Bravo Fleet
Hello members of Bravo Fleet:
This is just a reminder to everyone that the Creative Integrity Policy exists within Bravo Fleet. I won’t get into the trees of this policy, but the forest I think is important to hit the major things of why this exists. The Creative Integrity Policy exists to address both graphical and written content and a majority of it is aimed at combating the rise of AI. Graphical content is very open-ended with this policy: don’t use AI to create graphics for competition submissions unless otherwise explicitly noted, and if you use AI to create graphics for anything else (character pictures are the big one!), just cite that.
For writing, Bravo Fleet in the current era is built on both more traditional, cooperative writing and now more competitive, head-to-head writing in competitions and events. Either way, writing earns awards in Bravo Fleet. Competitive writing earns potentially even more rewards. We want everyone to be on a known, level playing field. Using AI text generation software is allowed for character biographies not being used for promotion requirements, competitions, or Bravo Fleet Academy courses. As with graphics, just cite it. Using AI text generation software to create general fiction writing, competition submissions, or biographies used for promotion requirements, competitions, or Bravo Fleet Academy courses – all prohibited, even with a citation. In fact, in many of these cases, depending on specific circumstances, could be covered under one or more of the Specific Articles of Reprimand under the Bravo Fleet Judicial Code. Cheating is bad, m’kay, and the point of this announcement is to avoid that fate.
Why does this policy exist? Two big reasons: one, we want everyone to be on a level playing field with their own, original content. If someone is creating a submission for a fiction competition and they’re unknowingly going head-to-head with AI, that isn’t fair. If someone is using AI to artificially inflate their word count to earn more service ribbons, that isn’t fair. The second reason is that we’re here in Bravo Fleet, for one reason or another, to have fun and decompress from real life. I’m not sure how it is fun or enjoyable to pop some stuff into an AI software that pops out a story and then you post it.
Why am I making this announcement now, after this policy has been previously announced and in place for 8 months? For the most part, everyone has been really good about citing when they use AI or if they didn’t know, fixing it right away. Heck, most people have just been citing their images because we all love crediting those who help our hobby blossom, especially our graphical artists! The biggest “offenders” of the Creative Integrity Policy have been using AI to create character avatars, but it is always quickly remedied. We love this tool. Most of the fleet has been using it. It is a huge time saver. Let’s keep using it and crediting our machine overlords! They’ll remember how nice we were when Skynet finally takes over. You’re probably also thinking “How do I add credits to my images?” – check this out!
Where we are running into issues lately is with published writing. No one is being singled out or accused and we aren’t pointing fingers. This is meant to be a general, fleet-wide FYI. However, the BFSS has noticed a noticeable uptick in the use of AI in writing being published in Bravo Fleet. There are certain quirks to AI-generated writing that are easy to spot if you’ve seen enough of it or used it yourself. As an organization, we want to pride ourselves on our original content. We think that we have a great group of writers assembled and everyone enjoys writing off of one another and together. That is why we run a Fleet Action every year (well, two this year, more to come on that 😉 ) with a major fleet-wide story that everyone goes crazy writing about. What we don’t want is to just have a bunch of AI-generated content for people to read. So please be aware of the Creative Integrity Policy and act accordingly.