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This thread has been opened after the rough debate on the irc channel. When we were discussing if this thing deserves an entry or not.
Some of us argued that this doesnt deserves an article because it has not been parodied or something. Some of us claimed that most of our articles are pretty much like this.
I am not going to discuss if that topic deserves an entry or not. I am just asking this: What is the exact point of kym? What is our purpose on this kind of events? Do we need to mention every single thing just because they are discussed a little on the internet even though they dont have anything related to the internet at all?

As I just said in irc, but will put it here so it stays; at the moment, I don't think this event specifically deserves an article. Not because it's something horrible that happened (like what dpf is saying), but simply because there is no internet-original content that has yet to spawn because of it. A popular event =/= meme. The internet is a massive medium for communication, of course people are going to talk about it a lot online. Sandy Hook was awful too, but it deserved an article because it spawned internet-original content as well as a godawful fandom.

I really don't think this should deserve it's own entry. I know we've documented some pretty bad things before, but this sort of crosses the line in terms of horribleness. As a matter of fact, I've never really understood why terrible events like this one have been documented on a meme site in the first place.
Also, as delta said, it isn't really meme worthy per se, just an event that has been widely discussed online. Most of the events we have documented prior to this one appearing have spawned Internet memes that are worth documenting.

Moving to Meme Research.
Edit: @Alex
I moved this thread to Meme Research as pretty much all of the posts here are centered around whether this event, or events like this as a whole deserve entries on KYM, which as I see it has to do with Meme Research. (After all there are plentry of threads in this board debating whether certain things deserve entires or not).
However if any other forum mod disagrees with this decision then they are obviously more than welcome to move it back to Report Problems, or another more suitable board.

Muffin moral is not the real issue here. If that was the case, we should have removed 9/11, school shooting entries exc. The point is relevancy.

9/11 has major spread on the internet. So will this. That should be reason enough to write an entry on it.

>So will this
So KYM should launch entries just because the site thinks it will gain attention by the internet? I thought we are documenting what is exist.
I am not sure why this thread has been moved to the meme research. I thought that it was clear on my first post. It is a glitch maybe i dunno.
Whatevs back to topic: i have seen this site documenting kinda irrelevant things that has no relevance to the internet. Sure people talk it on the news sites, twitter exc. But how much can we stick on that? Isnt that a bit ridiculous to mention irrelevant stuff? Shouldn't a meme at least has an online impact more than temporary tweets and comments?

But spread alone is not the only factor we take into account when we consider what needs to be documented on KYM.

We also look at parodies, meme mutation, macros, original content, viral media.

If we simply documented everything that spreads, we'd just become the 6'o'clock news. News always has massive spread. News is reported on every TV channel. News is blasted on hundreds of websites.

If we document everything that spreads, doesn't that mean we'd have to document everything that CNN reports? That's way beyond the scope of this website! We don't need to document plain old news.

The point of this site is that the news doesn't cover internet memes so we take care of that. We only document events when memes spawn from them and we follow that meme mutation. The tabloids can handle the rest.

If a certain photo from the pakistan tragedy turns viral and becomes a macro then we'd make the article to document the spread of memes from that event. But until then, we don't need to make an article for it.

And this has nothing to do with tragedy. 9/11 was documented because it spawned a crapton of meme mutation and viral media, not because it was a terrible thing that happened that was talked about all over the world

@BSoD

We have hundreds of entries with very little memetic substance, though. The recent Sidney Siege article, Sandy Hook, Elliot Rodger (pretty much any of our school shooting articles tbh), Ferguson, Eric Garner, the list goes on and on. Outside of Twitter rage in many of these cases, nothing that could be considered parody, mutation, or viral media ensued.

Should we purge these articles? Well, outside of a few grumpy mods (I won't name anyone, you know who you are), the userbase is mostly happy to join in the shitstorm which these articles create. You rarely see complaints outside of newfags who don't understand that KYM isn't a meme-only site.

Personally, I believe that KYM's policy should be to allow documentation of anything that has caused a large amount of discussion and exchange on the internet.

EDIT: to clarify, emphasis on the word "allow". There seems to be the assumption that it's our obligation to document such events. Not so; I simply believe that if there's enough evidence of internet presence, an article should be allowed, as long as the author provides evidence of said presence.

Here's the thing that I think a lot of people overlook: yes, we do document internet spread/parodies/etc, but often times it's trivial: saying so-and-so posted on Facebook and got thousands of likes or a tweet got thousands of retweets is notable, but is this really internet exclusive? Sure, we will talk about background, spread, maybe post some pictures from news sites, and list a few people that posted online and got reactions out of that.

One thing that a lot of people forget is that anything that leaves an impact IRL will have an impact on the Internet. By that logic, then yes, we will cover news, but then what differentiates us from the thousands of other sites? I think one main thing that the admins need to clarify is that what is entry-worthy. Is it lasting impact? Is it initial reaction? Or does any event that garner retweets and likes is worthy?

Take for instance two events back in 2011 that everyone probably forgot about.
An earthquake and a riot

Both made no real lasting impact and I'm sure everyone forgot about it by now, but what do you think?

There's more events from the path for you to judge here

But particle, some of those articles are notable. Those events launched few macros, jokes, youtube videos from not news related channels exc..
Yeah about those dim entries… I am not siding with purging or destroying anything for now but i just want to understand.
What is the point of writing similar things that the other news sites are already saying. Sure, they dont really impact the actual meme documentation. But still.. Not the point of this site.
Maybe kym should launch a news section or something. Just a suggestion.

@Alex Mercer

news section

I don't oppose this idea. Dunno how it would work, but I'd love to write for such a section if it ever does come along.

What is the point of writing similar things that the other news sites are already saying

Well firstly, there's this:

You could argue that it's the wrong point, sure, but it's not pointless.

Secondly, there's no reason why we couldn't we focus our entries on the internet's reaction. Twitter, Facebook, online campaigns and so on. Expand on what we specialize it, but keep it within our specialization.

Documentation of facebook or twitter doesnt seem to be filling the purpose here. Sure something like a hashtag is pretty notable but here is the deal:
Why would any person on the internet wanted to know if the other people are reacting to it? KYM most likely to focused on the social impact on the internet. We are not directly telling what is the deal, but what are the people doing about it.
If our focus is not the covarage of the news but the things that has been derived from it, what is the point again? Just an info about people react to it is not a good read for kym articles imo. Just a copy of any news site ever does.

@Muffin
Again. This thread wasnt really about which events should be covered or not. But about our general policies related to creating event entries. I think this still belongs to meta board but whatever.

If the idea is to not be like buzzfeed and be clickbait or to be a news site than why don't we just start policy of waiting a few days on events like this to see their impact. On whether they should be covered or not I think it should be more of a by case scenario, because some of these events get a lot of attention on the internet other than macros and parodies (hashtags, petitions, commentaries, etc.) and definitely should be covered. On whether or not KYM should have a news section, I don't see why not. People are saying the site covers too much news anyway and separating it from the entries might be a solution to that, and I'm sure you could find plenty of volunteers.

@Alex Mercer

Why would any person on the internet wanted to know if the other people are reacting to it? If our focus is not the covarage of the news but the things that has been derived from it, what is the point again?

Why would anyone want to know X? Why does 80% of Wikipedia exist? Why would someone want to know the age of Nic Cage, the height of Barack Obama, the material out of which the Eiffel Tower is made?

Honestly, I don't think we could ever know in a comprehensive manner. All that we know is that we document it, it gets page views, and everyone goes home happy barring a few grumpy mods.

why don’t we just start policy of waiting a few days on events like this to see their impact.

Seems a bit fair.

Why would someone want to know the age of Nic Cage, the height of Barack Obama, the material out of which the Eiffel Tower is made?

Way you go. Completely misread my point on relevancy and KYM's purpose.
We are a meme documentation site Particle. We are not exactly documenting what has ever occured IRL. Our Nic Cage article for example.. Why do you think that entry is not the same as wikipedia? Because we are not really interested on the particular subjects or details about events, persons or site entries. But what have been created or inspired by them. Additions, doesnt hurt of course and can be added. But that kind of info is not what a kym user or any reader is actually looking for.
>grumpy mods
Aand we are the meme grumps!

Moving back to General as this thread is not about researching any meme. This is a discussion about KYM itself

But that kind of info is not what a kym user or any reader is actually looking for.

Really? Judging from the number of views, comments, and lack of complaints on our event articles, our userbase doesn't mind this kind of "news info" at all. They may not be actively seeking it out, but there's no real opposition to it.

It has been made clear repeatedly by mods, admins, and the site itself that we are an internet culture site. It's just that "Know Your Internet Culture" doesn't roll off the tongue as well. How Internet culture responds to and accommodates these controversies should be a point of our interest.

Those entries at least had something, anything that gave them a connection to memes internet culture, be that through incorporation of other memes or generating memes internet culture in itself.

The focus of those entries are not entirely about the events and people themselves. Instead they've always had the focus of what viral media they produce. Notice we fill image galleries with image macro's people made of the event, not general photographs of the event!

I say again: we never made entries of events because they were big news. We made entries of events because they produced memes or were incorporated by memes.

Of course being a huge major event greatly increases the chance that something will produce memes become a part of internet culture, so naturally we ended up documenting some big news events anyway, but that doesn't mean we document events just because they get big

If you want to know about 9/11. Go to Wikipedia. If you want to know about the image macro's that people made of 9/11, go here. That's the articles do and that's what KYM is for. This is the point that Alex is trying to get at.

Since I've been at KYM over the last several years, whenever a massive event came along that took the world by storm, we would pay attention to it, but we didn't make an article until we starting seeing that event produce some real meme material for us to track and record. That's the way we've always been and I don't see why that should change.

So why should there be a huge argument about this? It's very simple: wait until people actually start making some memes out of the event the event garners some involvement with internet culture, then by all means make your article.

@A news section

I'm okay with this. I see part of the problem here is that the internet doesn't really have a good crowd-sourced wiki of general worldwide events so KYM is in some way filling this gap, even though that's out of the original scope of the database

Wikipedia doesn't really cover basic news unless it gets to a historic level.

All other wikis are too messy or obscure, have no moderation in place

The feeds and blogs are too chaotic

Actual news sites do not permit readers add their input to the main article

KYM seems like the perfect place to record news in a wiki format that allows the general public to control and regulate the information. The only issue is that we're actually trying to document memes, not just anything. But a seperate section on KYM intended for this purpose would be a good compromise

Instead they’ve always had the focus of what viral media they produce.

This isn't entirely true, though. Take a look at the Eric Garner article. There is a large "Online Reactions" section, but no real evidence of parody or mutation. And you know what? I'm fine with that. In my opinion, KYM should be dedicated to documenting how the internet behaves, which includes how it reacts to IRL events.

not general photographs of the event!

Eric Garner gallery
UK Porn protest gallery
Hungarian Internet tax protests gallery
etc.

Note that in the Eric Garner gallery, Don has submitted a couple of Twitter screencaps, in essence capturing what I thought was the strong point of the article: the internet's reactions.

but we didn’t make an article until we starting seeing that event produce some real meme material for us to track and record

Well, Don of all people has built up a reputation for creating controversial articles, usually spurred by hashtags – once again, essentially documenting how the internet responded. Since he's our most prolific admin as far as the userbase is concerned, I'd say that he's steering KYM away from what it used to be. For the better? Well, that's up for debate. But for now, it's absurd to pretend that the site's event articles are based solely (or even mostly) on derivative memes.

In order to properly document IRL events, you need to document various aspects of it:

• What happened?
• What's the background?
• How did the news spread?
• What were the consequences or did other events spawn from it?
• How did the public react? (This includes the internet.)
• And because we're KYM: What memes, hashtags, or other notable internet things did it produce?

Blue wrote:

I say again: we never made entries of events because they were big news. We made entries of events because they produced memes or were incorporated by memes.

Big load of bull. We never made event entries center around memes, we centered them around what happened and online reactions.

Just take a look at controversy entries like Oreo's Gay Pride Cookie, Chick-Fil-A Gay Marriage, or Papa John's Boycott. None of those produced internet memes. But guess what they did produce? Online reactions, Viral media, possible boycotts and IRL events. And that is what all those entries centered around. Again, no memes.

If you want to know about 9/11. Go to Wikipedia. If you want to know about the image macro’s that people made of 9/11, go here. That’s the articles do and that’s what KYM is for. This is the point that Alex is trying to get at.

If you want to properly document 9/11 KYM style, don't ignore what happened. Summarise it a bit more and don't nitpick the details, while replacing that space you created with internet occurances surrounding the event.

If people want to know about irl events, then sure as hell they're allowed to go to KYM. Some don't want to know everything that went down in detail, but take a summary for granted too. We can offer that. Also, big ass IRL events are always documented by viral internet news outlets, the same news outlets we link to in our Spread sections. So it seems that the internet is documenting a said IRL event, which means KYM is perfectly in the green.

Also, like Particle Mare pointed out as well, many of our readers discover news stories through us first. Which means we're doing a good job. Why change what isn't broken?

I want to clarify one thing. I am not against documenting online reactions, these are relevant too. What am i trying to say is, isnt kym more like to focused on the things that internet has actually involved? Those events you just mentioned, they are pretty much covering what am i just trying to say. Internet has credit when these things gone viral and developed.

Also, like Particle Mare pointed out as well, many of our readers discover news stories through us first. Which means we’re doing a good job. Why change what isn’t broken?

Well. Thats a good point. I am still not convinced why that gives us a green light to make an entry of everything. But still good point.

It's not like they werent doing this before. Internet documenting IRL is still honestly oanoverstepping, on the rules of the internet.

Honestly I've kind of been distancing myself from the entries because of this, I don't feel like KYM is even about memes at all, just "vaguely related new stories and controversies". It just feels like the only entries that ever get made are things with no internet spread. Even in things like people and subcultures, memetic spread is all but disregarded often. I think we're in need of re-examining what the site's focus is.

Unless something makes an impression on the internet (and really, the impression should be the generation of memes, since that is what the site's supposed to be about), I don't think it should get an article. While the Pakistan killing was tragic, I haven't really seen it make much of a dent on the English internet aside from the expected news articles.

It does seem KYM has lost its way over the years from being a site about documenting and researching all those internet in-jokes to being an "internet trend Wikipedia," one step up from urban dictionary.

While I can agree with this for sure, I think that's also kinda where a part of the problem lies.

• We document a big ass IRL event: People say it's too IRL with not enough unique internet spread.
• We document the smaller internet events: People say they're too small and not worthy of an entry.

It seems that something needs to be of Gamergate-like levels of size before we collectively agree that something should get an KYM entry. You can't expect every internet event to be a Gamergate, because most internet events are just small compared to the actual news.

Then you have meme entries.

• If we document too small memes, people complain about it having not enough spread (yet).
• If we however don't document them, you get complaints about how we don't cover enough memes.

People just need to make up their minds. What do you want: More and small, or less but big?

Also users got a lot better at noticing and mentioning internet trends on here. So kudos to the researchers. We then notice less of the staff making meme entries, as users and mods hog them. But that's not a bad thing.

Honestly I’ve kind of been distancing myself from the entries because of this

Tbh, that's only adding to the problem as you're only adding to a lack of meme entries with that attitude. (I'm not much better though.) (Also that kinda goes out to everyone who steers away from entry writing over stupid reasons.)

@RandomMan:

As far as events go, better we have more Internet-centric events that are small, than huge events that are only tangentially Internet related. As far as memes go, I would actually prefer less but big. Part of this website's flaw is it's need for consistent re-visitation and page views to sustain it. Because of this, we have a front page that is in constant need of things to draw visitors to the site, which means a lot of things get posted to it, such as brand new articles, that really don't have much to do with memes or even Internet culture. It wasn't as bad in the beginning because there were plenty of older memes to fill the front page with. There were memes to rediscover and explore all the time. But we've sorta drained the well, and now have nothing better to do than to watch and wait for new memes to show signs of appearing, and then pounce on them because, "Yes, new meme! Frontpaged!" It always seems to end up like a fisherman trying to set the hook after the first sign of a nibble: the fish always gets away. Alternatively, all the fish are snatched up before they have a chance to grow into their own. Like an excited kid coddling a cute wild animal, we do not take into consideration the effect our interference has on this "animal's" life. A lot of the good, proper, confirmed memes seemed to have had the chance to become memes before we took note of their meme-hood (you'd see plenty of people "in the wild" saying things like "so, is this becoming a thing?" "is this phrase a thing now?").

Another problem is that too much of the site has become inundated with pop-culture content as opposed to Internet culture content. These days, every mildly popular movie, game, tv show, book, etc. gets its own subculture entry, and every real world event that makes the evening news and gets any discussion on the Internet gets its own event entry. I am of the belief that just because the Internet is used to talk about this or that thing does not make the thing an "Internet thing". If we're going to ascribe Internet-memetic qualities to a thing, it needs to have an Internet nativity to it. If a real world event makes the news, and people talk about it on the Internet, wouldn't it stand to reason that it's origin lies with the broadcast mediums, and not the Internet? What reason would we have to make an article about something originating off the Internet? On the other hand, when a joke, idea, or what-have-you that derives from entertainment only sees popularity through Internet sharing and transmission, outside the machinations of broadcasting and marketing, we would be remiss not to research and catalogue it.

Also, not much effort seems to be put into differentiating confirmed memes from submissions. When new submissions are presented on the front page, it's always with this air of "probably" or "hopefully" rather than "maybe" or "could be", if that makes sense. Registered or seasoned users know better, but there are probably tons of visitors who see something on the front page and think they have another sure-thing meme to show their friends. Sometimes this actually inadvertently helps something spread into a meme, or something with memetic spread, when it would most likely not have without our presence. Again, we do not take into consideration the full effect our interference has on the lives of these "wild" memes/memes-to-be.

Exacerbating all these problems is the fact that the website operates on a frontpage/pageview quota system, where fresh content must be always present, even when, were we operating purely as a database, there really shouldn't/doesn't need to be. Bottom line: you're trying to feed a database on a diet that favors news sites, and I am afraid the website will eventually become what it eats.