Policy Change & Reminder

[marshall]

Hey folks!

With an influx of AI writing being posted on site, a new guideline has been added to discourage this behavior.

AI-generated writing is currently not permitted on our platform. While we allow members to use AI generators for inspiration purposes and as a tool to get your ideas down, it should not be used as a substitution for the creative process. Content generated by AI should not be copied and pasted onto Warrior Cats Online. If you use AI generators, you must edit the content into your own words.

AI can be very handy and this is not a total ban on using it, but your posts should be primarily in your own words. Part of roleplaying is the enjoyment of writing things yourself, and relying on AI as a crutch ultimately hinders not only originality but expressiveness as well.

Going forward, content suspected of being AI-written will be removed from the platform and your account may have action taken against it. Note that your account will not be disciplined for past posts that used AI-writing, but if past posts are found to have contained a significant amount of AI writing, they will be removed. If you wish to save posts, we advise you to go back and edit your content to be in your own words to the best of your ability.

You have until 9/26/24 @ 11:59pm Eastern Time to make any respective edits; after this, staff will begin to remove the older generated content. If you as a user find something that looks to be AI generated [whether its art or writing!], feel free to report the post via the red triangle in the corner! That way, staff can handle it accordingly. After reporting, no further action is required on your side.

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Now that the change is out of the way, we also wanted to give out an important reminder!

Per our Notice Regarding Content Theft, all images uploaded to Warrior Cats Online must have proper credit.

How do you know what you should remove or credit?

• Did you create the piece of art or photo (modifying it DOES NOT count)? If so, you don't need to provide credit.
• Was the photo or artwork made for you or gifted to you by the original creator? If so, you should provide credit to the creator.
• Did you find it on the internet and decide to use it? Then credit it! Stating "Found on Google" or "Pinterest" is not considered credit as both platforms do not closely monitor who the original creator is, and in many instances the work you initially see is actually stolen and reuploaded from elsewhere. Trying to go back to the original source is the best way to respect an artist's creative property and will tell you if they allow it to be redistributed.

How do I credit art / photography?

This part is quite simple! Firstly, if you are unable to find the artist or photographer for a specific piece, do not use it.

If you are able to find the creator, simply crediting their name / providing a link to their social media [Deviantart, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, etc] will suffice. This credit can be posted in your user bio, the album the art was posted in, or really anywhere on your profile where it'll be easily seen! Just make sure any credit given can easily be used to find the artist.

That's all! If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out to staff via a support ticket! We hope you all have a lovely rest of your day.

[jay]

Hello! What if the art has a watermark?

[finley]

thank you marsho :3

[marshall]

Originally Posted by forest

Hello! What if the art has a watermark?

still requires explicit credit as described above! :0

[Wingnettle]

Should we do it even if the artist explicitly says people can use their art without proper credit?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Wingnettle

Should we do it even if the artist explicitly says people can use their art without proper credit?

yes! it can end up being confusing to differentiate what art was given permission by the artist to be used without credit. so as a general rule, all art should be credited regardless of whether or not specific artists say otherwise

[lark.]

Out of curiosity, how does a person tell if writing is AI generated? AI art is pretty easy to spot for me, but writing seems a lot harder, especially with the very wide variety of writing skill levels and styles on WCO

[marshall]

Originally Posted by lark.

Out of curiosity, how does a person tell if writing is AI generated? AI art is pretty easy to spot for me, but writing seems a lot harder, especially with the very wide variety of writing skill levels and styles on WCO

ai detectors! ai has an overall specific way it writes compared to how a real person writes, so there are programs that have been created to detect this writing style and flag it as ai c:

[BEAR.]

Originally Posted by marshy

ai detectors! ai has an overall specific way it writes compared to how a real person writes, so there are programs that have been created to detect this writing style and flag it as ai c:

AI detectors help confirm suspicion but you can usually tell based on how the text is written... i guess the best way of describing it is it comes off very technical and lacks spirit. if you're unsure if something is AI just report it anyway, worse case scenario no action is taken bc it's not AI! @lark.

[lark.]

@marshy @BEAR. thanks both of you!