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(05-19-2015, 07:23 AM)Graeham Ridgefield Wrote: I really dislike the seemingly feigned outrage over this. If people are receiving multiple warnings and getting into trouble then the burden is on their shoulders rather than being a problem with the site's moderation.
It's not unusual for a site to employ a 'three strikes and you're out' approach. It's also not unusual for a site to make the use of gifs/images impossible or frowned upon. You can't embed such things into posts over on WoW's official site for instance.
I'm far from a prude but it does get tiring to be reading an interesting thread only for someone to post a silly image that is then given a lot of attention/praise. If it's a silly thread/forum game then it's perfectly fine in my eyes but let's be honest here: if there's a debate going on about Au Ra and someone swoops in with a 'this again lol' comment and silly image then it's going to risk dragging the thread through the dirt.
There's a time and a place for them - and they're much better suited to threads that aren't going to be heavy on debate/in-depth responses.
However a lot of gifs are breaking the rule in the manner that they're dropped down with an intent to provide little to no contribution other than to 'lul' mentality as Graeham has pointed out in the above. (I do apologize if this doesn't make much sense, I'm pretty tired and I'm going to call it an evening now as I've had to edit this a few times to try to clarify things.) I'm quoting the post because it's quite true. The fact that they derail legitimate, interesting debates and often times turn the thread nearly into something very close to "yo' momma' jokes" and completely off of the original topic is harmful.
Just as the way of using memes as a "I'm not passive aggressive, I'm funny, see I'm funny!" weapon against a person is harmful. Using them in a snide-y manner is against the rules so yes, they are harmful in that case and they certainly don't contribute at all when used like this.
I'll use the au ra threads as an example as well. As when I first found out about the au ra I was super excited and I wanted to see what others thought about them, and lo' it became a slag-fest of slinging mud + the drop-in memes thing turns a good thread into a complete train-wreck.
I personally would like to see gifs removed from discussion threads if people aren't going to use them appropriately.
Could I ignore them? Yes, and often times I do. But when they turn a thread into garbage it's disheartening. Also, just to say I'm not going to directly link to any post where this is an example as it would fall under the name-calling thingy.
I will also agree that many sites do not allow the use of memes in such a way. The mod teams just don't want to deal with it because it causes derail often.
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