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dw_devWe've seen some questions lately about AI and how it relates to Dreamwidth, especially around scraping and training. Rather than answer piecemeal, I wanted to talk through how denise and I are thinking about this and try to be explicit about some things.
Dreamwidth is a user-supported service. We don't build the service around monetizing user data, and that informs how we approach AI just like it informs everything else we do.
Dreamwidth does not and will not sell, license, or otherwise provide user content for AI training. We have not and will not enter into data-access agreements for AI training purposes.
We will continue taking reasonable technical steps to discourage large-scale automated scraping, including known AI crawlers, where it is practical to do so. No public website can prevent scraping with absolute certainty, but we will keep doing what we reasonably can on our side.
Dreamwidth will not introduce AI features (and we have no current intention of doing so) that use or process user content without a public discussion with the community first.
We're only phrasing it like this because we can't predict the future and who knows what will be possible and available in five or ten years, but right now there's nothing we can see wanting to add.
If that ever changed, the conversation would happen openly before any decisions were made.
Keeping Dreamwidth usable means dealing with things like spam and abuse, and that sometimes requires automated admin tools to be more efficient or effective.
We are not currently using AI-driven systems for moderation or similar decisions.
If we ever decide that an AI-based tool would help address a site admin problem like spam, we will explain what we are doing and how it works (and ask for feedback!) before putting it into use. Any such tools would exist only to make it easier and more efficient for us to do the work of running the site.
Dreamwidth is an open-source project, and contributors use a variety of tools and workflows.
Contributors may choose whether or not to use AI-assisted tools when writing or reviewing code. Dreamwidth will not require contributors to use AI tools, and we will not reject contributions solely because AI-assisted tools were used.
For developers: if you use any AI-assisted development tools for generating a pull request or code contribution, we expect you to thoroughly and carefully review the output of those tools before including them in a pull request. We would ask the community not to submit pull requests from automated agents with no human intervention in the submission process.
I think it's important and I want to be able to review, understand, and maintain any contributions effectively, and that means humans are involved and making sure we're writing code for humans to work with, even if AI was involved.
Important note: this applies to code only. We expect any submitted images or artwork (such as for styles, mood themes, or anything else) to be the work of a human artist.
And to be very explicit, any AI-assisted development does not involve access to Dreamwidth posts or personal content.
Oh, and we'll probably mention this (or a subset of this that isn't code related) in an upcoming dw_news post, but will defer to denise on that!
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askamanager_feedA reader writes:
I’m hiring for some new roles in my team and this has generated some excitement from internal folks looking to grow in their careers. That’s great! I’m always happy to meet with internal people before they submit resumes/go through the formal interview process, it’s very much a part of our team culture.
However, twice now, different internal candidates have scheduled a one-on-one with me during a time when I already have a meeting and am showing as booked! This has kind of thrown me for a loop (do they not know how to use our extremely basic common scheduling software? do they think I’m booked for fun and will reschedule for them?) and honestly given me some hesitation around them as real candidates.
But then I was wondering, is this just a personal pet peeve of mine and not a genuine yellow flag for their candidacy? Do personal pet peeves get to factor into my hiring decision if I’m their manager? If they move to the interview stage, are there ways I can feel out if they have a lack of attention to detail/lack of care for people’s work schedules without just saying, “Hey, why did you schedule a one-on-one for one of the only times I was not available?”
The primary lens you want to run all concerns like this through is: how does this relate to the skills and qualities that are need to do this specific job well?
If something is genuinely just a pet peeve but doesn’t have any real connection to what it will take to do the job well — like if you were irrationally irritated by people who don’t record an outgoing message on their voicemail or who write “gentle reminder” in emails (that last one is my own pet peeve) — you should set that aside. Having a mildly annoying habit doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be the best candidate for the job. But some pet peeves do very much speak to how the person would approach the work, and those are fair game to consider.
In this case, I assume the scheduling stuff is alarming you because it feels like it speaks to a lack of attention to detail, or maybe that they don’t know how to use very basic office systems, pointing to a sort of baseline incompetence. Those are reasonable to consider.
That said, these are also internal candidates, so you have access to a lot more info about them than you would have if they were external candidates. The reason small things can matter a lot with external candidates is because when you’re working with very limited info about someone, you have no choice but to rely on whatever info you get during the hiring process — but that is not the case with internal candidates.
So: are either of these candidates your direct reports? If so, you probably have enough regular contact with them and their work that you know if they do in fact have issues with attention to detail. If they don’t report to you and you don’t have a lot of interaction with them, it’s a reasonable question to pose to their direct manager (whose input you should be soliciting on them regardless).
And you can also ask about things that are weighing on you! It’s fine to say, “I noticed you tried to schedule a one-on-one for one of the only times I wasn’t available — is my calendar not showing up correctly on your end, or how did that happen?” (Note you’re not assuming the error was on their end and are allowing for the possibility that it wasn’t.) Just make sure you evaluate the answer, whatever it is, through the lens of what actually matters for the job you’re hiring for.
The post is it petty to hold small details against internal candidates? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
