Can you remove ads from the documentation?

[Atulin]

Describe the issue or suggestion

It seems someone snuck in a blatant ad for Copilor into the docs:

Source file

[Epicguru]

My two cents:

• GitHub Copilot, as used in the documentation here, is free and integrated into the IDE. I do not think that you can call it an ad if it is for a free tool.
• Even if you interpret this as encouraging users to pay, it is hardly the first time that dotnet documentation guides users towards paid Microsoft products: are we going to start complaining about all pages with references to Azure next?
• The only part of this I actually object to is that I don't think that what essentially amounts to 'prompt an LLM' belongs in documentation, although at the very least the page does disclose that the output may be erroneous.

[Packjackisback]

Should documentation essentially amount to "look it up elsewhere"? This is just a blatant shill of their Ai.

[Prox501]

My two cents:

* GitHub Copilot, as used in the documentation here, is free and integrated into the IDE. I do not think that you can call it an ad if it is for a free tool.

* Even if you interpret this as encouraging users to pay, it is hardly the first time that dotnet documentation guides users towards paid Microsoft products: are we going to start complaining about all pages with references to Azure next?

* The only part of this I actually object to is that I don't think that what essentially amounts to _'prompt an LLM'_ belongs in documentation, although at the very least the page does disclose that the output may be erroneous.

The other issue is this, is it really a Dotnet Foundation's project or is it really Microsoft's pseudo-organization for Dotnet? Should documentation includes Jetbrains (as one of it's premier sponsor) to use their AI for code completion?

I was told that Dotnet Foundation is supposed to be independent of Microsoft's or Github's influence and that it should be focusing on Dotnet development, not promoting Microsoft's or Github's specific AI tools for marketing. So I agree with other posters, AI/Product placement does not fit in this context for documentation on Dotnet.

[R2D221]

What even is the point of this? Why am I suddenly reading about how “surprises and mistakes are possible” in my JSON serialization, when it's supposed to be a deterministic process?

People in other forums are arguing about how this is “not an ad because Copilot is free”, but it's clear they're not offering Copilot out of the kindness of their hearts. Besides, free Copilot has also made people angry. The more Copilot is shoved everywhere the more it feels like there's an economic incentive that clashes with the community.

Promoting this has no place in API documentation.

[neu-ma-tic]

if you're not paying in money, you're paying in data or somehow else. it's not free.

[KyNorthstar]

The comments above really raise great points, and I think should lead the discussion around the appropriate scope of this feature.

Just looking at what is here, at first glance it seems fine.

They even stuck it at the bottom so the expected documentation is all you see until you scroll all the way down.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/system-text-json/customize-properties#use-github-copilot-to-customize-property-names-and-order

To be clear:

I would never do this. This is not at all how I interact with code.

However, I know there are people who do this.
For them, I'd rather them go in with official instructions (and something concrete to point to if it goes wrong) than just winging it without such documentation.

[30p87]

And that, my dear creatures, is why I prefer Java and Java based applications over M$ Java/.NET. lmao

Because one is still inherently tied to M$.

[oliversalzburg]

lol Posted on GitHub, where "Copilot" is part of the "Checkout Code" menu. Save your energy

[30p87]

lol Posted on GitHub, where "Copilot" is part of the "Checkout Code" menu. Save your energy

That's why I have my own gitlab and forgejo instance. But as long as not all of them have forgefed implemented (and github certainly won't), I'll still need my old GH acc.

[linkdotnet]

That isn't the only article referencing GitHub Copilot in the dotnet space: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/testing/unit-testing-with-copilot

[lloydjatkinson]

You can just tell this entire thing was done to meet AI slop targets from arbitrary KPI, OKR, and the like. Someone probably has "increase Copilot exposure across documentation platforms" or "increase usage of AI tools by <percent made up by some exec>" as a quarterly goal, and adding these promotional snippets to the .NET docs was the easiest way to tick that box.

Instead of focusing on improving the actual documentation quality, they're diluting it with AI integration theatre that nobody asked for.

I mean seriously, suggesting someone use Copilot to "customise the names and order of the JSON serialization options" has to be the worst bottom of the barrel scraping imaginable.