AI Usage
Here's where AI is used on aRPG Timeline, and where it isn't. The point is simple: you should always know what you're reading and how it was made.
AI usage in development
aRPG Timeline was built by hand from day one, and it stayed that way for years. Then AI coding tools got good enough to actually help - and for a solo developer, that means getting from an idea to a working feature a lot faster.
These days AI helps me with:
- mockups and quick prototypes
- scaffolding new features
- refactoring old code
- weighing up different ways to build something
It doesn't get the final say, though. Everything it writes gets read, understood, and reworked by hand, and held to the same standard as the rest of the code before it ships.
I've spent years as a software developer and a tech lead building full-stack software, and I hold this project to that same bar - with privacy and a clean user experience coming first. AI is a tool for speeding up the safe parts. It's not a stand-in for the work, and it's never an excuse to ship AI slop nobody checked.
AI usage in research
Keeping track of dozens of games means going through a constant flood of news, dev posts, forum threads, and community threads. AI helps me keep up.
It's good for:
- getting through a lot of sources fast
- spotting the updates that actually matter for games and seasons
- squeezing long announcements down to the key points
Where it falls short is the details. It gets facts, names, and - especially - dates wrong all the time, so I treat anything it gives me as a tip to follow up, not as a source.
Every date and every detail is verified against the official source by hand before it goes live.
AI usage in articles
Every article has a small badge in its byline showing how much AI went into it, on a scale from 0 (none) to 4 (fully generated). The levels stack - each one includes everything before it and adds a bit more:
0 - No AI
No AI, at any point. Every word and every bit of formatting is done by hand.
1 - AI styling
A person does all the research and writing. AI only tidies up the formatting - headings, lists, tables, Markdown - without touching the meaning.
2 - AI-assisted
Everything from level 1, plus AI for digging up background, summarising sources, or sketching an outline. The writing itself is still done by a person.
3 - AI draft, human-finished
Everything from level 2, plus a first draft written by AI. A person then does the final pass - edits it, checks the facts, and stands behind what goes out.
4 - AI-generated
Mostly the AI's work, with just a light once-over before publishing. Rare, and always labelled.
The author picks the level when publishing, and it covers the whole article. If it's a close call, the higher level wins.