Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

we all saw the rise and fall of cringeworthy, the lock of shadbase, and the death of the childhood images, and i'm just wondering, what galleries are the biggest ones with the worst problems and most likely to be shut down?

note: this is not an attack on the mods the ruined childhood gallery was a shithole

reaction faces. People seem to be abusing that gallery a lot.

All of them.

^

yeah, i agree with you on that one. i think alternate universe may be another one

Reaction Faces or Alternate Universe.

In all seriousness, if we lock another gallery, I vote Alternate Universe above all else

Granted, I'm not as active in the past month as I used to be, but I haven't seen too many issues with other galleries sans the Childhood ones (but I've had a vendetta against those galleries for about ten months now).

As for Reaction Faces, it's a lot less abused than it was half a year ago. With users realizing the importance of tagging and using reaction tags for images, the clutter has reduced significantly. It's likely still the most problematic gallery though. The Super Smash Bros gallery has kinda become a Nintendo character catchall as of late, though.

I want to say something about the Cringeworthy gallery. A lot of users seem to believe that the gallery was locked due to one KYM in-joke or another. That's certainly not the case. Speaking as someone who, in the early days of that gallery, thoroughly enjoyed uploading pics there because I loved making others cringe, that was not the case and never was the case. For me, it was never about the upvotes for the images. It was all about the cringe.

But the very reason that I started uploading to that gallery in the first place was because I felt that it was being abused. It very quickly became a place to, for example, upload a pic of some newer Nickelodeon show that somebody didn't like and claim that it's 'cringeworthy.' For me, I saw a picture of Fanboy and Chum Chum and I knew that I could upload better stuff than that. I assume that several other users agreed because for a while, it seemed like the gallery was getting a little better.

Of course, I could be mistaken by that. Maybe the gallery never did get better at any point and some level of nostalgia managed to creep into my time uploading images there. Perhaps the first sign that things were not as great as they were was when I uploaded this pic. Yes, that is the infamous Bloodhog pic that became an in-joke for a while here.

As soon as that pic was turned into an in-joke, the more popular the gallery became. That was also when the quality of the the uploads started going down again. I'd go as far as to say that it was worse than when the gallery started. True, it got cleaned up significantly at various points but it still wasn't enough because even then, there were more uploads coming in than the mods could handle. Around the time that the Scrapbooker title came out, I began to notice that a bunch of irrelevant tags and titles had been added to my uploads. The gallery was starting to get territorial.

So around the time the first gallery lock was implemented, I just stopped uploading to Cringeworthy. It wasn't fun to make other people cringe anymore because it seemed like everybody was uploading just for the upvotes. By the final article lock, I quietly celebrated Cringeworthy's demise with a pint. It was that debacle that made me realize, in spite of many users complaining about how the mods aren't being fair about locking certain galleries, they really do know what they're doing for the most part. Cringeworthy proved that in my eyes.

TL;DR: If the mods say that they're locking a gallery because it's being abused, it's being abused. Cringeworthy deserved it's fate and any of the other galleries that are having problems that the userbase refuses to do anything to help fix the problem until it's too late deserves to be locked.

wow, you know your stuff. any galleries showing the same symptoms cringe did?

Reaction Faces is a lot better, but of course it still has problems. Pretty much the only main problem is non-reaction faces.

It's good that the Childhood Galleries have been shut down. I found a lot of images dealing with Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gravity Falls, etc. That was my main concern with the gallery, among others.

Really the main reason, or one of the main reasons, is since those galleries are so popular they have the most uploaders, therefore naturally the most misuses. I think I may have one or two that could be moved, but I try my best in posting in the right gallery.

Anyways, the point of uploading images is to give examples of the memes, or at least that was the original intention. Most of the galleries are fine as they are, of course there's still the problem with NSFW and tagging, but we've discussed these.

Well, the most noticeable ones were Ruined and Enhanced Childhood. Those ones pretty much played out almost exactly the same as Cringeworthy (Minus the in-jokes. I didn't really notice any coming from that gallery). As of now, I agree that Reaction Faces is being abused. Also have to agree with Alternate Universe being abused, as well. I think the huge issue with Alternate Universe is that a lot of users tend to upload crossovers rather than actual Alternate Universes of different shows, books, movies, etc. and that the difference between Crossover and Alternate Universe can be a very thin line.

Ughhhh! I really do hate that Smash Bros thing. Like sometimes I see people just post Samus pics in Smash for no reason. If Samus has the new rocket heel-thingies it can be in Smash since that's her Smash design, but I've seen some plain Samus pics in there. Just her alone with her original design. Same with a bunch of other characters like Link and sometimes Mario. Galleries exist for those things too. It's not a terrible problem, but it is one nonetheless.

Super Smash Brothers may need another round of Image Cleaning. I've already gone through once a few months ago and requested things get moved that where not in the context of Smash Brothers. (there are a few I can see now that I'm gonna report later)

But yes. Crossover Galleries are a Mess because sometimes the images uploaded to them are not Context Sensitive.

Oh, one more thing. I'm personally sick of the flood of official website screenshots that flood the image gallery every time a new batch is released. I don't mind the daily Miiverse update Screenshot, but whenever the gallery is FLOODED with screenshots each time a new character gets revealed I get quite annoyed.

But it's not like there is a rule against it since it is relevant. It's just a pet peeve of mine.

One thing I've noticed that affects both the Smash Bros. and AU galleries is that people use them as catchalls simply to inflate their image views and upvotes. When an image should obviously go in the Mario or Zelda or someoranother gallery, people upload it to Smash Bros. or AU even though it has barely anything to do with the gallery it's been put in.

Since you asked, personal opinions are:

• Gallery: Tumblr
• Reason: Users uploading images about specific memes/subcultures we already have full entries on and uploading to Tumblr because "I saw it on Tumblr"

• Gallery: Alternative Universe/ Crossover
• Reason: Users uploading images about specific subcultures we already have full entries on and uploading it to Alternative Universe/Crossover because something is slightly different about it than from the source material. A mix between Ed Edd n' Eddy and Guardians of the Galaxy should go into either of the two galleries dedicated to those respective subcultures, and not into Alternative Universe/Crossover. When you start crossing over 4 or more unrelated things, that begins to fall into difficult to classify as one thing, and I think it's okay to start saying crossover is better.

• Gallery: Hentai Quotes
• Reason: Users uploading full pages of (sometimes censored) doujin into the gallery, as opposed to hentai quotes (seriously guys, do you even read the galley name before uploading?)

• Gallery: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
• Reason: Users uploading images from specific memes/submemes we have full entries on into the MLP gallery because it has to do with ponies. (You guys do realize we have an entry for Equestria Girls right?) I'd be a little more okay with this because of the ever present "pones r lame" users for non-pony memes, but without tags, that gallery is a black hole.

• Gallery: Pokemon
• Reason: Users uploading images from specific memes we have full entries on into the Pokemon gallery because it has to do with Pokemon. And, like above, this wouldn't be such a big deal if you guys would actually tag these images. Without tags, this gallery is basically a black hole. Also, people keep posting really borderline NSFW stuff in that gallery. Many of the characters are supposed to be under 12 in canon. I'm already uncomfortable looking the NSFW images in that gallery without this knowledge.

• Gallery: Super Smash Brothers
• Reason: Users uploading images from specific memes/subcultures we have full entries on into the SSB gallery because something in the image can eventually be related to SSB in some way. We we made specific submeme pages for many of the things found in the SSB subculture. Images of those go there, not the SSB gallery. Other properties that we have full pages on (unless it is specifically related to SSB, such as Samus and her new boots) go into their own galleries.

• Gallery: Reaction Faces
• Reason: Users uploading images of specific memes we have full entries on into the Reaction Faces Gallery because the gallery is trending. Users uploading images that no one could ever possibly interpret as a "reaction face" in the Reaction Faces gallery because the gallery is trending.

Please note: this is just my list of galleries that I consider problematic and feel like I either spend the most time fixing, or know things are wrong with it, but don't know enough to know how to fix it. Something like Alternative Universe I'm afraid may not be fixable due to the inherit nature of the entry.

tbh the easiest way to get karma on the website is to go to on tumblr, and put the funny things that pop on your dash on the tumblr gallery, or just go to r/tumbr or r/tumblrinaction. i got 200 upvotes for an arthur image.

I'm giving another 5 years before image galleries as a whole are deleted

The Heresy gallery is barely about heresy.

I mean, I know imagining the Emprah as a humanized Princess Celestia(or something close to that…I really don't know a lot about MLP) is blasphemy and heretical but damn it, that's highly irrelevant to that entry.

By popular demand

How many more must fall before your thirst is quenched?

oh no

i think i helped cause something

How does it feel to be the harbinger of entry locks? You provided them with ammunition and targets, let's see who survives in the end.

Oh democracy, how flawed you are.

But seriously, I guess it had to be done. Though one question, were warnings given about the locking of the Childhood and Alternate Universe Galleries?

Wherever you go
Whatever you do
Wherever life may take you, just remember
You caused this

Warnings have always been given out to people who misuse the entry. We tend not to get good feedback. We figured that as long as people are going to hate us, we might as well get all the stuff we have to do done while it's still going.

Honestly, I would advise locking all galleries.

No, I'm not a troll.

I think a big problem in this website is that the mission statement of this site (categorize and store memes) is largely disconnected from its vocal community (guys and gals who want to see all the latest things about their favorite topics). People are using this site as a more specialized Memebase than a meme-themed wiki. Outside of creating examples for up and coming memes, pictures and videos don't really need to be used at all.

Seems like it. Just wish that there'd be some kind of a site-wide warning (that is to say, a general statement instead of a bunch of small PMs) beforehand before people jump into "SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING" mode, though.

To the guy that was complaining about the state of "Heresy": I think that was kind of Derpy Vasquez's fault, though. He got carried away with uploading Warhammer 40000 stuff to the page that he lost sight of whether or not it was relevant to the topic.

Take the first few entries as a warning. We are shutting the site down and rebuilding it in our own image

The long night has begun. The rest is silence.

Actually the entry was written as a Warhammer entry not as a how heresy is used on internet forums and image boards. I tried to change that a bit and just upload my entire heresy folder. I wanted to start that entry and asked for help no one really responded. The ones that did wanted a warhammer entry. I wanted people who know about how it started on 4chan. All the images I uploaded where from heresy related searches, found on image boards talking about heresy, and 4chan.

So, this seems like a good a place as any to say what I think.

I think there's a problem here. Maybe I'm naive, but I doubt most people are deliberately trying to ruin the site by posting inappropriate content. If multiple image galleries are needing to be locked because people don't know how to use them correctly then there's obviously something wrong with how the site itself is functioning and conveying information to its users, rather than necessarily just the userbase.

For example, the new image guidelines, and how they were warned about in the comments of the problematic entries. I've used the AU gallery a fair bit (which probably makes me somewhat biased on this issue, but whatever), and not once did I consider that I need to keep checking the comment section in case there's new rules about what I should post in it. What happens is, I'm on the KYM homepage for whatever reason, and then I scroll down to the most popular image galleries to find it, and then I'm in the gallery, ready to post something. Obviously I've read the entry before (as people should before they post anything, of course, that's basic common sense) so I have a fairly good idea of what to put in it, but I don't even see the comments section in general use of this sort of entry, much less read it, so naturally what I go on is what I've seen in the gallery.

I apologize if anything I've posted was inappropriate for the gallery, but if what is and isn't appropriate isn't immediately clear, then that's what's inevitably going to happen, and I'm not going to be the only one. For most of us this is our leisure time, we can't be expected to go searching all the time in case we might be accidentally do something that's against a new rule (and if you do expect that then you're going to be disappointed). If there's a change to the rules, or even an existing rule that needs to be emphasised, that has to be clearly labelled to people in a place they'll see it before they can do something that breaks the rule (for example, putting a big warning at the top of the image uploader). You may think you shouldn't have to do that (and may well be correct), but if you're going to improve the site you have to be pragmatic about this, and a more noticable warning is one way I could think of at the top of my head. That may seem drastic, but locking down an entire gallery is rather more so, and it doesn't fix the issue of people not knowing what they should be doing until it's too late.

Furthermore, the needing to post things in a specialized gallery thing is somewhat counterintuitive because site's design itself contradicts it. Again, right there on the homepage is the Top Image Galleries list. If you don't want specific things to be posted in general popular image galleries, the last thing you should be doing is giving links to drive up traffic to those galleries, because that's where people's attention will be – they won't necessarily take the time to browse/search for a gallery that's smaller and more specialized if they immediately see a popular one that seems to fit. Similarly with putting images on the front page – people are obviously going to enjoy seeing something they posted on the front page, so if they care about that they're going to post it in a place where KYM is more likely to see it, not in a small isolated gallery no one will look at. I don't know if removing these things is a good idea or even feasible, but you can't just blame the users for doing things the site itself tacitly encourages.

Ultimately I don't think locking down the galleries is really going to solve much – the root cause of the problem still needs to be addressed, which I believe is the site lacking clear communication of what its goals are and how people should use it. There must be ways to address this without shutting things down and making it a less enjoyable place for the community. I also don't think the hostile/sarcastic approach some of the mods seem to be taking is helping. I get that this sort of thing is frustrating and you're probably not being paid for any of this, but IMO if you care about the site you should be representing it well and setting an example. Regardless of how valid the decision is, people aren't going to be well disposed to it if they feel like their concerns are being belittled or there's a lack of professionalism in the staff. If you want a good community it needs to start with you.

Anyway, just my perspective as someone who admittedly isn't extremely active in the community (and so may not know all the ins and outs of the shit that goes down), but has been on the site for a reasonably long time.

(Oh gods, this person's just written a huge essay about the use of image galleries on an internet meme site, lol what a nerd!)

Buddy, you hit the nail on the frickin' head! You've earned this!

Anyway, I think the biggest reason that those pages "failed" in the eyes of the staff is that the actual process of warning users about the guidelines was so narrowly-defined that nobody figured out that they were doing anything wrong until it was too late. In general, what seemed to happen happened to the effect of "if a tree falls down in a forest and no one is there to hear it, then it effectively does not make a sound" – too few warnings were made through PMs (which is an inherently and deliberately quiet way of letting people know about a problem, which is kind of an issue in and of itself considering that this is a database that hundreds of users access and contribute to every single day), and they weren't general or widespread enough to have made any difference.

I feel like the mistakes that were made with these pages could have been avoided if the upload section had Image-Gallery-specific warnings for pages that were "on notice" so to speak – after all, that's the reasons why the list of guidelines appears before any user creates a new Entry. Why couldn't the same kind of system work for Image Galleries that are problematic? There's a lot of white space on the actual upload space, anyway – filling that with a list of dos-and-don'ts and/or Image-Gallery-specific warnings couldn't hurt!

Also, could barring certain repeat offenders from uploading images to specific Image Galleries be a viable option? Alternatively, could certain users be granted exclusive access to upload images to said pages? I think it makes more sense to punish the minority of rule-abusers than the collective userbase in situations like this – just look at the collective Jimmy-Rustling that happened with the twin "Childhood" pages.

Thank you! :)

And I agree. If it's made extremely clear what and what not to do like you say, so there's no possibility of people not realizing it, and it still happens constantly with tons of people, then taking drastic action like locking the gallery might well be appropriate. But I think all other options need to be explored first, because gung ho locking straight away isn't going to improve the site or its userbase.

Alternatively, (just thinking out-loud here) you could let people have their fun. As I understand it, it made sense to lock Cringeworthy because it was actually getting pretty hateful (idk, I never went there until it was already shut), but what harm is there really in e.g. a crossover image being posted on the Alternate Universe entry which it still technically fits? It might bother some people, but it's not like they have too look at it if they don't want to, and is it going to be worse than locking down the entire entry? Arguable.

Another thing I've always thought KYM could use is being able to attach a single image to multiple galleries (and similarly, single entries to multiple parent entries). I don't know if this is even feasible with the way the site's designed, but it just seems to fit how memes work better with how they often converge and make something new, and it may do something to fix these sorts of problems.

Excuse me, but these posts are way too long. Can you try to add a tl;dr at the end, or just shorten it as a whole please?

WE take a hostile position because the USERS do it and quite frankly we're sick of it. We're just doing our job as mods, keeping things in order and making sure the site's ok. But after we warned users multiple times over the Childhood galleries, we were met by the entire comment section after our heads. We tried to explain but NOPE, WE AIN'T HAVIN DAT. We just get downvoted by a bunch of guys who don't want to hear anything that breaks their little bubble, and then we get called draconian, people genuinely comparing us to Hitler, because we closed a gallery after warning them. We tried to make them see what we were saying, but they didn't want to hear it. I make no secret that I have nothing but contempt for the comment section, because this kind of behaviour is just horrible.

With the Ruined Childhood gallery, a sizable part of the issue was people posting modern updates they don't like of shows/games/etc. they'd enjoyed as a kid; in other words, flame bait much like what was seen in Cringeworthy. With Childhood Enhanced and AU, people were posting tings that should be put in more specific galleries (such as Super Mario, DC/Marvel Comics, etc.) just to boost their view counts, and locking the gallery will stop that.

And, on the whole: we're not Memebase. KYM's primary purpose is documentation, and people filling galleries up with things that don't belong in the galleries defeats that purpose.

In my opinion, the Cringeworthy, Ruined Childhood, and Enhanced Childhood galleries were too subjective. What is considered cringeworthy to one person maybe not be to another, what is considered childhood ruining to one person maybe childhood enhancing to another.

Lil B: The TL;DR version of my post can be split up into three main points:

1. Exclusively relying on sending PMs or Forum-specific messages that are hard to find is not the best way of handling a site-wide problem – they're inherently too narrow to do any good.

2: A better alternative to the above would be to have a set of Image Submission Guidelines a la the Entry Submission Guidelines for every new image posted. In addition, pages that are troublesome should probably have specific warnings attached to them.

3: Barring repeat offenders from posting in certain Image Galleries (temporarily or permanently) may be a better way of handling the situation than the "SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING." approach. Granted, this would require either additional coding or moderating, but I think it's a way to avoid getting everyone's Jimmies Rustled.

And now, onto something different.

"WE take a hostile position because the USERS do it and quite frankly we’re sick of it. We’re just doing our job as mods, keeping things in order and making sure the site’s ok."

I completely understand your frustration, but two 'wrongs' don't make a 'right'. Have you noticed how, in the comments section of both of the "Childhood" pages and the "Alternate Universe" page, I was more combative against you guys when you were responding in a smarmy fashion to dissenters? Notice how I'm trying to write my posts in a much more diplomatic fashion here, given your more formal and respectful approach of addressing the problem (indeed, as the other users here are)? Attitude makes a significant difference.

"But after we warned users multiple times over the Childhood galleries, we were met by the entire comment section after our heads. We tried to explain but NOPE, WE AIN’T HAVIN DAT. We just get downvoted by a bunch of guys who don’t want to hear anything that breaks their little bubble, and then we get called draconian, people genuinely comparing us to Hitler, because we closed a gallery after warning them."

Could you clarify where this alleged warning took place? Because if it was in PMs, then I think you might have been setting yourself up for a disappointment. And if said warnings were so parsed out and obscured, then it's no wonder that users would be taken aback by what seemed to be a sudden lockdown of some of the most popular Image Galleries on the site – even if they decidedly went too far with comparing you guys to the subject of Godwin's Law. (Point 1 of mine applies here.)

"We tried to make them see what we were saying, but they didn’t want to hear it. I make no secret that I have nothing but contempt for the comment section, because this kind of behaviour is just horrible."

Again, I believe it's the way that you said it that people took issue with. I think the only true professionally-stated post regarding any of the decisions was the address that MScratch's made on the "Childhood" pages. Everything else seemed mean-spirited and directly confrontational to the audience (especially "Alternate Universe" – nobody really stated why the page was locked there, and just resorted to mocking anyone who liked the page). Giving vitriol toward the community isn't going to solve the problem, even if said community deserves it.

As for the flaws with the comments section, well, that's for another thread entirely.

TL;DR of the above wall of text: I respectfully disagree with a moderator, and raise a couple of counter-points/mention alternatives.

@Lil B:

Bscly, don't blame the users for not knowing what they should be doing and then stop them from doing anything, fix the site so they do know what they should be doing so they'll do what they're supposed to, because that ain't happening.

@Random 21:

If you're sick of the users being hostile then surely the last thing you should be doing is being hostile in return and encouraging them? If the mods are being hostile then there's no reason why they shouldn't be. There'll also be people new to the situation who don't know what's going on, and if the first thing they see is a mod being hostile, they're not going to take away a very positive impression of what's going on.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for feeling this way. I've been downvoted to hell enough times to have no love for the comment section circlejerk, and I expect that's 1% of what a mod would have to put up with. But the site isn't going to improve by more people being hostile, it'll improve by people setting an example about how things should be done, IMO.

EDIT: What Kung Fu Cthulhu said, bscly.

@Snickerway:

Re: Ruined Childhood, that's fair enough since people are obviously putting stuff in the gallery that isn't representing the actual meme, just the name of it. But in that case there should be clear warnings to everyone uploading an image there about what they shouldn't post.

Re: the others, sure, it'd be nice to have things put in their appropriate specialized entry, but if the images are technically examples of the meme then I don't really see why it's a huge problem. Of course people are going to post things where they'll get more views – people like others to actually see and respond to what they're doing, that's human nature. Ideally, you'd be able to find a way to let people do this while at the same time keeping things neatly categorized. Locking down entries may fix the immediate issue you have with certain galleries (well, insofar as chucking it out the window is fixing it), but it's not going to change what people want out of the site.

It seems like people are trying to butt their heads against the natural inclination of the userbase instead of trying to find a way to work with it to achieve what they want. I don't know, I'm tired.

@twee Thanks.

[Cough]

Obviously my TL;DR was better~ :P

Incidentally, reading the thread again, I still don't get what the problem was with AU. Jacob gave the example of an Ed Edd n’ Eddy and Guardians of the Galaxy crossover, and how they should be in their respective subcultures instead. But what if someone wasn't looking for specifically Ed Edd n’ Eddy or Guardians of the Galaxy stuff? What if they were interested in stuff that dealt with any kind of crossover or interesting alteration of something's canon? It's not any less relevant there than in the specific subculture.

The problem isn't that it's being uploaded to AU, the problem is that it isn't being uploaded to Ed Edd n’ Eddy/Guardians of the Galaxy, so people browsing those instead of AU aren't seeing it, even though it's relevant to them. But shutting down AU isn't going to fix that problem. People aren't necessarily going seek out the individual subcultures to post things just because there isn't a general place to post them, especially if they think not many people will see them there anyway. The way to fix it would be to give people an easy way and/or an incentive to have things posted it in all places where it's relevant to the entry.

[Cough]

And that's the problem. It may look to be subjective, but it actually wasn't subjective at all. What we wanted in those galleries was pretty damn singular and not broad in the slightest sense

I'll quote myself when the subjectiveness of the Edgy Gallery was brought up

We need to be clear that what we want in that gallery is the “Edgy meme”. Not “Things that are edgy”

I.E: image macro’s that make use of the term “edgy” and exemplify how the meme is used
General objects, items and people that you might look at and think to be edgy by your own interpretation are NOT related to the actual meme

This applies to every other gallery

We wanted the “Cringeworthy meme” not “Things you think are cringeworthy”
We wanted the “Childhood ruined meme” not “Things that ruined your childhood”

I bolded the very important parts

Bottom line. The subjects aren't broad. They are not subjective. They are about one thing: the meme

what have i started.

A civil discussion.

Seriously, it's miles better than whatever happened in the comment sections.

All right, to address specific issues:

• Twee wrote:
  

  so naturally what I go on [to upload into galleries] is what I’ve seen in the gallery.

The problem isn’t that it’s being uploaded to AU, the problem is that it isn’t being uploaded to Ed Edd n’ Eddy/Guardians of the But shutting down AU isn’t going to fix that problem.

You just explained the reason why the AU gallery was a problem. People ignored the full entries and just posted in AU. Other people saw that and posted in AU instead of the full entries because it's what they saw. Like I said before in my list of problem galleries, the inherit nature of the AU gallery is just not easy to fix.

• Twee wrote:
  

  What if they were interested in stuff that dealt with any kind of crossover or interesting alteration of something’s canon?

People aren’t necessarily going seek out the individual subcultures to post things just because there isn’t a general place to post them, especially if they think not many people will see them there anyway. The way to fix it would be to give people an easy way and/or an incentive to have things posted it in all places where it’s relevant to the entry.

Of course if you guys would actually tag your images, you could easily add uploads to the galleries they belong into and search up the most recent images that were tagged as "Alternative Universe." Just throwing that out there…

As for a way to have things posted in all relevant entries, there's not really a way to do this without a complete overhaul of the current system. Again, since most of you can tag uploads with "Alternate Universe" allowing you to do this I don't see what the issue is. The Image gallery guidelines that kept being broken that helped lead to the locks already specifically state "-add any relevant tags that might apply to the image. This means that it is easier for users to find the images they want by using the tag system when searching."
Of course if any of you try to get smart and only tag images with "Alternate Universe." then you'll start getting friendly PMs from me saying you are the cancer killing KYM need to make an effort to add proper tags.

• Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:
  

  Exclusively relying on sending PMs or Forum-specific messages that are hard to find is not the best way of handling a site-wide problem – they’re inherently too narrow to do any good.

• Twee wrote:
  

  Bscly, don’t blame the users for not knowing what they should be doing and then stop them from doing anything, fix the site so they do know what they should be doing so they’ll do what they’re supposed to, because that ain’t happening.

These two seem very conflicting. PMs to specific problem users IMO are the best way to make sure they actually see them. There's no way they can miss the rules this way unless the user is deliberately ignoring requests to read them. Once this has happened, I'm very willing to blame users for not knowing the rules, because they didn't read them or did and are purposefully not following them. Obviously, this only happens after they made the mistake though.

• Twee wrote:
  

  
  If multiple image galleries are needing to be locked because people don’t know how to use them correctly then there’s obviously something wrong with how the site itself is functioning and conveying information to its users

There is the whole matter of users just flat out ignoring mod requests to read and follow the image guidelines. Like I keep saying, see one user do something stupid, other users will follow. It happens all the time and it's part of what helped us get to where we are now. Of course, when we make a point try to enforce this stuff, we get downvotes and posts about "No fun allowed."

• Twee wrote:
  

  
  but if the images are technically examples of the meme then I don’t really see why it’s a huge problem.
  

  
  We could just have five galleries for all the categories like "meme", "site", "event" "person" and "subculture". Any images about memes would go into the meme gallery, anything about any events would go into the event gallery, etc. since it would technically be examples of those. That would solve the problem, right?

Again, the issue is that we are a documentation site. Galleries like Tumbler and Alternate Universe sometimes had more examples of a specific meme/subculture than the gallery dedicated specifically to that meme/subculture. It's a compound effect, with users seeing something in AU and then following the leader. It's hard to show documentation of spread when a confirmed entry that already has over 5,000 images keeps getting uploads that should be in a researching entry that doesn't even have 50 images. If you don't see what the problem is, then I don't think I can really say much more to explain it.

• Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:
  

  
  Barring repeat offenders from posting in certain Image Galleries (temporarily or permanently) may be a better way of handling the situation
  

  
  Mods actually did bring up the issue of banning people from certain parts of the site (people who have proven they cannot act mature banned from Serious Debate, people who abuse images banned from image uploads, etc.) This may be a good time to bring up the issue again. Still, this seems rather user specific, which seems contrary to your bit about how that's "not the best way of handling a site-wide problem."

• Twee wrote:
  

  
  the site isn’t going to improve by more people being hostile, it’ll improve by people setting an example about how things should be done, IMO.
  

  
  Really? And the thousands of images I've tagged and sourced on the site has convinced users to tag and source images themselves? Because I know I'm excelling when it comes to leading by example there. I'm trying to make a better habit of PMing users when they misuse galleries. However, there are often hundreds of images a day we deal with. When we see the same users making the same mistakes, often after just being told not to do the exact thing they continue to do it's a little difficult not to come off as hostile. This is especially true now that almost every page of KYM has a link to the rules on it, so there's less of an excuse to just not know.
  

• Twee wrote:
  

  
  right there on the homepage is the Top Image Galleries list. If you don’t want specific things to be posted in general popular image galleries, the last thing you should be doing is giving links to drive up traffic to those galleries, because that’s where people’s attention will be.
  

  
  I'm for this. The notion of trending galleries isn't completely bad, but I'd be fine with doing away with it, as I think that's what helped lead to the abuse of the galleries (some users have even used this as a way to defend their abuse of galleries). I already just ignore the trending galleries and use the full image feed. I suggest that more people should do the same. You'll be amazed at what we have entries for.

• Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:
  

  
  A civil discussion.
  Seriously, it’s miles better than whatever happened in the comment section
  

Ah nice to see something everyone here can agree upon.

Anywho, this thread is starting to get off topic. I'm pretty sure the goal of this was to identify the problem galleries to prevent them from being abused to the point they needed locking. Maybe you guys can focus on helping on that. Final thing I'll say about the current discussion is that, while I don't think the Alternative Universe gallery could be saved, I don't really like how suddenly if was locked after the discussion here. I'd rather at least give users the chance to try and fix the issue before locking. That way, when it (inevitably) locked we could say there were clear warning signs that the gallery would be closed unless the uploaders made an effort to fix the problem.

Still,
My list of problem galleries has 7 galleries that are still open.
They are still getting abused with the issues I brought up (some even after my list was posted). I suggest if any of you actually want to see those galleries stay open, you could help by reminding users about the KYM Image Gallery Guidelines, specifically the part about relevancy (though tagging and sourcing is important as well.) You can also help the mods by posting images that are better in other galleirs in the Image Cleaning Thread. so as to stop the problem of users seeing problem posts and following the leader.

I kinda have an idea on how to get people to read the guides but my idea may come across as a bit extreme. I think we should lock several of the more popular entries for three days and tell people there that while the locks are temporary if they don’t start to shape up their act then the locks will become permanent and of course with those dire warnings will be links to the image guide rules. Again I know that this idea is a bit overboard but I am throwing out one way to help out with this problem.

As for the Childhood Ruined/Enhanced gallery issue I was curious if that possibly having something in the forums that would allow users to post the “Things that ruined/enhanced your childhood” pictures that wouldn't go in the main gallery. i think that having one for Reaction images in general may help cut down on the non relevant posts in Reaction faces too. just a suggestion