What should be in the Go Memes Thread

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Historically, we’ve had some light-heated debate and “play” with “should there only be memes in the meme thread?”.

Recently I attempted to draw a line, but as with any decision at all, it turns out that there isn’t concensus about it..

So let’s talk about it.

I think that the meme thread should be only memes because

  • it is nice to get a notification about a new meme and to arrive in the thread and find that it is indeed a meme.

  • It’s nice to have a collection of memes that you can browse through

  • (Pedantically) The title is “the Meme thread” not “The talk about memes thread”

  • Historically this is what it has been, and generally attempts to keep it that way have met approval

I feel this counters

" bit of discussion, reactions, and even meandering isn’t going to hurt anyone."

… actually it directly messes it up. It makes it into “no longer a thread with memes in it”.

“Splitting off non-meme discussion into separate topics just clutters up the forum more with extra threads.”

This is the whole point of threads: keeping topics clear and clean. Otherwise why don’t we all just go to chat and talk about whatever we like in-line?

“Who’s to even decide what really counts as a meme?”

It has never mattered. Like many things in life, it’s a grey line, and a lot of tolerance and acceptance applies. It’s the principle that counts: come to the Meme thread to see memes.

(I have not countered “coherence of discussion” because that is a valid reason for keeping discussion in this thread, but I feel it is massively outweighed by the other considerations).

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It would still be a meme thread with memes in it, but just some discussion alongside it as well. I trust that the users of this forum are self-regulating enough to keep discussion reasonable, and I would hope that moderators would only step in under the most extreme cases.

Ultimately, this forum and site are about facilitating human interaction, which is something we so desperately need in these difficult times.

I think restricting discussion about memes would do much more harm than good. Let people laugh, react, comment on them. Pushing discussion into other threads only hinders it, scatters it, and creates more clutter.

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I feel like this rule is telling me that I make too many responses to posts that don’t have much to do with the topic, but have to do with the post, and moderators are getting annoyed with it.

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I agree with @yebellz idea. If it doesn’t have a bit of discussions, just liking is not enough to show what you think about a meme. Without a bit of conversations, it feels a bit cold blooded. In this period we all need each other and have some interactions with people.

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But, we’ll all still see memes in the meme thread, even if there is a bit of chat (like there is now).

I think this question is not about what should be in the thread (we all agree there will be memes), but rather what should not be. At stake is the current status quo, where we mostly post memes, but then also chat about the memes a bit.

I don’t think the level of chat is hurting anyone or making it cluttered. In fact, I believe many people would not like to see it go, since it adds to the thread rather than detracts from it.

I think we should also apply this philosophy to how people may wish to discuss, interact, and express themselves.

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Out of curiosity, why doesn’t this same sense of “we should be able to talk about this” apply to things like “the music sharing thread”?

Why is it OK to have a music sharing thread “where we just want music and don’t want chat about it”, and not OK to have a meme thread like that?

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Probably simply just because this question was never brought up on the music threads.In this kind of situations, should we use a poll?

I agree, but it should be up to the creator of the thread. I’ve seen quite a lot of music sharing thread which say “Music and chit chat”

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Maybe, but I don’t see it that way.

Rather, it seems to be that the contributors to the music thread understand that it makes sense to only have the music and not discussion, and no-one really tries to break that mould…

… it’s kind of surprising because you would think that music is every bit as discussion-worthy as memes!

Maybe its just that the title of that thread is much more explicit and clear!

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Well, if we want to have a meme thread that bans chat, maybe we should create another thread titled “Go Memes. No Chit-Chat. Just Memes”, but I don’t think it makes sense to try to abruptly change the character of the existing thread.

It was never stated at the beginning that comments would be banned, and non-meme posts have been made throughout the thread for years. Sure, when the discussion veers wildly off-topic, that might get split off into another thread, but comments that only make sense in the context of the thread have stayed there (which I think they should).

Your proposal would change the status quo and perhaps go against the general consensus.

How exactly would this be implemented anyways? Have another thread like “Go Memes Discussion”, and have the moderators move any comments made in the “Go Memes” thread over to that thread, with a proper quote/link for context? That sounds awfully tedious for little benefit. Are you volunteering for that job? Would people be punished if they continued to make comments like “Haha, great meme! Here’s what I thought …”?

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I’ve been having a look back at that.

When the thread first started, in 2015, there was an initial burst of replies appreciating the thread, and then it remained completely memes for the next 3 years, with only the most occasional single appreciative comment in reply.

In Feb 2018 a discussion about “what is a meme” erupted. I was involved in that, happily discussing that topic, until this sentiment emerged, which I captured with that meme.

During 2018, comments became more frequent, but they were generally directly on topic, and just “appreciative”, or funny quips in keeping with the thread. During that time, I too was as much to “blame” for these non-meme comments. It seems that as much as anyone, I was taking part in the “human exchange” accompanying the memes.

The “character” of the thread was “Meme’s and occasional quips”

Around about Feb this year was the gradual increase of conversations in the thread. At that point, more frequently you will see whole pages of the thread without a meme in them.

I would say that’s the point at which the character of the thread noticeably changed - and it’s fascinating for me looking back at it to see that I was part of that even though now I am advocating for “fixing” it.

As a user of the Memes thread, I can see that I found, and do find, the quips about memes interesting and a positive experience.

Personally, I find the extended conversations that veer away from being meme related at all to be “not really what I want to see in there”, and this is what led me in the direction of “policing” that.

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I’m glad that you took a look at how the thread has evolved over the years. Is it a bad thing that it has changed in character? Or did it change gradually over time as a reflection of what people wanted?

I also find it to be a positive experience, and I think many others do as well.

When it comes to “policing” a thread, I think it’s important to reflect what the broader community values rather than just personal preferences.

Again, I will say that I like what you said earlier:

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I hope you can see that I too think this is paramount importance, and have an open mind to what the community values are.

Moderators need to “police” what they believe is right (which I was doing) while also keeping an open mind and willingness to change (which I hope you see that I am doing).

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I don’t care about the “Go Memes! :face_with_monocle:” in particular, so I’ll just write my expectations for every topic here:

Each topic has a title and fist post. They usually express, what the thread is about. The “discussion” then should happen around the intended topic. There is some grey area to it, but I would be glad, if oftopic replies to oftopic messages would get their own topic, and meta discussions would stay on a minimum.

I observed enough cases where reasonable would be far stretched. The only self-regulation happening is others leaving.

Ultimately, this forum and site is about a game called go. We even have room for other discussion. Some uses with an increased need for human interaction even created topics with nice titles like “How’s your day” and “Let’s chat”. There are others, not always wanting/needing human interaction. To derail their “let’s look at some funny pictures” threads to general chit-chat seems impolite to me.

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At the end of the day, it’s just a lighthearted thread for people to share some memes and some laughs. Given it’s casual nature, I’m not sure how much “policing” is really necessary, except for the most extreme cases of spam/abuse (which is not what we’re focused on here).

@flovo, I believe the text:

Please post one meme per post. Ideally, precisely one meme per post

was specifically added by @Eugene only earlier this year.

At contention is whether if that’s what the broader community wants. It seems that @Eugene wanted to eliminate all non-meme posts, however that does not seem to be how many people (including @Eugene) were using the thread, nor that they would wish to be restricted in that manner.

I don’t think this is an accurate or fair characterization of what goes in that thread. People post memes, sometimes talk about those memes, and occasionally a conversation develops from that. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, or that we need to always say “No, no, please take that elsewhere”.

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No. It’s only a bad thing if the conversation isn’t moved to it’s own thread. Don’t clutter all the forum with chit-chat.

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So, do you mean people should not be allowed to post things like below in the Go Memes thread?

No reactions?

No off-topic replies to off-topic comments?

Are those examples of cluttering the forum with chit-chat? Should they be moved into their own thread to reduce forum clutter?

In my opinion, splitting off these type of comments into their own thread would actually create more clutter. For people that don’t care about memes, I imagine that they would want to just mute that thread and not see the discussion and commentary from there leaking into other new threads in the forum.

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I think the ones you’ve chosen are the opposite of cluttering with conversation.

They are quips or on topic comments, answering relevant questions.

It’s this kind of stuff that is “derailing the thread”

In my opinion this much drift is bad, yes.

The evolution from “just memes” to “memes and quips” seemed healthy.

The devolution to “chat about funny topics of any sort” is where it started going too far, I think.

So maybe we will gently steer the character back in a grey and tolerant kind of way, rather than trying to draw black and white lines that thou shalt not cross!

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So, quips, reactions, and some meme commentary are okay, then? With both @Eugene and @flovo?
But, long winding conversations that veer off-topic should be split off?

That sounds okay with me, and I’m glad that we had this discussion.

Well, I’m glad that we had this conversation, since earlier it seemed that the policy proposal seemed to be taking a much harsher line:

I remember that great digression that @bugcat started, and although it was nothing about memes, I did try my best to get things back on track. It’s actually great conversations like that that I hope do not get suppressed by any overactive policing. After all, it meandered into a great post referencing @tonybe:

Perhaps that whole discussion should have been split off into another topic (I’m not sure why other mods @trohde and @BHydden chose not to), but perhaps then it wouldn’t have developed as it had.

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Or we could make a new thread to only TALK about the memes by quoting them.

(Edit: Mabye no, because no everyone knows how to quote posts in another topic. But is it possible?)

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Just came to state my disappointment that this thread doesn’t have a poll.

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