaboration that made the Web great.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. Re-hash DRM debate by making it so users can’t actually access
>>>>> their keys used to sign their identity credentials. This seems to be the
>>>>> current path governments like. It optimizes enforcement but also entrenches
>>>>> access to the Web around a select number of OSes and reduces who’s allowed
>>>>> to access and contribute to conversations on the Web. I also see that as a
>>>>> bit short sighted.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3. Re-introduce fingerprinting (and pseudo reputation to that
>>>>> fingerprint) based identity like what CAPTCHAs do. That works well for
>>>>> service side enforcement but in mailing lists like these not so much. So
>>>>> likely will need user controlled filtering like what spam filters in email
>>>>> clients do as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> 4. Is the most interesting but most unproven. We shift how people are
>>>>> reachable and build out Horton Protocol like what Mark Miller proposed
>>>>> years ago at ActivityPub conf. They may have already tried this and had
>>>>> issues. I’m not exactly sure:
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAfjEnu6R2g
>>>>>
>>>>> In any case though, we don’t have much of a solution right now in our
>>>>> particular forum and outside things like 3, I don’t expect much to change
>>>>> in a coordinated manner right now. Looking forward to seeing what we come
>>>>> up with though over the next decade and hopefully the trade offs we make
>>>>> don’t take away too much of what originally made the Web great.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Kyle
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>>> On Sunday, 04/19/26 at 13:10 Steve Capell <steve.capell@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Challenge : there’s an increasing amount of AI generated content that,
>>>>> whilst possibly containing useful insights, takes more time to read than to
>>>>> generate and, given the size of this mailing list, is likely to lead most
>>>>> of us to unsubscribe, rendering the list worthless
>>>>>
>>>>> Constraint : AI used well is a genuinely useful tool and can
>>>>> dramatically improve quality of output.  “Used well” is key and,
>>>>> unfortunately, many do not use it so well.  Nevertheless, this group can’t
>>>>> become anti-LLM luddites or this list may equally become worthless for the
>>>>> opposite reason
>>>>>
>>>>> Goal : to continue to enjoy intelligent discussions between real
>>>>> humans that feel empowered to use AI to improve the value of their human
>>>>> contributions.  So the goal, it seems to me is not to block AI content but
>>>>> rather to block content that has little evidence of human analysis and
>>>>> interpretation.  Perhaps counterintuitively, LLMs themselves might be the
>>>>> best tool to detect such content
>>>>>
>>>>> Proposal : rather than continuing to discuss whether AI content on
>>>>> this list is good or bad, let’s collectively agree a rubric in the form of
>>>>> an AI prompt that can act as an automated list moderator.  The rubric
>>>>> should focus on requiring evidence of human assessment rather than blocking
>>>>> AI content
>>>>>
>>>>> I had a go at this myself with several of the messages in this thread
>>>>> and earlier ones and it seemed quite effective at blocking the ones that I
>>>>> would have blocked myself.  I know that there is a token cost associated
>>>>> with such a moderator but I for one would delighted to contribute.
>>>>>
>>>>> Disclaimer : this message was written with blurry eyes and fat thumbs
>>>>> on my iPhone - with no AI assistance whatsoever
>>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards
>>>>>
>>>>> Steven Capell
>>>>> UN/CEFACT Vice-Chair
>>>>> Mob: +61 410 437854
>>>>>
>>>>> On 19 Apr 2026, at 10:03 am, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ne 19. 4. 2026 v 1:49 odesílatel Marcus Engvall <marcus@engvall.email>
>>>>> napsal:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I’m glad to see that we have some healthy discourse in this thread
>>>>> with a variety of views. I would like to address some of the points made.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 18 Apr 2026, at 01:50, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> LLMs have the advantage that they know most or all of the specs
>>>>> inside-out, due to their training. Most humans (with notable exceptions),
>>>>> including on this list, have partial understanding of the complete works of
>>>>> web standards.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a real advantage that these tools have and it should not be
>>>>> understated. I use them professionally for referential lookups and for
>>>>> confirming hypotheses, and I have no doubt that they have the ability to
>>>>> accelerate otherwise excellent standards work. But I am also careful to not
>>>>> fall into the trap of assuming that their lexical consistency can fully
>>>>> substitute  for human judgement. LLMs are probabilistic models with
>>>>> encyclopaedic knowledge, they are not deterministic oracles with the
>>>>> capacity to rigorously derive that same knowledge. In the context of the
>>>>> kind of work done in this group I think it is important to not confuse the
>>>>> two. I trust an LLM to give me a comprehensive overview of a standards
>>>>> framework - I do not, however, trust it to prescribe the framework itself
>>>>> without and human review and editorial judgement.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do however concede on your point on testing methodology, and I think
>>>>> you raise a good point that Manu eloquently touched on.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Good points. However LLMs outperform humans on medical exams,
>>>>> olympiad questions and many other tests, often by wide margins. They are
>>>>> much more than prediction machines or probabilistic guessers. What I'm
>>>>> saying is that I predict LLMs would exceed humans in the standards setting
>>>>> on any quantitative evaluation. We just have not the tools to evaluate yet.
>>>>> However, I believe the picture will be much clearer one year from now.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 18 Apr 2026, at 02:24, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Technology transitions, especially ones around human communication can
>>>>> be rough to navigate. This one is no different, and sometimes it takes
>>>>> decades to figure out the norms around a new medium (the printed page,
>>>>> radio, television, BBSes, mailing lists, AOL, ICQ, Napster, Twitter,
>>>>> Digg/Reddit/Discord, and so on).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You are completely right that this is a transition, and I think we are
>>>>> all trying to map this new technology onto our existing mental models of
>>>>> what discourse should and could be. Friction and contention is bound to
>>>>> arise. It is clearly counterproductive, as you and later Amir rightly
>>>>> stated, to enforce neo-Luddism and reject the technology wholesale.
>>>>>
>>>>> My point however is that the ability to passively follow and
>>>>> occasionally contribute to developments and discussions in this group is
>>>>> immensely valuable, both commercially and technically. Compressing the
>>>>> signal-to-noise ratio raises the bar for both comprehension and
>>>>> participation, and my fear is that the inevitable intractability will, as
>>>>> you pointed out in the other thread, overwhelm people and alienate them,
>>>>> especially those of us with many other commitments and who do not have the
>>>>> time or ability to participate in every group call. That said, it is,
>>>>> as you suggested, our responsibility to moderate our own information
>>>>> ingestion, as has been the case for time immemorial in any rhetorical forum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps LLMs will simply change the structure of how discourse is
>>>>> conducted in forums like these rather than drown it out, as some other
>>>>> writers have suggested in the thread. If the cost to contribute text tends
>>>>> to zero, naturally the valuable discussions will shift elsewhere to forums
>>>>> that still have a cost, such as the group calls. I just hope the work
>>>>> doesn’t lose the diversity of opinions that is crucial to develop a refined
>>>>> and well-considered standard.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Marcus Engvall
>>>>>
>>>>> Principal—M. Engvall & Co.
>>>>> mengvall.com
>>>>>
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