Tl;dr at the end.

I made a post that one of the casual convo mods thought sounded like AI. Not sure if you can still see the link, but just in case: https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualConversation/comments/1k8zoti/-/). Here’s the text from my original post:

Do you have a hard-earned jaded life tip that is actually healthy if only you could’ve learned it the easy way?

I have a couple:

• Don’t share the best ideas with anybody, at least not until they are actionable and you need outside input. • Opening up about traumas, fears, and weaknesses too soon puts the blueprints to your armor—with every weakness marked—in the hands of an unknown enemy.

I put a lot of effort into making an appeal to the mods—gathering evidence, working on the demonstration passages, re-writing to sound nicer knowing the ego I came up against was a possibility—because I feel strongly that I shouldn’t have to speak fakely to sound human. I’ll copy the appeal below:

Hello, and thank you for what you do to keep Reddit human!

I want to make an appeal for a specific post of mine and I hope you’ll also consider my thoughts in how you decide to moderate for AI in the future. I’d even be available to help you make a list of criteria for making the determination!

Here is the submission you removed. submission.

Please allow me to make my argument.

Let me first demonstrate that I is not AI by using an em dash—which I know how too yuse correctly as a college English teacher—with a’ bunch-o bad grammar in the same passage to demonstrate that this post was written by me. I know how use grammar so well that I can mis-use it in juxtaposition to advanced grammar, in other words.

Next, I’d like to plead with you not to shut down comments and posts just because it looks like a user might have used AI to write them. People responded to my post a bit—would it be bad if I had come up with the idea myself only to use AI for help writing?

Third, you seem to believe you are doing a service to humanity of some kind by removing discussion hosted by well-spoken individuals that you think sound like AI models. So should I try to sound less smart so I am allowed to have discussions here? I am very serious and not being smart with this question: would you say that I should intentionally behave unlike myself to appear to be human in order to use this subreddit? Do you think I’d get better participation if I tried to perform as more of a casual writer than I am?

I understand that you want to ensure a strong and friendly community, but I don’t think putting innocent people in prison is the correct way to ensure the criminals don’t misbehave, if you’ll allow me a metaphor.

I also want to let you know from a completely different professional standpoint that I train AI and there are quite a few factors that clearly identify my post and comments as not AI, although there are many that seem AI as well. Of course you noticed the generally good grammar, but there’s also the mark-down formatting I use (which I was required to learn to train AI) to make italics and bold, both of which signal possible AI use. And there’s the ever-obvious use of the long-dash, and the fact that I was responding to comments (didn’t that use to be a rule, that you had to respond to at least a few comments? Am I thinking of another subreddit?). But I also chose to use this symbol: • for bullet points, rather than the mark-down formatting of an asterisk and a space, like the following:

• First List Item.
• Second List Item.

My bullet points are shoved together in a paragraph, which, combined with using bullet points at all, an AI would never voluntarily do on their own. I challenge you to test this 100 times: have the AI make a list, any type of list, and do not specify that the answer should appear as a paragraph but still use bullet points.

As you can see at the bottom of the ChatGPT link I have included as evidence, even if I tell a model to produce a paragraph using bullet points the same way I did in my original post, the model can’t do it successfully. It placed bullet points between definitions and terms, as well as bullet points for terms themselves.

I appreciate your attention to this message. If you are unable to re-instate my post, even if you need to add a disclaimer (you could include this message), I will not be using this subreddit anymore because I want to maintain my own quality standards of writing. I don’t want to be fake to myself to sound “human” to your moderators, especially when many of your actual subscribers thought I sounded human enough to talk to. And I don’t want to behave disingenuously just to make you believe I am genuine. That would be pretty AI of me.

Finally, in the attached link, I instructed my preferred AI to produce a bit of text to act as evidence in support of my argument. I hope to demonstrate how you risk removing humans and replacing them with AI models when you remove posts for being grammatically correct.

I’ll paste some of the conversation here. First, here’s the final product when I asked the AI to re-write the the above letter so that it would be unlikely to be identified as AI:

**yo my post got taken down here. not AI. i know how to write i just did it that way on purpose.

idk why if somebody sounds smart u just assume its fake. like wtf. alot of ppl liked it why does it even matter??

i get u dont want bots but ur pushing real ppl out too. maybe stop judging just cause we dont type like cavemen.

whatever. thanks i guess.**

It still sounds a little like AI to me, but I am perhaps more confident than I should be that you would not have identified this as AI. Even though I train AI, I don’t think I would identify it as AI in the wild.

I also had the same conversation re-write my original post. Here’s the text:

**anybody got like a hard life lesson u had to learn the hard way? but it’s actually good for u?

i got a couple:

• don’t tell people your best ideas til u actually need their help. • don’t tell people your trauma or fears too early either. ur just handing them the cheat code to hurt you.**

I put a lot of time and thought into gathering the examples and explaining my thoughts on this. I hope I was able to persuade you to be a little more soft-handed and simultaneously a little more critically analytical (meaning examine the post more closely) before removing posts for being AI because the grammar is good. Critical analysis could have also identified that I have put time and effort into building my profile, although it’s a new one, and my other recent posts include good grammar as well.

So ultimately, what is the agreement here? Here’s what I’m willing to agree to, either: 1. If I want to post on Casual Conversation, I should try to dumb my language down and perform “like a human.” If this is the option you choose, I will no longer engage with your low-quality, humans-should-be-dumber-than-AI community. I will also be sharing this interaction with the ChatGPT subreddit and likely others for frank discussion on how we will continue to talk to each other if those of us who naturally sound more formal are expected to act less formal. 2. You will re-instate my post and I will continue to be polite, engaging, and happy to be part of a community that works hard to keep AI models out, but also works to make sure no mistakes are made by keeping humans away, too.

Finally, let me end on another demonstration of my human-ness, since I’m worried you’ll also read this entire letter as though I had an AI write it for me.

Y’all mods got a hard job with this AI crap interferin’ in your ability to do your job, but I would like to formally thank you for your attention to my long-winded and admittedly sometimes high-fallutin’—meaning pedantic in formal speech—appeal. I am switchin’ back and forth ‘tween formal and plain talk to demonstrate—that means show ya—that I can use grammar anywhere along the spectrum from “good” to “bad” grammar. Also, I want to remind us all that, just because someone doesn’t sound formal, does not mean they ain’t smart, u know? Like, I’m a teacher and ion even grade for grammar and syntax unless the errors are so egregious, meanin’ bad, that I can’t make sense of the content.

Thank you!

[Here] is the link to the conversation I mentioned: (https://chatgpt.com/share/680e8e19-14a4-8000-8bd9-4eed0b15a64c)Here

https://chatgpt.com/share/680e8e19-14a4-8000-8bd9-4eed0b15a64c

I guess I still sounded “too AI,” because here was the mod’s response:

I am not reading that huge mess of Al drival. One hint: if you have a post removed for being written by LLM... maybe don't get an LLM/Al to write any sort of appeal.

Here’s what I said that got me permanently banned:

“I can't wait to post this elsewhere! Ty you could have read the first paragraph to see how dumb you are.

Here's how I finished it because I knew you before you were born:

Finally, let me end on another demonstration of my human-ness, since I'm worried you'll also read this entire letter as though I had an Al write it for me.

Y'all mods got a hard job with this Al crap interferin' in your ability to do your job, but I would like to formally thank you for your attention to my long-winded and admittedly sometimes high-fallutin' — meaning pedantic in formal speech-appeal. I am switchin' back and forth 'tween formal and plain talk to demonstrate-that means show ya-that I can use grammar anywhere along the spectrum from "good" to "bad" grammar. Also, I want to remind us all that, just because someone doesn't sound formal, does not mean they ain't smart, u know?

Like, l'm a teacher and ion even grade for grammar and syntax unless the errors are so egregious, meanin' bad, that I can't make sense of the content.”

That’s the end of my story! I was a little rude at the end, but only in response to frankly actively rude response. I don’t see how you get to say “I didn’t read it, but it’s AI,” and claim to be willing to “come to an agreement,” as they said they would be willing to do:

“Hey there, u/LotsyTotsySpider this submission has been removed because: Be Real: No Al and no solicitations like ads, promos, spam, surveys etc. If you have any questions, we ask that you message the moderators directly for appeals. Let's try to come to an agreement. Rules | Etiquette | Subreddit Directory | Support | Message the Mods”

Tl;dr: Casual Conversation mod removed my post, refused to read my appeal, and permanently banned me for trying to get them to actually do their job and read my appeal.