Discussion
As an Etsy user,
I want the ability to block a whole shop,
So that I don't need to see their AI generated crappy crochet patterns.
It's amazing that I now cherish poor quality pictures with bad lighting, because at least I know the pattern has a higher chance to be legit?!
It's honestly becoming exhausting, the entshitification of content and the pattern scams and pattern theft in the crochet community is scary. I suppose it must be the same for a lot of craft topics.
@stephaniewalter I think a better solution would be for them to ban the sale of virtual goods entirely. There are better places to buy pattern books.
@DBailey635 I would not ban selling patterns, not everyone has the time / means to build their own shop, so, it makes sense to allow those on Etsy. A lot of pattern creators are legit. But they need to have stricter controls.
I usually prefer ribblr or ravelry, but I guess they don't perform as well as etsy in terms of sales for pattern creators. The system is so broken, you are basically forced on those because your own site won't rank as high in search results.
@stephaniewalter It looks like they're banning AI patterns and asking for photographic proof of completed samples, but, how will they tell the difference between real and AI images? Not all AI-generated photos embed digital watermarks like SynthID, so there are ways to circumvent the photo proof requirement.
Independent human review by knitters would be the only way to ensure a pattern works... and if it doesn't, sellers should be booted, or forced to refund.
https://mashable.com/tech/etsy-ai-rules-generated-images-recipes-patterns
@stephaniewalter it is similar with new sewing pattern sellers on etsy