[Poll] Policy on AI Generated resources (plugins, etc)

[_zmey]

I completely agree with the points raised about support and the flaws of the current system. Here are my thoughts on this:

1. AI is just a tool, but lack of understanding is the real issue. AI itself is fine — it's like a calculator. Look at it this way: if I have a shovel, why would I dig the ground with my fingernails? I know how to dig, so I use the tool. The tool isn't the problem; the problem is when people who have absolutely no clue how the code works use it to vomit out plugins. Quality and the developer's understanding of what they are actually doing is what matters. If a "developer" just wants to make a quick buck here and now and then disappear, why do we even need them here?
2. The "2 free plugins" rule is exactly what causes this slop. Why are we judging by quantity instead of quality? This rule literally forces people to generate two garbage, low-effort scripts just to unlock paid posting. It clogs the moderation queue and ruins the experience for server owners. This metric needs to be changed to quality/rating-based instead.
3. We need a mandatory support period. In a game like ARK, where updates drop constantly, a plugin can easily break and trash the server performance. I believe the API team should implement a rule requiring developers to guarantee support and compatibility updates for at least one year after release. If a dev isn't ready for that kind of commitment and disappears after the first game update, they shouldn't be allowed to distribute software here.

P.S. And by the way, yes, this translation from Russian was also made by AI But at least it works perfectly!

 

[little_brain]

just do nothing , you cannot fight AI , developers have to accept that its coming.
as for the tag , you cannot require devs to expose the sourse so some control freak with a self-esteem issue can check if its AI generated.

who cares development goes faster than ever before.
unsupported stuff should just be deleted done.

if youre doing anything its probably best to have a page with all "known" opensource plugins
that way they are simply availible to everyone without searching and you motivate people to develop instead of lecturing
lets face the music , everyone looked at ownprox work at some point , heck some people are now asking money for his work expossing those source files allows owners to just rebuild their own plugin

 

[Morphs]

Here are my 1 & 1/2 cents, for what they are worth.

I was the first person to use plugins for ARK. Michidu was the mastermind behind the system, while I spent countless hours testing, providing ideas, and helping identify what server owners needed. His original goal was to create an open platform where plugins could be developed and shared freely.

Unfortunately, that model became difficult to sustain. There were only a limited number of developers capable of creating and maintaining plugins, while demand continued to grow. As a result, paid plugins naturally became part of the ecosystem. I have always supported developers charging for their work. Developing and maintaining quality plugins requires time, skill, and effort, and that work deserves to be compensated.

Nearly ten years later, I have spent thousands of dollars on plugins. Some were exceptional. In fact, there were plugins that were created once, survived nearly a decade of ARK updates and changes, and continued working without major issues. Others were far less successful. Some were purchased, abandoned, or ultimately became a complete waste of money. Even in those situations, I never requested a refund.

What has been far more frustrating is the number of times I have had to repeatedly ask developers, through direct messages or support Discords, for updates to address crashes, broken features, or other serious problems. In many cases, months would pass without an update, and sometimes the issues were never addressed at all.

That brings me back to Pela's question. I fully support allowing AI generated plugins and plugins created by new developers. I also strongly disagree with the argument that an AI assisted plugin should not be allowed to replace or compete with an existing paid plugin.

Competition should not be restricted simply because someone created a paid plugin first. If a developer maintains a stable, reliable, well supported, and feature-rich product, they should have little to worry about. The developers who may feel threatened are those who released a paid plugin, stopped improving it, failed to provide proper support, or have not added meaningful features in years.

The fact that a plugin is paid should not protect it from competition. Any developer should be allowed to create an alternative and challenge the existing product. That is how markets improve.

In my opinion, allowing AI-assisted and newly developed plugins will create healthy competition. It will encourage existing developers to improve their products, provide better support, release updates more consistently, and continue adding value for the people who paid for their work.

And at the end of the day, server owners like myself know what is slop and not slop. What is quality work and what is shit work. But that should be up to server owners to decide.

I really like this stance on paid vs. free plugins. I'm more than happy to support plugin developers—I do it regularly. I'm a huge fan of the plugins I buy, and I purchase them because I genuinely value the work that goes into them.

That said, I'm also completely in favour of free plugins that replace specific paid features. Not because I want everything for free, but because many paid plugins are packed with features I simply don't need.

For example, Lethals-Items+ is an incredibly extensive plugin with a huge range of functionality. However, there are only one or two features from the entire plugin that I actually want. Thanks to some free plugins, I can now get those specific features in a lightweight package that does exactly one job and does it well, without all the extra functionality I'll never use.

Regarding the AI aspect, if a plugin is AI-assisted or AI-generated, I don't see a problem with that. Honestly, if I knew enough about development myself, I'd probably use AI to write a few basic plugins that I personally want. Relying on fewer than a handful of active, well-known developers to meet the needs of hundreds of server owners—each with their own ideas for plugins and features—simply means there aren't enough developers to satisfy the demand.

At the end of the day, one way to look at it is this: if an AI-generated "slop" plugin is released that replaces a paid plugin, what's the likelihood it'll actually be maintained long-term compared to the paid version? If it isn't maintained, users will naturally gravitate back to the well-supported paid alternative once bugs start appearing or frustrations build up. On the other hand, if the AI-generated plugin is maintained and continues to improve, then it's simply another option in the ecosystem. As others have already mentioned, being paid doesn't automatically guarantee long-term support either—there are plenty of paid plugins that have been abandoned or are no longer maintained.

on a side note, if you're looking for a way to distinguish between AI-generated, paid, and free plugins, another approach would be to add an additional category for unverified plugins or developers.

Keep the existing Free category for established, well-known, or verified developers, and the Paid category for trusted developers. Then introduce a third category for unverified or community-submitted free plugins. That gives new developers a place to share their work without immediately mixing it in with plugins from developers who have already built a reputation, while still giving server owners the choice of what they're comfortable using.

 

[KADev]

I'm generally against the influx of slop plugins on the official marketplace, free or paid. It can be painfully obvious (though not always) who runs a slop shop, kudos to the ones owning up to it at least. People vibe coding stuff for their own servers is fine, that's their server and their problem. What bothers me is how it affects the official API space, the marketplace, and the precedent it sets for the future.

A few slop plugins today is whatever. Give it T amount of time though and the site is hundreds of slop shop plugins deep, real work is buried in the noise, and good luck pulling back at that point lol. Steam had the same thing with Greenlight, they never managed to clean it up, they ended up scrapping the whole system instead.

The other thing is developer incentive. This market is already razor thin. Mostly Windows servers, no Nitrado, a handful of people actually contributing to the API, and ridiculous paywalled forks fragmenting what little there is on top of that. Most of the ARK modding scene already hates the API and plugins almost as much as they hate AI, go mention plugins in the official modding Discord and see what happens lol. A space this small can't also afford to bury its actual contributors under a slop waterfall. What happens when the majority of uploads are slop bowls and/or 1:1 clones? (1:1 clones should be deleted and banned immediately. Free market competition is fine, but literally AI cloning paid plugins harms the entire community, not just the developer behind it). What happens when the actual developers leave? Open the gates to the horde and the API will become synonymous with AI slop.

Server owners also can't judge a plugin up front from a description and a config.json. You find out what you actually bought weeks later, sometimes when the save is already corrupted. Sure, that can happen with hand written plugins too, but AI dropped the bar for shipping one to basically zero. Instaed of AI assistance, it's suddenly AI as the product. And I don't care what workflow people run, their instructions, prompts, and what not. If you don't understand the code, you don't understand it. There's nothing more to it. Having AI explain it to you and going "sounds right" is not understanding it. Parroting what it just told you isn't understanding it either. Again, this isn't about anything external to this marketplace and space - do whatever you want with your websites. It's not even about product descriptions or translations. Go ahead and use AI as a tool just like you'd use a calculator for math. It's not about any of that. A flooded marketplace means buyers get burned and trust drops for every plugin, including the good ones. The capable devs eventually ask themselves why they bother and move on. We lose those people and the space is done, there's nobody coming up behind them besides more slop.

What I'd suggest:

1. Rework the 2 free plugins rule. Right now it directly contributes to the slop. People upload two throwaways just to unlock paid listings.
2. Rate limit new listings. Nobody legitimately ships 10 plugins/day.

Most importantly, something I should is worth considering, is:

3. Split the marketplace into two pages - verified and unverified - completely separated from each other. New resources start unverified and move up through real user feedback/reviews, standing in the community, or greenlighted by the API team. Contributing to the main repo should also count towards verification, as it gives people a reason to push improvements upstream. The verified listings stay clean and new devs, vibe coded or not, still have somewhere to publish and prove themselves. Server owners know what section they're browsing and what they're getting. An optional AI tag could live in there too, at that point it's just information. Anyone who games the system or turns out to be running a slop shop gets demoted and/or removed. Not for using AI, but for being dishonest and trying to circumvent standard procedure.

Whichever way the poll goes, I'd aim any policy at effort and accountability. Whether someone used AI isn't enforceable anyway, and the people who'd get caught by an AI rule are mostly the honest ones who tag themselves (as already mentioned by others).

The poll gives an indication of the current sentiment, though worth keeping in mind that everyone voting has a stake in the outcome, including the people this whole discussion is about. A fourth "I don't know" option would also help filter those who vote just to see the results.

At the end of the day I'll support whatever the API team decides - they're the ones keeping the lights on right now and have been for years.

 

[MasterDream]

Hi guys,

Here is my 2 cents in this topic.

yes i know we all hate AI, as it makes the normies do things that we learned lifetimes to do, and like some said, yes now updates happen, plugin laggs behind cause normies dont know how the code was build so they now have to try and tell ai what changed so that ai can addapt and even then AI dont get it right most times.

So i wont say hate on the normies for trying or for ai helping, unfortunately i and many of you are feeling this and it is of our own doing, cause money money money thats what we want reasoning, So why would a normy pay for a mod where he can ask ai to sort of replicate what you made that you sell? from the start i have always said make 2, 1 free with bugs and 1 paid without bugs, same product same code same everything no locks just bugs, it randomly bugs out, if people fixes it, good for them, but then the community needs to stand up and say, hey this dude made a similar thing than what i have, is it based on my code? yes, modderators / admins please remove this app as there is a free X mod there and no need to have duplicate mods of stuff. it creates chaos. i myself make mods, i dont share them, i run them on my own servers, cause the mods i want or like or need does not exist, so thats why i make them.

So yes allow mods if they comply to ark standards, even if they are made by AI, but mark then as AI made and to make it even better, everyone do know AI leaves a certain type of code trail that shows its AI, so look for that code trail and all paid mods that was made by AI, flag them, let people know its an AI mod and should not be a paid version and let the creators redo their whole code to not show its ai created, let them work for their money they want, dont let AI work for their money, thats just wrong, by the end of the year we as programers / coders / modders will have no work cause normies build things with AI, and sell it.

So dont deny AI stuff, Just make it so that they cant make money from ai generated stuff.

That is just my 2 cents in this.

Keep Coding and Keep creating awesomeness. !!!

 

[blahblahblah]

Reading this thread and had to chuck in my two gumnuts, cause it's basically turned into an "AI = slop" pile-on at this point.

There's an upside to actually getting this right too, not just damage control. People being able to build stuff without waiting years on a handful of devs to get around to it is a good thing, not a bad one. And we're already seeing people lock their own plugins behind their own private forks of ArkAPI, banning AI outright is just going to push more people down that road, not less.

I've been a dev and IT/Cloud admin for coming up on 20 years now (yeah, I'm old), so I've sat through a few "this'll kill the industry" panics before. I use AI daily. As a tool though, same as I'd use a linter or a debugger, not something that replaces actually knowing what I'm shipping. If I can't explain why a bit of code does what it does, it's not going anywhere near a server with my name on it. AI-assisted and AI-authored aren't the same thing, even if it's hard to prove that from the outside.

The "if you don't understand the code you don't understand it" line keeps getting thrown around, and fair, it's not wrong. But it was just as true when blokes were copy-pasting off Stack Overflow without reading it a decade ago. Nobody was calling that "SO slop." The tool's not the problem, never understanding what you shipped is the problem, and that's been around way longer than AI has.

Also, industry-wide, this ship's sailed. Most devs I know are using AI assistance daily, it's not some fringe hobbyist thing anymore, it's just what the job looks like now. Doesn't mean every AI-touched plugin here is good, mind you, plenty of 100% hand-typed ones have been dogshit for years too. Making "used AI" the thing that gets a plugin binned, instead of "does it work, does it have support, does the dev actually get what it's doing," just feels like going after the wrong thing.

And banning it outright doesn't fix that anyway, it just teaches people to stop being upfront about it, so you end up cracking down on the honest ones and missing the rest. The tag/verified split a few people floated earlier seems like the one that actually deals with the slop shops without torching everyone else who's using the tools properly.

That's my two gumnuts anyway. Cheers.

 

[_zmey]

Guys, I think some of you misunderstood my point about the mandatory one-year support period. I'm not suggesting we put a moderator-babysitter behind every single developer to enforce a contract.
What I am actually proposing is verification through time.
We need a literal quarantine/probation period for new creators before they can touch paid listings. If you want to sell plugins here, your account and your free software must survive on the forum for a set period—say, 6 months or a year.
During this time, ARK will inevitably drop dozens of updates. If you stay active, adapt your code, fix bugs for your users, and don't abandon the project, you prove that you are a real developer who understands what they are doing. Only then should you unlock the right to post paid plugins.
If someone is just a "normie" who vomited out an AI script to make a quick buck, they will never pass this quarantine. Their free plugin will break on the very first ARK patch, they won't know how to fix it, and everyone will see they have zero clue about coding.
This completely kills the incentive for AI scammers to flood our marketplace for easy money. Quality and dedication over quantity.

 

[blahblahblah]

Guys, I think some of you misunderstood my point about the mandatory one-year support period. I'm not suggesting we put a moderator-babysitter behind every single developer to enforce a contract.
What I am actually proposing is verification through time.
We need a literal quarantine/probation period for new creators before they can touch paid listings. If you want to sell plugins here, your account and your free software must survive on the forum for a set period—say, 6 months or a year.
During this time, ARK will inevitably drop dozens of updates. If you stay active, adapt your code, fix bugs for your users, and don't abandon the project, you prove that you are a real developer who understands what they are doing. Only then should you unlock the right to post paid plugins.
If someone is just a "normie" who vomited out an AI script to make a quick buck, they will never pass this quarantine. Their free plugin will break on the very first ARK patch, they won't know how to fix it, and everyone will see they have zero clue about coding.
This completely kills the incentive for AI scammers to flood our marketplace for easy money. Quality and dedication over quantity.

Mate, the easiest way to test your theory is already sitting on this site. Go have a look at the resource list and count how many plugins don't support the current ArkAPI anymore. Dead, abandoned, never updated for the latest version. Nearly all of those are hand-written, no doubt about it, most of them are older than usable AI codegen even existing. So "breaks on the first patch and everyone sees they have no clue" isn't some future AI problem, it's been the normal state of this marketplace for years, and humans managed that all on their own.

It's not just here either. Industry-wide, only about 11% of open source projects are actively maintained, and roughly 95% of new ones are dead within a year. Those numbers were true well before AI wrote a line of anything. Abandonware is a people problem, always has been.

I also don't reckon you've spent much time with the current models, because the "they won't know how to fix it" bit doesn't really hold up anymore. They debug too. Feed one the crash log and it'll find what moved and patch it, and if a dev keeps doing their updates properly every time ARK breaks something, the plugin stays maintained, same as anyone doing it by hand. Your six-month test doesn't catch them, because there's nothing to catch, the thing works and stays working.

Which is kind of the point. Your probation idea is decent, genuinely, it's just not an AI filter, it's a laziness filter. It kills abandonware no matter who or what wrote the code, and going by our own resource list, hand-written abandonware has held the title around here for a long time. Back your own idea, just drop the "AI scammers" framing, the mechanism you designed doesn't care how the code got written, and honestly, neither should any of us.

Last thing, because the "AI scammers" framing needs saying out loud: AI isn't the villain here, lazy people are, and lazy people predate AI by a fair margin. Used properly it opens this space up. More people able to build and share means more free plugins, more niche stuff no established dev was ever going to bother with, and more life in a community this size. And it's not all about money either. Plenty of these free addons cost the person making them actual money in tokens and their own time, and they're giving them away. That's contribution, not scamming.

And on "they'll have zero clue," that says more about how you're using the tool than what it can do. You don't ask a chatbot to vomit out a plugin and ship whatever falls out. You put the work in setting it up properly first, so it's working from real knowledge of the API instead of guesses. Then everything gets compiled, run and fixed against real errors, same loop as any dev. Smart people set their tools up before they use them. That's been true since long before AI.

 

[diepieter]

Do Nothing.

AI is a new tool and its here to stay. No devs today hand write everything. I know many devs and other "IT guys" and everyone uses AI. Have a user rank system for users to rate plugins on the website.


The latest AI models can 100% write a full plugin, AND troubleshoot and fix 99% of issues that will pop up. I have paid for plugins for years and still had bad support sometimes.

Also, I have used a "Free Crosschat" with paid features that chew up my CPU because the paid version had a fix shipped for many many months that the free version didnt have. This was before AI. This just goes to show that the 2 Free Plugin system has always had issues, because the broken code plugins were around long before AI.

Nobody wants any type of "slop" plugin or code, and the best way to distinguish the bad from the good, is let users rate plugins, like other big platforms do. Github is a good example.

Trying to gatekeep the marketplace will only lean into more of what is currently going on. More locked down versions of API that has their own features and issues.

 

[Pelayori]

Do Nothing.

AI is a new tool and its here to stay. No devs today hand write everything. I know many devs and other "IT guys" and everyone uses AI. Have a user rank system for users to rate plugins on the website.


The latest AI models can 100% write a full plugin, AND troubleshoot and fix 99% of issues that will pop up. I have paid for plugins for years and still had bad support sometimes.

Also, I have used a "Free Crosschat" with paid features that chew up my CPU because the paid version had a fix shipped for many many months that the free version didnt have. This was before AI. This just goes to show that the 2 Free Plugin system has always had issues, because the broken code plugins were around long before AI.

Nobody wants any type of "slop" plugin or code, and the best way to distinguish the bad from the good, is let users rate plugins, like other big platforms do. Github is a good example.

Trying to gatekeep the marketplace will only lean into more of what is currently going on. More locked down versions of API that has their own features and issues.

Have to correct you there because it's my plugin you are talking about. It didn't have a fix in the paid version, it is a bug that only happened in free version and took me a considerable time to debug. So how about that before speaking you get your facts right and don't feel attacked because people are voicing their opinion.

 

[diepieter]

Have to correct you there because it's my plugin you are talking about. It didn't have a fix in the paid version, it is a bug that only happened in free version and took me a considerable time to debug. So how about that before speaking you get your facts right and don't feel attacked because people are voicing their opinion.

Im not sure if you have logs for old tickets, but you yourself told me in some way or manner that the free version dont have it after I asked why the paid version runs fine but the free version doesnt. At that stage I only had a trial key and when it expired I started having CPU issues, and then made a ticket about it. Its a long time ago but you can check if you have the ticket logs. I'm 90% sure it was in the ticket.

In some way or form you told me that the paid plugin works, and the free has the issue. And it took a very long time to fix. It just show that old timer dev's or newer vibe coders, if you dont have time to look at the issue it can take time, and the free plugins dont always enjoy the same time of day as the paid plugins.

Anyway, thats just my opninion, like most others here.

I'm not feeling attacked at all. I also didnt mention which or who's plugins because that didnt matter, I wasnt trying to make anyone sound "the big bad terrible". I was just making a point. And I'm sure you have used some other creators Plugins which proves the same point, way before AI and vibe coding was a thing.