this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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I mean, this user does quite eloquently raise a good point: https://github.com/dotnet/docs/issues/45996#issuecomment-2848267714
It's a single link all the way at the bottom of the page, so not really obtrusive. And given that there are people using Copilot this way, it's probably better to give them something to use docs-wise rather than leaving them to Copilot's mercy. The article linked to is also pretty much just instructions on how to do it, no real gushing about how amazing Copilot supposedly is.
That GitHub comment makes my brain hurt and gives me Microsoft community forum advisor (run ChEcKDiSK tO mAYbe fIX tHe ProBLem) and "leave the multi-billion dollar company alone" vibes.
Also it's not a single line - when looking at the source file - and a complete section instead.
WTF is he defining as an ad? "Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service". The whole section is bascially "Hey you can use Copilot to do this" - that's an ad right there.
Makes no sense. Does this person think ad = you have to pay for it???
That's basically what the whole issue is about. WTF are you even talking about then? Just shut up and give an upvote.
Overall a totally useless comment.
True, I misjudged the original screenshot at the top of the thread. Still, it is all the way at the bottom of the page.
This seems a bit harsh. The dotnet docs have tons of examples where it's shown how to do something in VS Studio or VSCode. "How to use dotnet feature X in product Y" doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to include in your docs, especially with Microsoft having developed both.
Again I think you're being too harsh here. Not every mention of a product is necessarily an ad. The dotnet docs aren't an ad for dotnet for example. Given that this section is at the bottom of the page, doesn't demand any attention from the user and doesn't really seem like a direction for the user to start using Copilot, I find it hard to really consider it a proper advertisement. It's not saying "Hey you can use Copilot to do this", it's saying "If you want to use this with Copilot, here's how to do so". It makes no effort in convincing the reader that they should use Copilot, it's just instructions for those who already do use it.
There's also plenty of other places where the dotnet docs refer to non-dotnet products, e.g. this page on deep learning: https://github.com/dotnet/docs/blob/main/docs/machine-learning/deep-learning-overview.md
It mentions other products like Tensorflow and ONNX there. Are these mentions also ads?
Plenty of the how-to guides end with "and here's how to deploy your stuff to Azure!". The dotnet docs even have an entire section on Azure, a service that has very little if nothing to do with how dotnet works. But it's still mentioned and documented in the dotnet docs, because it can be useful information for dotnet developers.
They're referring to how they don't find it useful info, but other people who do use Copilot more intensively might find it useful. It's also a completely different point: the creator of the issue objects to the docs section because they consider it an ad for Copilot. The comment author disagrees, but says they'd rather see it removed because it's just not that useful information, though acknowledging that they might not be the target audience. It's a different argument that does contribute to the discussion imo.
I'd say a much better point is raised by this comment.
Dotnet Foundation's whole point is to be independent from Microsoft. Why is it then pushing it's AI slop? Even if we take the point of "there are people using it", then why doesn't it talk about JetBrains and their AI, or Claude?
@ChairmanMeow @abbadon420 isn't the whole point of copilot that you *don't* need docs to use it, though? If you're reading the docs anyway, why wouldn't you just read how to do it yourself?
Yeah I think that's why it's valuable to talk about these additions. Is mentioning LLM prompts even of any value?
But that is a separate (and imo much stronger) argument than the whole "mentioning Copilot is MS shilling for their own products"-argument.
@ChairmanMeow I think it's relevant, though — like, if we accept that the whole premise of Copilot is that it doesn't need to be documented, then you have to ask what Microsoft *were* intending to accomplish by putting it in the docs. Clearly they had *some* goal in mind and "to make people use Copilot" is the only thing I can think it could be. And if this bit of the docs exists not to help the user but to drive traffic to Copilot and that's, I mean, yeah, that's an advert disguised as a help file and it's... at best icky
I mean, that's entirely assuming that Microsoft also accepts that the use of Copilot requires no documentation. And given that Microsoft does have decades of experience dealing with users doing all kinds of dumb shit, they might not necessarily agree.
@ChairmanMeow that doesn't strike me as a particularly strong argument for directing those users to a system that will sometimes just make stuff up?
That's assuming you read it that way. I don't really read that section as "Hey go use Copilot for this". Rather as "If you're using Copilot, here's how to do it with that".
@ChairmanMeow if you're using copilot, why are you reading the docs?
Copilot isn't perfect. And sometimes you don't know that you can make Copilot do something if you don't know it exists.
@ChairmanMeow Sure, but in this scenario you already have the relevant page of documentation open in front of you, so why would you *want* to know that Copilot exists?
But that's not what the section does, it highlights how to use what is being documented with Copilot, in case you're not sure how to prompt it correctly.
@ChairmanMeow ok, but again,
There is no reason to ask copilot to do this relatively simple task if you have the docs open in front of you
If you have to look up instructions for how to prompt copilot to do something then there is no reason for copilot to exist
Just give me one realistic scenario where this information helps someone other than Microsoft's KPI tracking executives
Perhaps true, the value of LLM prompting instructions are probably limited.
I disagree with the premise that requiring instructions on how to prompt Copilot for something eliminates the reason for Copilot to exist. Copilot is a tool and just like any other tool it may require some instructions for someone who is new to it. You and I might find it intuitive, but Joe Shmo might not.
@ChairmanMeow the interface for copilot is "you ask it to do a thing in plain language and it (sometimes) does it", I'm sure joe shmoe is more than capable of handling that
You'd be surprised...
I also feel this is reasonable too, but the votes don’t agree.
I disagree so much with the "But it's free argument". Consider the millions YouTube videos with ads to free to play games. Would you consider them to be ad-free videos? And that's ignoring that Copilot isn't even free (either pay with data or with a subscription model)