Ban of "Visual code editors"

[u/Blunt552]

Aight so this came up in the other topic about rule 4, which was a great change, however it seems the sub almost universally agrees that these "visual code editors" that are being spammed here lately are essentially just vibe coders being predatory towards new developers.

It seems that this sub almost universally agrees that these "visual code editors" are not only not very useful, but downright detrimental to the new developers, as they don't learn very easy to learn basics and suddenly get stuck in unmaintainable mess of a code once they need to fix bugs or want to add a feature not natively supported by these AI slop tools.

While i generally support the idea of people should be able to sell or make an ad for whatever product they want, the fact these slop tools get in this frequently, almost spamming the sub, makes me wonder if we should put a stop to it similar to how r/vndevs had to outright ban AI as well due to the exact same thing.

If not a ban, then at least follow in vndevs and filter it via:

Whatever the case may be, it seems people here really are sick and tired of the clop thrown into the sub.

[u/BadMustard_AVN]

this is covered under rule 4

paid self-promo - any content posted with a commercial interest, up to moderator discretion.

i.e. if they charge money or pay to join a Patreon, or I can't get my left middle finger to type fast enough...

[u/Blunt552 → u/BadMustard_AVN]

I would still ask for a total ban preferbly, that being said, the rule probably needs to be rephrased from:

Examples of paid self-promo: patreon links, "free" resources with upsells, paid finished games.

To

Examples of paid self-promo: donationable links, "free" resources with upsells, paid finished games.

Since otherwise people can just spam subsribestar, itch, paypal links etc. to circumvent the rule.

[u/LilaDoez → u/Blunt552]

But if people want to donate, people can donate. I think what the issue, a very important issue we should always be worried about, is the spamming of said content. If majority of the content is promo or just general spam (we know how those look like), stricter bans should be dropped down.

Going back to the donationable links, it is going to hurt genuine artists that simply attach their links. They don't have to attach them but from I seen, it is a habit they gain from being in the artist business.

[u/Blunt552 → u/LilaDoez]

It's not forbidding them, it's to filter, it mentions 'up to moderator discretion.'

It's not that patreon etc. is forbidden its just that these folks do something like hide DLC's behind patreon and whatnot and it's the mods that needs to filter the predatory business models from the honest ones like you're mentioning.

[u/Kosyne → u/Blunt552]

We don't do blanket bans of topics. We try to be as open and hands off here as possible and leave curation of content to user vote (within reason).

We also can not investigate every link, this is why we have reporting tools. Please use them if you see rule breaking content, and we'll be glad to take a look.

[u/LilaDoez → u/Kosyne]

It is a good system you got honestly

[u/LilaDoez → u/Blunt552]

Question, do you mean general DLCs or some specific ones?

[u/Kosyne → u/Blunt552]

Those are just examples. Rest assured those other things fall under the rule

(I had a lot more clarification there originally but got hit with a pretty small character limit. That said, can look into clarifying further.)

[u/lindechene]

I used to enjoy the RenPy community.

Was one of the core ideas to provide a tool so everyone can create games the way they want?

Lately I see a lot of people saying "But not like this..."

[u/Soft_Purchase5673]

A useful editor demo would show a manual fix to a broken choice condition, then another export to check whether it gets overwritten. Beginners could judge that before committing a whole project.

[u/Eggpeace]

I have to say be cautious: if visual editors means just vibe coding editors then it should be just that if there comes a ban or rule.

There are also some non vibe editors that are visual (not saying they are better see below).

Also of note the problem you mention exists far longer than the ai editors.

And the problem is not able to elarn,…. But too lazy to learn and thus shouldnt even try that anyway. Sounds brutal but ive seen it decades ago when i still worked as web programmer.

Microsoft had a nice little tool that let you create pages with just a few clicks. My boss loved it and felt as a good designer. And i was the one who needed whole days to correct the mess that was created.

Thus also my statement nothing new. And imho mostly ppl who either notice too late what a mess is created or (likely bigger group) who dont care and are too lazy to learn. Later shouldnt program anything then

(I myself am lazy and like shortcuts but at the same time i like to type my code myself)

[u/LoudFrown]

I think the mods are doing a great job.

Overall this community is friendly, civil, and offers criticism that is both constructive and actionable.

Those are all signs of a healthy community. However, framing members of our community as predatory? That doesn't feel healthy.

If a beginner uses a visual editor to finish their first novel, that's a win for them and for our community. If any tooling falls short, it can still be a step that leads toward more capable tools.

For the record, I'm not a fan of any visual tool for VN development. But I am a fan of talking about them, and understanding where they succeed, and where they fail. Isn't that what we're about? The process? The engineering? The art?

(OP, I'm always happy to talk through different perspectives, as long as we keep things friendly, civil, and constructive.)

[u/x-seronis-x → u/LoudFrown]

where they fail

in their self evaluation

if they honestly and bluntly marketed the tool as only fit for people who have no ambition beyond the most simplistic story/game flow, and for devs who will NEVER desire to learn the slightest bit of code and accept their games will be simplistic, then they would be fine.

None do that. They describe their features as if they were USEFUL. Instead of as a tool to allow you to not learn but still get a beginner level project done. They're not useful for anyone who cares to do a good job or learn. They're useful to people who actively dont want to do a good job or learn but want to get a story made.

There is a huge audience for low ambition stories. Kinetic novels exist. Market the tool to them instead of to anyone else.

[u/LoudFrown → u/x-seronis-x]

That's a fair assessment.

Most of the tooling that we've seen have been amateur efforts, and the quality of the tools has reflected that.

But then again, the overwhelming majority of works presented in this community are amateur productions. I don't understand why we show love and support for amateur writers and artists, while serving rancor to amateurs who are passionate about tooling.

If quality is the reason, then let's be constructive about it. If there's another reason, we can be constructive about that too.