Bunched a few of these quotes together to save space and make it flow better. You can refer back for the full context, not trying to mislead anyone.
As per Eljay's comment here, that response with just an image without text would be breaking this new rule.
You have no evidence to support even a single aspect of your claim and it is simply not possible for you to judge how much someone finds something amusing. Your viewpoint is completely baseless - so I'm hard pressed to view it as anything other than a lie. Inaccurate? Misinformation? Misguided? Misconstrued? -shrugs- Whatever the proper term is.
Eljay, put simply, you actually do not have a single piece of data that measures user amusement - it simply isn't included on this site. You made a remark about users experiencing amusement that was completely without facts. People finding meme's or these videos or images humorous is NOT something the board has statistics on. There is no factual evidence you have.
I am measuring something easily traceable - user engagement in topics and comments. There are an absolute ton of ways you can measure this ranging from likes, comments, individual users, repeat viewings, frequent users, new users, etc...
One of the ways to do this is to take a random topic and see how many people have broken this rule in the past and how many likes they received is an actual statistic on the board - its a measurable aspect and I've shown some of those to you in the previous post. The boards document every like and comment (at least those not removed) and there is over a years worth of evidence on my side that any user can easily spot by simply finding memes or instances of this rule being broken previously. The highest levels of engagement come from images, new topics, or heated discussions.
In this debate, i am the one using the board statistics while you are claiming to know people's personal amusement based on... well... nothing, Your passing off something as factual without showing anything behind it or backing it up with anything. There is no way to measure personal amusement nor to factually claim its a small group doing this - which is especially odd because this wouldn't be an issue if it was just a small group that was doing so not noticed.
You can see the frequent posters directly under the first post (For example the Bionicle 2016 topic has 24) and you can see roughly the level of response that memes or images without comments get (22 likes on that image without discussion posted previously)
The frequent posters are your core fan base for that topic, the people who return time after time to post comments and interact and generally contribute. They are almost equalled by the number of members who found the image insightful, meaningful or to have some level of humour to warrant giving it a like.
The boards don't have to cater to either side, but to claim that the majority of the boards simply don't find things amusing (by claiming only a small group do) is alienating one side and implying the other side don't find aspects funny even though once again, no way of measuring this.
If memes can or do provide commentary they are providing a discussion or an avenue for discussion - meaning they would indeed contribute to discussion.
Surprisingly the most engagement this topic has had other than the main post and Looch leaving is in people sharing their own thoughts/opinions on the rule.
Actually Eljay stated it wont do a single thing to solve the 403 errors as quoted above. This 'friendly reminder' is to do with the speed of the boards, which nobody has really had any issues with (Or at least no one has made a bug topic about it on the boards)
Staff from Project Message have admitted that removing Project Message has done nothing to help the 502 or 403 errors and they actually seem to have increased after the PM was deleted.
I'm personally making a tribute to the PM and its members parodying how terribad its death was xD Its kind of the final board related funny thing for a lot of the PM's members (Pretty much the Master's of the boards) who have now left the boards completely.
User engagement is something i often have talked about on the boards. Project Message was founded by mods so that they could interact with users and that they'd have a way to chat and things. It was so popular and sought after, with people trying to gain Master to get in, because that is the heart of the boards - the people and the way they interact. Sadly i feel the boards are losing a lot of people due to the 403 and interacting is made increasingly difficult due to that error - the timing of this rule and its rather unclear explanation does not help.
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I understand you are swamped, i know you are very likely putting in a lot of time and effort into doing work and to try and find a solution to the 403 error that is no doubt causing the staff as much or even more stress than several of the users - amongst the other issues that the boards may have.
I am honestly not trying to cause any arguments here and have tried to explain my points in mature and meaningful ways by going in-depth - granted that means longer posts however it also means more aspects can be tackled as long as its read.
Regarding this rule, i have some queries given how poorly it seems it has been explained given users are still getting this rule incorrect (Such as users believing this will fix 403, that it only applies to memes, etc...) Its clear its been explained badly so users are confused about what it means.
Query 1; Data usage
While I get what Eljay is saying here about a bunch of people only posting images, however i don't see how the new rule is actually supposed to make the issue of data usage diminish.
For example, how would this;
Be contributing to the issue or providing discussion more or less than this;
And how does adding five words somehow make it use less data than having it use just an image? If it helps the boards that's good, but the way its being explained makes it difficult to imagine if it even would help...
Query 2; What actually qualifies
Going with the above image again, including five words basically telling people to look at the image according to Eljay somehow doesn't qualify as rule breaking, so can you clarify why a comment not adding discussion attached to an image that is effectively a meme is not considered rule breaking?
Query 3; Why the random jabs at users finding things amusing?
This topic, despite its name, as stated by Eljay several times is not about memes - though they may slightly be covered by the rule. Its about images, gifs or videos being posted without a comment accompanying them which it seems he personally views as both non-contributing to discussion and yet also providing commentary (Contradictory much?)
Yet despite how humour and amusement does not factor into this rule, it was brought up immediately along with claiming that a small group of the boards is the only ones who would find these things amusing, Are we to really believe that jokes such as Mardi Gras or other TTV related images, gif's or videos are only liked by a very tiny minority and that the rest of the boards don't find it amusing because that's the way its portrayed here It didn't have a place and has been the source of all heated discussions on this topic between almost every member and Eljay - so why was it there when it isn't supported factually? (You cant measure amusement on this site)
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Shall leave it as three queries for now, hopefully explains the issues with how its been explained. A general summary or list of a trimmed down version of the points @IllustriousVar would probably help users a lot.
Something like;
- Helps with speed of boards
- Does not fix 403
- Does/does not apply to update posts in MOC or art topics
- Etc...
(Not sure if these are all accurate, but hopefully you get the idea)
(Once again, excuse typo's due to 403's)
Edit; Just had a new error 'unspecified error' guess that is some progress if its changed from 403..