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What can you post in Talkback? Why has it become more "sacred" lately?

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Khushrenada:
A brief article is posted in Talkback which mentions a statement from Nintendo regarding their supply issues on Amiibo. (Remember those? Are they still a thing?) Readers of the article begin to post comments about their thoughts on what they've just read and what other users have commented about. The discussion unsurprisingly goes back to complaining about how bad Nintendo has handled the supply of Amiibo. It's a conversation that has been repeated since about 2 weeks after Amiibo first launched and a conversation in which very little new ground is being covered.

One user, finding the repetition of comments on the subject of Amiibo supply to be growing stale, decides to make a humorous comment instead about the conversation of the subject as a whole instead of just complaining about reading the same complaints. This is what is posted:


--- Quote from: Khushrenada on May 05, 2015, 01:35:29 AM ---Complaining about Amiibo Supply Issues is still a thing?!?



Yes. Time to do the Harlem Shake!





--- End quote ---

The poster expresses his frustration that complaining about Amiibo and making the same old posts almost 6 months later is still happening. Ah, but then a twist. The user posts a pic to show how happy he is that he can still make posts complaining about Amiibo supply issues with starry eyed wonder. To celebrate the continuing ability to keep making Amiibo complaint comments, he wants to celebrate by doing the Harlem Shake which is a fad that has stopped being of interest to people just like Amiibo Supply talk should be and has become of no interest to him. A brief funny video relating to the Harlem Shake is shown in order to keep the humour up. Then, to make the final point, one more pic of an old meme, this time of "the most interesting man in the world", to again point to the staleness of Amiibo Supply talk and sum up that the whole conversation has become an old joke.

But is this the type of comment that should be allowed under an article or added to the ongoing conversation about it? Do you find something offensive about it? Does it ruin the conversation or article for you on seeing it? Do you think it sends a bad message about a website if they were to allow it in their comment section?

Evidently, for one member, they did think this way. Commenting on the post, they said: "Talkback, dude.  There's a limit to what's allowed - meme gifs are a little much, man". Commenting further, the member also stated "The deleted post in Talkback wasn't about the quality - it was about the content.  A bunch of meme images in a Talkback thread isn't what Talkback is about." Finally, they summed up their feelings by stating "not only is your post without any real relation to the OP of the thread, but it's just a couple of meme gifs and a dash of insult towards another poster that posted something you don't like."

Do you find yourself agreeing with the member who removed the post? Or do you think they may have reacted too strongly?

Khushrenada:
While it might be easy to dismiss this single occurrence as something between two users, a poster and moderator, and thus not of any concern to you, it actually is more than just a simple disagreement. You see, the terms "There's a limit to what's allowed" and "A bunch of meme images in a Talkback thread isn't what Talkback is about" suggest that there are special rules to this subsection of the forum. Yet, do any of you know what those rules are or what makes this forum section so different from other sections?

Moreover, stating there is a limit to what is allowed for one user means there is a limit to what is allowed for all users. Thus, it is an issue that affects all posters. Even if you may not see yourself posting something as the example in the original post, you may feel that shouldn't deprive other users of being able to have that freedom and you may even enjoy seeing such comments made. Even if you don't find such a post of any benefit, you may still be leery of limits because if extra limits can be imposed in one area, they can be imposed in more. And more limits may be added which may then affect you or other users. Since other extra limits were allowed in the past, it makes it harder to then argue against further limits in the future. Thus, learning and speaking up about the issue now helps us all for the future.

So, what is Talkback about? When one looks under the Talkback forum, they will find no rules or explanation as to how it differs from other forums. If one looks under the Rules thread in the Announcements forum, they will find no special instructions for this type of forum. (Barring a quick edit by Insanolord following the posting of this comment. I'm on to you!) Thus, it seems to be a non-existent rule which varies from different ideals depending on who is enforcing things at a certain time. How can we then know what Talkback is about and what its "limits" are?

Shaymin:
Speaking personally for a moment: Since Talkback (and Podcast Discussion) posts show up on the main site, I can see why they'd want to clean up for content. Meme pics just show up as links, so I wouldn't have ran it for that, but I could see the personal attacks causing it - we're trying to present a reasonable discussion and calling someone a douchelord isn't going to facilitate that. And yeah, we probably should formalize "Don't f**k with Talkback" at some point.

Disclaimer: I've only cleaned up a couple of blatant personal attacks and removed somebody posting a stupid amount of line breaks for making the article page itself unnecessarily long.

UncleBob:
I'll be the first to admit that the forum rules need a major overhaul (for example, if I really just wanted to hand-wave off your criticism, I could pull this one:

--- Quote from: TheYoungerPlumber on February 20, 2009, 05:10:21 AM ---* For posts including images, be aware that images over 100k and 640 pixels wide are not permitted except in threads marked for giant images in the thread title. Using bandwidth that is not your own without permission is not permitted. Images must be safe to view at school, work, and in front of grandma.
--- End quote ---

but since it's no longer 1993 and we're not using AOL dial-up...)


--- Quote from: TheYoungerPlumber on February 20, 2009, 05:10:21 AM ---In addition, posts that are deemed inappropriate or detrimental to discussion may be removed at staff discretion. This may occur even if such posts do not warrant disciplinary action, especially to keep the conversation smooth in Talkback threads.

--- End quote ---

It's not often it comes up, but as Shaymin said, Talkback has always been a little special because the posts there show up on the main site.  The rule is already formalized, although it is a little hard to miss.

Khushrenada:
To try and understand what Talkback is about and what its limits are, I decided to conduct a brief study of it. In the case of meme type gifs, have there ever been any examples of memes, gifs or pics that have been posted? Well, the answer is yes. But don't take my word for it. Here's a small sampling of such occasions.

In the case of a news article about Pokémon Surpasses Four Million Sales in Two Days, if we scroll through the comments, we will see a large comic pic posted by Azeke which is much larger than the deleted post.

In a news article about New Ace Attorney Set in Meiji Era, the user Khushrenada posted a large comic highlighting the way the series is having trouble converting Japanese elements to American elements.

In the news article about Wii Fit U Co-Developed by Pandora's Tower Studio, the user ShyGuy has posted a gif about the success of the Wii at the end of the comments.

In the news article on Top 5 Pokémon Games, there is an exchange at the end in which UncleBob states swearing isn't grounds for reporting a post and Oblivion posts a gif of Michael Jordon laughing about the report.

In the news article reporting Nintendo Fifth Largest Company in Japan, the user AzureNightmare (who was also a staff member at that time) simply posted a meme gif of Zoolander characters as Nintendo employees.

In the news article on Discontinued Amiibo Figures Could Come Back in Card Form, the user Pokepal148 posts a meme pic about card games.

And in a news article on New Smash Brothers Characters Revealed, you can see Luigi Dude post the Super Saiyan Coach gif in response to the news. A popular gif that has been used a few times in Talkback.

It reminds me of the link to the YouTube video for The Critic in which he says "And nothing of value was lost." which has also been posted in Talkback and I should have grabbed a link for. I didn't because I feel this small sampling is enough to prove that images, memes and gifs are something that have been posted in Talkback both recently and in the past by many users.

However, perhaps you don't have the time to click on all the links. I understand. Consider this the reference/citation page for my next post which will show all of these posts and what they look for you to more easily compare them with the post in question in the original post of this thread.

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