A couple of questions that are forum related

[Mesden]

Alright, just a couple of ponderings about a couple rules.

#1 would be, why is it such a big deal that spoiler2 only ever ever be used for spoilers? I mean the only other time it isn't is when someone's got a tablebreaking/obnoxiously big post, which they usually give warning of so there's no confusion. Or, alternatively, if it's such a big deal to use the things literally, why not just use the same code we do for spoiler2 and call it something else so people aren't forced to scroll 50 imaginary internet meters down to get past the picture dump.

Which leads me to question 2, picture dumping. Specifically in the Not Youtubes thread. Why is it that motivational posters aren't allowed? I mean they aren't everyone's cup of tea, especially not mine, but some, hell, a lot of people like them and sometimes they're worth a good laugh, so what's with the moratorium? Never really saw the Not Youtubes thread as some high standard of taste thread.

[Fifthfiend]

It's a big deal because before it was a deal everyone used the tag for every single thing except hiding an actual spoiler, which is to say basically any post that was more than like twelve words long. I don't know where anyone got the idea in their heads that writing an actually long and thoughtful post that someone somewhere might actually want to read was some sort of shameful act which they should hide away behind a javascript wall with a button to only be pushed should one dare brave the horrors of TEXT! WRITTEN DOWN! ON AN INTERNET FORUM!!!! Whereas I guess every brainshit of a five-word waste of time is I don't know some kind of fucking prize that you scoop up off the floor and run to Mommy and Daddy with so they can see the wonderful thing you made.

But it was fucking stupid and it mostly led to getting everyone in the habit of autoclicking every time they saw a spoilerbox which kind of defeated the purpose of having a spoilerbox because if that box ever contained an actual spoiler somewhere you'd immediately click it and see the spoiler due to having trained yourself not to think because in 99.99999999% of cases what we were labeling as "spoiler" was just whatever in hell actual content you'd clicked on the thread to read in the first place.

And then as far as this

Or, alternatively, if it's such a big deal to use the things literally, why not just use the same code we do for spoiler2 and call it something else so people aren't forced to scroll 50 imaginary internet meters down to get past the picture dump.

The thing is that I did exactly that, and we had those tags for like half a year or some shit, and I even bribed Bluesey into making actual ding-dang icons that we put into the forum post editor to make them that much more convenient for people to use, and you know what happened? NOBODY GODDAM EVER USED THE TLDR TAG EVER ONCE NEVER EVER, and still used the fucking spoiler tag for everything all the time! To the point that when we suggested to people "well maybe you could use the tldr tag for that" they would be all like "But then what am I supposed to use the spoiler tag for?!" I swear to god that is not an exagerration someone actually said those words for real and meant it.

So we got rid of the extra tags I had made for people to use that nobody used and just said hey if you have something with spoilers in it use the spoilertags and if you just have a bunch of text POST THE TEXT BECAUSE THIS IS A TEXT PLACE WHERE PEOPLE COME TO READ TEXT.

[Fifthfiend]

DOUBLEPOSTCUZICAN

All that said I'm personally not opposed to using the spoiler tag for the once in a while that someone has an image that would actually break the forum template esp. if they put a thing sayin' hey this next spoiler ain't a spoiler it's just a bigass image. But I think Meister has stronger feelings about that one than I do so we'll see what he has to say about it.

EDIT: AND I think I'd be doubleplus okay with putting the stuff that wigimund put in spoilers in spoilers so I don't have to fucking actually look at it ever but I'd be like tripleplus okay with nobody ever posting that stupid fucking shit on this forum anywhere ever.

[Mirai Gen]

In my opinion I believe the TLDR button was a great idea and I tried to use it, but I think that it didn't have enough time to settle into people's minds. Similarly, in the same way that people frequently use Spoiler2 in place of just posting the image because they got used to it, people used Spoiler2 because people hadn't gotten quite down the fact that the TLDR tag was the same but better. I, for example, didn't know about the TLDR tag until a short while before it was banned. Why this happened I have no idea.

However that's just my thought about the tag itself as I see no problem with pretty much everything that Fifthfiend said, IE why hide walls of text on a forum where you come to type and read text from people anyway? Besides; TLDR on other forums is used less of a smartassed four-letter response and more of a quick summary in a sentence for those who just skim. If people really have that much text I'm sure they can just do this:

TLDR: Fifth is right, and we should use TLDR tags after lots of text like I just did.

EDIT: Also the reason behind the Motivational Poster banning was, I think, lots of people getting tired of perfectly funny pictures being shoved awkwardly into a Motivational Poster with captions and text for absolutely no reason. I disagree but I think it's just a temporary 'breather' ban anyway.

[Fifthfiend]

Oh yeah I forgot about the posters thing. I think Meister wanted the posters gone for what I see as the basically understandable reason that 99.99999999% of those things are like

[IMAGE]

"Hey look at that image it is an image of [IMAGE]"

It's just ten million of the exact same annoying thing all the time and it's just like man, nah.

[phil_]

Personally, I didn't use the tl;dr tag because of my distaste for the term "tl;dr." Also, I'm pretty sure I never used spoiler2 as a replacement. "Pretty sure," as in "I just spent about an hour and a half reviewing my old posts to find an instance where I did and came up dry."

[MasterOfMagic]

"Pretty sure," as in "I just spent about an hour and a half reviewing my old posts to find an instance where I did and came up dry."

That's dedication.

Oh yeah I forgot about the posters thing. I think Meister wanted the posters gone for what I see as the basically understandable reason that 99.99999999% of those things are like

[IMAGE]

"Hey look at that image it is an image of [IMAGE]"

It's just ten million of the exact same annoying thing all the time and it's just like man, nah.

I dunno, it can't be overdone like that, but I think they can add to a joke if done right. I don't think banning it really accomplishes much besides not letting people post funny pictures.

Maybe my tolerance for these things is just too high, but I never even imagined it was a problem until it was banned.

[bluestarultor]

I think part of what Mes might be asking about is the loss of the [IMGHIDE] tags. Because a lot of times, spoiler2 has a case in that if someone is posting a buttload of images like POS showering the forum with his facepalm pics, even though it doesn't stop the pics from loading, it does save people from a million images they don't want to see.

On the other hand, Fenris gave me an infraction for putting one of my comics in spoiler2, so I guess that it's being heavily discouraged. That's my only infraction point, but it's there forever to remind me not to do that anymore.

(Incidentally, I'm glad it was only the one, because if infractions work like I hear negative rep did, I posted enough comics in spoiler2 tags that I might be on thin ice right now. It was sort of my tradition because of how much real estate my 700x1000 format takes up. )


Also, IIRC, [IMGHIDE] only could show the first pic due to limitations of how it was coded, which somewhat limited what it could be used for, which was why people kept using spoiler2 when they wanted to hide a bunch all at once. In the case IMGHIDE is brought back, it might just be better to do like with TLDR and change up the text to like, "WARNING! PIXEL OVERLOAD!" or something. I might still have the icon somewhere to dig up if it ever happens. Haven't purged my pics in ages. XD

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by MasterOfMagic

I dunno, it can't be overdone like that, but I think they can add to a joke if done right. I don't think banning it really accomplishes much besides not letting people post funny pictures.

The problem is the funny pictures are generally funny by themselves without Motivational Posterifying them. If it's that funny spend ten seconds in MS Paint and take the picture out and I'm sure it'll be just as funny, plus or minus a minor explanation in the bottom.

That's not even including some of the sillier pictures I've seen, IE a totally gorgeous girl strapped to a chair and in the background is a TV, and the poster says "HOLY CRAP Futurama's on!" It was funny a few times but now that's pretty much all the decent motivational posters are.

Just look in the thread; the last three images I recall being put in NGY was Jesus found in the dog's ass, yet another TTGL picture with Kamina, and the Elven Tree Cities picture, which was much funnier with the backstory explanation.

Besides what caused the ban was the presence of like 20 people macroing each other to death, and it became "...And Not Goddamn Image Macros" for a while.

But "Macro" is such an ambiguous term that it was changed it to "Motivational poster" because that was the more annoying one anyway.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

like POS showering the forum with his facepalm pics

What's great about this is that I only ever used those damn things one at a time and have been taking great pains to hold back on them as much as possible while various other denizens of the forums (Fifth, Krylo, RT, and even Mash on one occasion) have been quite slaphappy with the reaction images.

But seriously, "showering"? I think, at most, I used two images in a single post while responding to two separate quotes. If you want to see showering, perhaps you should check out your boy Mac.

Now good day, sir.