Disclaimer: Please read the full post before commenting. This post will be refined overtime, so I highly encourage to check back if there are any updates!
Hey everyone!
My name is Francis and I am a DEV user for 6 months. There is something I want to reveal...
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I am a Trusted Member AND a Tag Moderator for the #discuss (https://dev.to/t/discuss). With both, I am a DEV Community Mod! :D
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My goal as a DEV Community Moderator is to ensure the community abides DEV's Mission and their Terms of Service when it comes to implementing best practices to writing articles and interacting with the community.
A guide for community interaction and getting started on DEV can be found here:
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The Goal of this Post!
I want to create a thread that allow users to ask questions and get a response in a timely manner. As a DEV Mod, I want to ensure you have your questions answered from a Mod perspective.
@ben, @jess and the rest of the DEV Team are extremely busy, especially with the acquisition of Major League Hacking.
A lot is happening behind the scenes at DEV and I believe I want to take the responsibility to answers questions and concerns as we are moving forward. It will save valuable time for the DEV team!
Ask a DEV Community Mod! ๐ | Francis Tran
Recently, dev.to was acquired by Major League Hacking back in Febuary. It is one of the biggest news of 2026! As Jess Lee and Ben Halpern are working hard on integrating new moderation rules, I recently made a post where I am able to take in your questions about anything dev.to related when it comes to AI usage and moderation practices. Any questions related to dev.to can be commented in this post below: https://lnkd.in/gWGt63_3 Looking forward to hear from you in the meantime!
linkedin.com
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If you have questions about:
- AI usage on DEV and ways I can improve my Moderation.
- Questions on how to use DEV.
- What a Community Mod can and cannot do.
- Other fun Icebreakers (Love to chat!).
Note: Any questions related to how DEV and MLH team operates internally can be contacted through to the DEV team email: yo@dev.to
I would love to hear from you!
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Q/A
ย The article is based on these key factors: User activity, reading the article in its entirety, running via GPTzero. No favoritism is involve in the decision making whether the post is consider high or low quality. If you believe there is a mistake or that you notice something different when posting content on DEV (such as visibility and Sloan Messages), let me know! ย How do you determine the Article's Quality?
ย It's a bot that Community Moderators control. Note that Tag Moderators exclusively do not have this power. ย Is "Sloan" a real person?
ย No. There are others out there like me. According to @jess, I am the most active Moderator currently. Note that Moderation changes will be implemented in the future. I recommend revisiting this post for updates! Hey all, just wanted to share that we'll be updating our general moderation guidelines and tooling for the community soon. A lot goes on behind-the-scenes that's a combination of manual moderation and automated spam detection. There is a lot of nuance here that requires constant adjustment and rebalancing. I'll note that there are hundreds of mods with the ability to send messages via Sloan, so not all of it has fallen on Francis's shoulders - though we deeply appreciate his dedication to the the community, and he is by far one of our most active volunteer moderators. We'll share a more substantial update on community moderation and our perspective on AI-assisted content in the next few weeks. ย Are you the only Moderator?
Comment on Ask a DEV Community Mod! ๐
Jess Lee
Jun 16
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Top comments (81)
Hey all, just wanted to share that we'll be updating our general moderation guidelines and tooling for the community soon.
A lot goes on behind-the-scenes that's a combination of manual moderation and automated spam detection. There is a lot of nuance here that requires constant adjustment and rebalancing.
I'll note that there are hundreds of mods with the ability to send messages via Sloan, so not all of it has fallen on Francis's shoulders - though we deeply appreciate his dedication to the the community, and he is by far one of our most active volunteer moderators.
We'll share a more substantial update on community moderation and our perspective on AI-assisted content in the next few weeks.
This is a big priority for us going forward after lots of work to catch up with new demands of moderation in this age. I think we'll land in a really good place.
Thanks @jess and @ben! If you believe if there is something I can do to improve, do let me know in the meantime!
Thank you, as someone with next to no creative writing skills ๐ I beg for leniency when it comes to technical posts, so I dont have to spend hours writing a MD table for the benchmark results and run Grammarly to make sure it makes sense. Never in comments though, just in my posts. It would be a mess if writing a post takes me longer than developing the thing does.
Do keep up the good work, I did mention to Francis a tool I saw 4 years ago on LTT for YT comments, I looked into it a bit, last update was about a year ago, but I'll fork it and spin up the foundry to expand it into a fake-follower detector too and let y'all know when it's ready if it helps?
Thanks for the transparency, Jess. It's reassuring to know there's a thoughtful, human-in-the-loop approach behind the scenes. Looking forward to the fuller update, especially your perspective on AI-assisted content, which feels increasingly relevant.
Hi thanks for opening this up I have a question about AI use and disclosure.
I've been writing on DEV for about 6 months My typical workflow is I use AI for about 10% of the writing mostly for structure, research, and organizing thoughts. The remaining 90% is my own voice, my experiences, my tone.
Sometimes I add a disclosure at the bottom of my posts (e.g I used AI to help structure this post. The experiences and opinions are my own.).
My question is - is disclosure required even for minimal AI use like this 10%?
I want to make sure I'm following the guidelines correctly and not risking any flags or suspension. I've seen some people posts get flagged recently and I want to stay on the right side of the rules.
Thanks for your time.
Hey Harsh! Thanks for reaching out and clarifying! It depends.
There is cases where I saw that a person will write in their own words and they use AI to fix the grammar and such. The problem becomes when they start re prompting it to make it more refine to the point it is no longer their words, which will become fully AI.
With that said, I wouldn't worry too much. For example, @sylwia-lask uses both her own words and uses AI to fix grammar and other stuff, which she did not get flagged for. It is both used as a mix of both, it is a good sign to me. If it is near 100% fully AI, it is an issue.
Hope this makes sense Harsh! If I made an error on your posts, do let me know and I can rereview it! I try my best and even I make mistakes, which is why I made this post as transparency and being able to reach out easier than waiting for Jess and Ben to respond since they are busy. :D
Thanks for the detailed response this is super helpful I appreciate the clarity on the 10% vs 100% distinction, and the reminder that disclosure is still the safest approach I Will keep doing what I've been doing use AI lightly for structure and research, keep my own voice for the substance, and always add a disclosure at the bottom.
And thanks for mentioning Sylwia as an example good to know that mixing AI assistance with your own voice is both acceptable and common.
Really appreciate you taking the time to explain this. ๐
To add on, either way, it is best practice to do so just in case. I have to do citations on using AI when I code at my University. Absurd? Probably, but it made sense since it is the same as looking up sources to write your paper. Same thing different context.
I feel like I got it entirely wrong ๐ . I honestly thought Sloan was an actual person. When I got a Sloan message about a formatting issue on one of my posts, I assumed you had asked Sloan to comment under my post. Since you mentioned in the P.S. of your comment that you had sent a Sloan message, I completely misread that part. My bad ๐
I didn't realize Sloan was more of a moderation system/persona and that the moderator was actually the one sending the message. Thanks for clearing that up!
Yea for sure! I knew Sloan was a bot that Mod can control. It would be crazy if Sloan just say "Hi" and go from there. I would be scared for my life lmao.
I do appreciate it. It seems that people are open after the Sloan message, which is good!
MAN, I THOUGHT SLOAN WAS A PERSON TOO!!! ๐คฏ๐คฏ
B r u h
Based on the Moderation page (dev.to/community-moderation), 'Community moderator' is a term used for multiple types of moderators (ike tag moderators).
However i've been a tag moderator for years and I feel like your 'Community Moderator' role cover way more responsibilities. Is it right?
Hey Gรฉrรดme! Hope you are well. That is correct. I want to note that the role "Trusted Member" covers more base as a moderator than Tag Moderation. I say Community Moderator because I cover both bases as a Trusted Member and Tag Moderator. Let me know if anything else :D
Ok I see, just discovered Sloan was a specific Trusted Member feature, I felt like I missed something.
That is interesting to hear. I would assume if you get one or the other, you will get Sloan. Was wondering what Tag Moderation you are covering?
the 'angular' one. Sloan is mentioned only for the Trusted Member role in the moderation docs.
I'll ask the first question. How many Sloan warnings does it take before an account gets flagged? And will there be a notification when that happens?
Great first question! and appreciate the communication we had on @dannwaneri's post for this concern.
In my opinion this depends on the user's activity and how they are using DEV. For example, let's say a person has never been caught but their profile shows the following:
If this was the case, it will be either a single warning message before flag or flagged the account entirely.
However, if it was a genuine mistake and did not know before hand, I usually go with a few warnings before hand. Of course, I make mistakes and it could vary.
There are other deciding factors based on how long they are on DEV and other things, but those are the most common.
I never been Flagged from Sloan before, but I would assume it would be like any other comments (though sometimes dev.to email notification is slow. One time I got an email notification that someone commented on my post 3 days ago lol). Can you clarify to me?
Thanks :D
One more thing โ my article "I Spent 3 Months Training An AI. My VP 'Reallocated' It. Then I Got Two Calls At 1 AM." (dev.to/xulingfeng/i-spent-3-months...) still can't be found in search. Could you take a look? The latest article is fine now.๐คฃ
Yea I did and it wasn't there...
I would recommend re posting it. Nothing on the article is flagged or anything I have done on my end. Sometimes, articles doesn't popup. Happens to me as well and not sure why.
Feel free to repost and let me know if anything!
Got it, I'll republish and test it. I'll let you know how it goes either way.
Update โ it worked! I didn't delete the article. I just edited it โ literally removed one empty line and saved โ and now it shows up in both the feed and search. So a simple re-save re-triggers the search index. Thanks for the help! ๐@francistrdev
Yea no problem. Good to note in the future for me lol. Any moderation issues let me know! Do also disclose the use of AI if you are using AI (I don't want to come back and run them Flags again lol)
Don't worry โ I've been putting disclosure on everything since our last discussion. We're good! ๐คฃ
Sounds good!
Email notifications from DEV have always been prompt for me. But I never received any notification about my account being flagged.
My suggestion: add a system-level notification in the community's notification center to inform users if there's anything unusual with their account and how to improve it โ if that's possible.
@ben and @jess โ๏ธ
Two legends in a one frame
lol
Appreciate you writing this up Francis. And glad to see Jess and Ben weighing in . looking forward to the updated guidelines...
Yea no problem Daniel! I hope the Sloan messages weren't affecting you in a negative way. My only request is to implement best practices in writing and sourcing when necessary. Let me know if anything else!
Great insights! It's always interesting to hear about the experiences and challenges that come with being a community moderator. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
One question: What's the most common mistake new community members make, and how can they avoid it?
Hey! Hope you are well :D
I believe the most common mistake is not reading carefully before commenting/posting. There were instances where people believe that "the most likes in a DEV challenge = Win", which is not the case. According to the rule, it is only use as a Tie breaker situation and not the overall result.
My tip is reading the full post before making conclusions. Right now, there is assumption that the project me and @codingwithjiro did was use to determine if the article is AI or not, which is not the case. It would been best to clarify the practices on how I determine the articles instead of assumptions. In other words, ask questions!
Thanks! :D
On @francistrdev advice, I'd like to summarize here my thoughts from previous threads about AI usage in writing posts and add a critical consideration about technical communication.
The Central Problem: Confusing Tools with Substitution
We continually shift the focus to this policy without addressing the real problem. We're confusing the use of a tool with the substitution of human thought.
In my specific case, the tool overcomes a language barrier: although I can express myself very well in Italian, translating technical nuances into fluent English without losing the desired tone is a different challenge. AI acts as a linter and language compiler for my original thoughts. The analogy is to putting a badge on an application that says "created with the help of the gcc compiler."
However, this isn't just for non-native speakers. Even for a native English-speaking developer, the fundamental principle remains the same. Writing production code or designing systems requires a completely different skill set than technical writing.
When we speak face-to-face, we rely on body language, tone of voice, and expressions to convey empathy, charisma, and to truly engageโor "seduce," in the best sense of the wordโour audience. Written prose lacks all these channels. It's incredibly easy for a crude technical text to come across as cold, unappealing, pedantic, or unintentionally arrogant.
An LLM helps an engineer, a technician, or a professional formulate their ideas. It doesn't create the signal; it simply packages human experience, analogies, and logic into a form that captures the reader's attention and creates an authentic connection.
If the platform imposes a disclaimer or badge on anyone using an LLM for analyzing and formatting their posts, it signals that we're more interested in the surface appearance of the text than in the true demonstration of the intellectual labour that created it. We need to distinguish between automated bot-based systems (which compromise the integrity of the text) and professional tools (which amplify the human experience).
You can find my other comments on this topic here
Hey Marco. Thanks for summarizing and posting it here! To your concerns,
This is the most common way people have used AI tools, which I am okay with in my perspective. The problem becomes that articles are hard to detect if everyone is using AI. For clarity, the reason for adding a disclaimer is so that it can not only be used as a distinguish between bots and human, but it is also best practice to do so in any writing.
With that said, your disclaimer can be as detail as it can and it doesn't simply has to be "I used AI to assist on writing". Adding clarity to the disclaimer allows the reader to understand that you use the tool in a good way instead of using it in its entirety. Hope this makes sense.
AI has been trained on many articles in order to get the best results to the user, it doesn't formulate ideas on its own (sometimes you may notice an LLM links you various articles it summarizes). That is why citation is important. This is the same way as if a human looks at various articles and paraphrasing them without proper citation. This practice of proper citation in articles has been a thing for a LONG time. Even with fixing grammar, it is important to cite that.
In response to the post you linked:
Same here! I joined this community so that I can connect with other developers. The problem is that bots and AI exist in this age and it is hard to determine who is real or not. It is very common to see articles having a monotone voice every time you read it. I recommend looking at this video where it perfectly captures on what the tone sounds like every time you read an article in this specific way:
Overall, there is nothing wrong adding a disclaimer. The common notion is adding a disclaimer will hurt their credibility.
I am sorry to say this but according to many people I asked that are developers and non developers "If it hurts your credibility, then understand why others does not when they add a disclaimer". For example, I added a Disclaimer to my Gemma 4 article and it turn out just fine. Sure, this varies based on community (because Reddit and Dev.to is WAY DIFFERENT), but understand transparency is important!
Hope this makes sense! Let me know if I miss anything or any additional questions.
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?! excellent disclosure
I didn't even know I was a trusted member too, Idk how it works, but cool.
lol
how to get famous '='
I think Don't think about becoming famous. Focus on creating good content and improving your work every day. When you consistently work on quality, recognition and success will come naturally.
Hey! Similar to @technogamerz comment, I would focus on creating good content. It would come naturally and also try to meet new people and make genuine connections!
The DEV iceberg:
Level 1: Learn Markdown
Level 2: Write blogs
Level 3: Discover Sloan isn't a real person
Level 4: Realize hundreds of moderators can control Sloan ๐๐
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