What should be in the Go Memes Thread

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.

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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We in this thread have deep and extensive experience with polls, and we know you need to talk for a long time before understanding what the poll question should be :smiley: :wink:

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A meme gallery with only memes would be a great thing but… it’s a gallery, not a forum thread. :slightly_smiling_face:

I think that the graphic nature of memes is very helpful for those who are interested specifically only about memes: you can scroll the thread and stop only on pictures.

It’s funny how some chat about memes happened using memes, so what about those meta-memes? :smile:

Anyway I fear that Eugene’s worries are just for a very specific kind of user: someone who daily, probably many times per day, checks the forum and it’s notifications for new contents.
I personally do it a little less often and always find the meme thread with multiple new messages, usually with some memes in the bunch, so my appetite for memes is always satisfied when I open that thread.
I’m not really annoyed when some new messages are simple answers, comments or chat.

Sometimes it happens that a chat moment becomes a blob, but some other user politely complains with a “more memes please” comment and everything comes back to normality. Doesn’t it?

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I think this is a pretty big point that needs to be considered, in regards to splitting off-topic meme comments into their own threads. This is extremely on point. Well said yebellz.

 

This seems feasible if…

  1. the Meme thread a link is created the exact location of the post being moved in the Meme Talk thread.

  2. the Meme Talk thread contains a link back to the original meme in the original Meme thread.

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Do you not think this is becoming an example of making mountains out of molehills?

Its a meme thread, yes, but how many times have there been memes generated from what someone said in chit chat? Thus breathing more life in to the thread, with the generation of more memes, which while their not Go related, are topical and hilarious.

Im absolutelly fine with the chit chat. While i dont typically post that often in the thread, I end up going on to the thread every day, because its hilarious.

Does it really matter that the nature of the thread has deviated? No i dont think so… its a natural thing that happens when threads have been around for a long long time and have so many different personalities contributing to it all over different times in the threads life.

If indeed someone goes waaay off topic, then, split the thread. But, having such an indepth meta discussion over soemthing as meaningless as the meaning of the meme thread, has to be the most silly thing i have seen in the forums…their memes, they dont have to have meaning much of the time. The discussion is often also funny, and… as we know from tumblr, text, is a form of meme, so discussion, odd quips, and the like… are perfectly fine. Hell, even just interesting discussions could be constude as a meme.

A meme, need not be funny, to be considered a meme. All a meme is is something that that is shared on the internet and gets reshared many times. Thats littlerally what it means. This excessive discussion over what the thread should be is utterly pointless.

Just, post memes, chat, and have fun. That is the entier point of a meme thread, fun. So lets be having it and get back to creating stupid memes.

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I was about to make a long comment about how the increase in comments and flexibility of the format correlates and is likely the cause of the thread’s popularity long-term, but if this is the policy we’re debating here, I’m happy for it. Arguably we should’ve done that for the “Comic Strips vs Memes” debate.

Also, it’s kind of funny just how much we have flouted Crocrobot’s initial restriction. We just love disobeying the old coot don’t we? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Crocrobot did not make the restriction, and people have posted more than just memes for several years.

That rule was added by @Eugene, who edited the post on January 1, 2020.

I think that rule (exactly one meme per post) is overly strict and does not reflect the practice, wishes, nor enforcement. Even @Eugene seems to have softened his stance on the matter, and continued to personally flout that rule even after he added it.

I agree that this is a nuanced and complex issue, and there are perhaps many questions to settle. However, we can still poll on incremental issues to gauge public opinion, and then follow up with further questions.

Let’s start with a basic question and then explore further from there.

Should the Go Memes Thread be Strictly Only Memes?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

YES would mean that these posts break the rules and should be removed (and possibly placed elsewhere).

NO would require further discussion to determine where to draw the line on what type of posts should be allowed.

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I propose a Bacon number of 2. A post must be a meme, a response to a meme, or a comment on a response. Further meta should be directed elsewhere.

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