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I have been on KYM for several months, and I see a great disturbance. A division between users, and one that is pretty obvious: bronies and non-bronies

As a brony, yes, I do like watching the Hub network show, "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic".

Yes, I do like the fandom, and many aspects of it.

No, I do not like the Rule 34 of the show and its characters, but I do not judge others if they do.

And no, I do not think that EVERYBODY should watch it, and I completely understand those who don't.

No, I do not say everyone should give it a try.

It is frilly, and that's a truth nobody can deny. So if one does not want to see it, or even give it a try, they shouldn't be forced to.

But, I do see a great division even among this. What I do see is that Pony-related material is nearly everywhere on this site.

To be completely honest, I do not like seeing pony images outside of pony galleries, unless it is in good taste and can be universally accepted. I understand a lot of users are tired of seeing pony images constantly from gallery to gallery, and that bronies seem to upvote them just for the sake of "they are pony-related". I'm tired of that as well.

Now, I wish to address three groups:

- Non-bronies who do not hate the fandom: I thank you for your tolerance of the fandom's often rambunctious behavior. I understand it can be annoying, but I thank you for being mature and tolerant about it.

- Bronies: Keep Pony-related images in the MLP:FIM gallery, the Ponification gallery, and the other pony galleries. Do not start junk pony entries and expect good results, or just to troll. Do not condemn others for not liking the show, and keep pony-related content in pony-related forums and entries.

- Non-bronies who do not like the pony fandom: Try to bear with it and hopefully, we can sometime reach an agreement so its not in your face as much here on KYM. Please try not to be too annoyed and I beg you be patient.

Now, here is my theory:

- Non-Brony Mods and even Brony Mods should have the right to scour the various galleries and see if there are pony images in non-pony galleries. If the image has no taste, or is not good enough to really be there, then the mods should have the right to remove these images. This is to lessen the amount of pony images outside the right galleries.

- Pony-related material on the front page should be kept at a minimum. The only time it should make a front page is if both sides can find taste in it, or if its extremely big (such as a big announcement and such).

- KYM forum mods should know when Pony-related content is acceptable. If you are a brony, and like going to the other forums, I implore you do not discuss or mention pony, unless the mod says its okay, and even then, do not go on about it much, and keep it at a minimum. If you wish to discuss pony, then I advise visiting threads such as "KYM Pony General", where our good man Verbose is mod.

- This is the most radical, but if the use of the "Less Ponies" button could be reversed, that would be good. Instead of it showing less ponies, less ponies should always be on. The user should then decide if they want to see ponies or not, so the non-brony users can see non-pony material without having to see pony.

I hope this can help ease the division between the two groups.

That was amazing. Good job, man. Good job

This is literally a dead horse, and fuck the pun.

The segregation of MLP content has been one that's been around since inception, and most people are trying to break it, but defensive content like this is what serves to reinforce the separation, and the separation is what creates most of the problems.

Hey guys there's too much MLP crap!
Because we haven't had this discussion hundreds of times already!

How many times did we have this topic already?

Now, here is my theory:

- Non-Brony Mods and even Brony Mods should have the right to scour the various galleries and see if there are pony images in non-pony galleries. If the image has no taste, or is not good enough to really be there, then the mods should have the right to remove these images. This is to lessen the amount of pony images outside the right galleries.

- Pony-related material on the front page should be kept at a minimum. The only time it should make a front page is if both sides can find taste in it, or if its extremely big (such as a big announcement and such).

- KYM forum mods should know when Pony-related content is acceptable. If you are a brony, and like going to the other forums, I implore you do not discuss or mention pony, unless the mod says its okay, and even then, do not go on about it much, and keep it at a minimum. If you wish to discuss pony, then I advise visiting threads such as “KYM Pony General”, where our good man Verbose is mod.

- This is the most radical, but if the use of the “Less Ponies” button could be reversed, that would be good. Instead of it showing less ponies, less ponies should always be on. The user should then decide if they want to see ponies or not, so the non-brony users can see non-pony material without having to see pony.

I'll go by them by point:

• I disagree. If an image is related to a meme, regardless whether it's MLP or not, it should be added. Variations and addaptations by other fandoms shows a meme has spread. Not to forget that even without functioning as evidence for spread, it's still related to the meme in question and therefore contains no reason to be removed. And why should mods abuse their powers for the sake of fighting MLP?
• I disagree again. Why should we give priveleges like this to content that isn't MLP related. If something is of quality and worthy of getting frontpaged, it should get, regardless of being ponies or not. You are basically saying that because something is MLP, it's a problem for this site, therefore visitors should not be confrontated with it on the front page.
• I disagree again. That we shouldn't have ponies outside of Pony General is an unwritten rule, and a very shitty one as well. Yes, it was spammed in the past, but those days are long over. Why should we punish people for sharing what they like? MLP should receive the same threatment as other fandoms, both positively and negatively. We can't become biased against certain fandoms.
• At last, another disagreement. Why should that become a standard feature? "Oh hey, you like ponies? Sucks to be you, as we ban them by default." The function itself is good, but should never become a default feature. Like before, you're saying users become a problem they moment they like MLP, and therefore should be threated differently in a negative way by default.

Honestly, I'm of the belief that if somebody doesn't like seeing ponies then that's their problem. I can see how it would annoy people, but it really annoys me when there are one or two pony variants of a meme in said meme's gallery and suddenly people are upset that ponies are everywhere on the site. I can understand if there was a totally non-related picture in the gallery, but all of the ones I have seen have been relevant to the meme gallery they are in. This is why I think the people who don't like seeing ponies need to just put their big girl panties on and learn to deal with it. people forget that KYM doesn't belong to only them, it belongs to the brony members too. Therefore, they can post as much pony stuff (as long as it's relevant) as they want. There is no solution to be made, this is a website about memes and meme research, and if people get mad about ponies then they should go to other sites. Frankly, it's pretty easy to avoid pony related stuff on this site and only encounter maybe 2-3 pony images a day. Also, getting a mod's permission to post pony related stuff is ridiculous to me. Replace MLP with Pokemon and see if this still seems fair to you.

Non-brony here, I'd like to throw in my two cents.

Crossover pics are allowed. Pony images may go wherever they please.

Ponies also should be frontpaged. The only time it was necessary to remove them from the frontpage was when they essentially blocked all non-pony trending images. Since that's been fixed, that is no longer an issue.

I think that MLP can be mentioned, discussed, etc in the forums. When dumb threads are made, they will be mocked and locked, on the basis that they're dumb. Something that simply expresses one's fandom without discussion value isn't ok, because there is no discussion value and this is a forum. Pony threads are otherwise ok, although if people choose to be considerate and keep the number of threads low that would be nice. It needn't be mandatory though.

I like the button because it helps give the rest of the site's content some of the spotlight. Still, we can't just go around censoring stuff because we dislike it or it's controversial. We'd be massive hypocrites if we did, because we all love free speech here on the interwebs.

EDIT: I don't think that this still has to be discussed, as pony-antipony relations are pretty good on this site, way better then they have ever been. For a general discussion on how to change perceptions of the fandom, try making a general thread. As this relates to the site, this isn't an issue in the slightest.

I agree with RandomMan on all of his points. However, I do believe that a discussion about some leftover angst could be warranted.

I think we all know that some users really dislike FiM, because it's ubiquitous. Some bronies make some silly remarks and complain about haters when people aren't really haters. But I do wonder why bronies are still hated generally.

Surely, no one thinks they they (we) are any different than people in any other fandom. There are idiots, R34 enjoyers, decent people, people who are loosely apart of the fandom…

I think bronies pick up on that, and I think the negative sentiment is there.

What can be done to get rid of that perception? Heck, I guess you could ask that about the furry fandom as well.

To be honest I expected this kind of reaction

I am only trying to help, and consider the other side, instead of disregarding them entirely. If this seems too radical, I only ask this: Tone it down. Not too much, but enough so it isn't drawing hate.

The thing is that I don't really see much hate. I think that bronies feel a sense that their (our) interest is odd. On the Internet, that's odd, because we're all pretty geeky on the whole. But when you're now a geek among geeks, I think people take any slight too seriously.

And I think that the prevalence of Ponies and bronies on the Web will always draw some antagonism. It's a show for little girls that older males love more probably more than the little girls do. To get rid of that hate is to change the system of gender and age norms. If you do that, feminists everywhere would probably erect (haha…it's funny because…well, um, nevermind) a statue of you.
 
I have a question. It's one I posed to Jolly Jew a while ago: Where are you seeing this hate towards you? If people can't set that aside, then I just don't bother with them. I think it's fairly simple. And it's easy to ignore a stray "lol ur ghey" comment.

If I may, as a non-brony but not a hater:

I think the issue here is not content but people themselves. In a far smaller example, take Brolans. A lot of people hate Dolan stuff, and some people love it. No surprise there; that's how pop culture works. The emotions with which people respond, though, are more tied to the scale of the individual situation. If Dolan and MLP swapped audiences I think we'd be having a similar discussion with different titles. So the haters of ponies and radical bronies have a matching emotional response to the scope of just HOW MUCH of this site is influenced by ponies.

And what you're asking, though not with bad intentions, certainly, is for people to instantaneously and fundamentally change who they are. For radical bronies and haters to get along is to ask both to stop acting like children, and telling them to do so via the internet is a waste of time. I know that you're trying not to step on any toes here, bro, and you're just trying to get everyone to get along, but it's a fruitless endeavor. Better to be of a great character as an individual than to plead with deaf masses. Just do your thing and don't be a jerk and you'll be fine. Ponies don't really bug me, and in general I just ignore them. Frankly, I think the pony community here does a pretty good job keeping to itself, considering just HOW MUCH of the site is pony-related. Of course a lot of it is going to slip through the cracks because there's just so much pony content here. I don't think any major site changes are going to change who people are and how they post. At least not positively.

I don't know how controversial a topic this still is, but I thought that the "Fewer Ponies" option was great. And it's not because I hate ponies, it's because it was a courteous thing for bronies to put up with. I wanna see other images, dang it. And for them to recognize how the sheer volume of their content could get in the way of that, AND to provide a way to remedy that situation, was generous.

As far as this site goes, I really only see the same 5 people complaining about too many ponies (disregarding the odd person that comes to troll)

There's pictures & jokes from a children's show about magic ponies on the internet.

Look at all the fucks I give.

THIS IS DIRECTED TO MLP COMPLAINERS:
If you don't like MLP that's your problem.

Don't go and tell us all about your buttrape about a T.V. show. We don't need to redo this whole website so you can not see a god-damn fluffy animal.

Surly you have better things to do then complain about something as minor as this.

MDF gives the point very well, we think pretty similarly on the subject, if you ask me.

I will redirect you to my previous post. The same can be applied to this.

Besides, toning it down won't stop the hate. If I see one pony image in an image gallery amongst 100 other images, people will still complain about that one pony image and go "Meme ruined harr harr". They only have themselves with their complaining. And do you really think bronies will sit by idle and do nothing the moment we go support discrimination towards certain fandoms on the levels you demand here? Of course not. Not to forget I will strongly refuse if we ever get requested to become biased and abuse our mod powers against a certain group or fandom, whether this are ponies or not.

If your "solution" was really a solution, it would've have been done a long time ago, and we wouldn't be here disagreeing with you.

I've seen this fail time and time again.
What we have is the best we can get.

Oh well, I tried

No hard feelings I hope. Just an effort. Sorry for any disturbance or rustled jimmies…

I think from now on I might always post pictures of seagulls at the end of my forum posts. Let's see if they get their own section on the KYM Gallery.