Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

WHAT WE HAVE TO WORK WITH

In an ideal world, KYM wouldn't need a deadpool, because everyone would submit meaningful entries. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world, and the content (and population) of the internet is anything but "meaningful"

HOWEVER.

About half of the deadpooled entries I see are either re-entries of older entries (often by newbies), or things that would not be exactly what we are looking for, a.k.a. not a meme (often by newbies). And the flow of deadpool entries is fairly consistent.

Think like this.

What would you define a car as? I would say, "A machine with four wheels that can move people from one place to another". Would you say that too? Or would you say "A Ford, or an Acura, or a Toyota"? Well, if someone doesn't know exactly what a car is, they're certainly not going to know what a Ford, or Acura, or Toyota is.

Likewise, what is a meme? Ask a KYM newbie this, and he/she may say "Stuff like mudkipz, or desu, or LOL WUT". But guess what? That doesn't mean anything. Definitions consist of explainations and meanings, not examples. A good portion of submissions come from people that don't even know what they're doing. And why?

Because no one has told them how this site works, that's why.

The point of this site isn't just to achive memes and internet culture. It's about giving meaning to all this nonsense, and explaining how these cultures, ideas, and followings develop in the first place. If anyone had the slightest grip of what a meme is, and how they work, the only deadpool entries we'd have to worry about are the ones from assholes who think they're funny (of course, there would still be the odd mistake).

NOW, FOR MY "GOOD IDEA"

Simple. A new tab (along with Memes, Images, Episodes, Discussions, and Shirts), preferably the first tab, dedicated to general meme info (What is a meme, meme FAQ, all that good stuff). Basically, a go-to place for learning about meme lore, and also general KYM info. I say it should be a distinctive link on the front page because no one ever sees that little statement on the top left of the homepage, and no one goes to that "About" link at the bottom (which isn't the most informative page in the world). And no, it wouldn't be edited by other users, because then jerks would just mess it up. Lastly, I don't mean to be sounding like all the good ol' admins are not doing their job, I'm just making a super detailed suggestion.

Is I be this doing what right?

EDIT: This has nothing to do with the forum. NOTHING.

[user was banned REAL GOOD for this post]

IS TROLL? (Y/N)

Y: LOL

N: No point in insulting a suggestion

I like the idea average joe. It would be good to have, and i think the admins are working on something like that at the moment.

YAY

I liek it when my ideas are ideas that really smart people have also thought of.

If great minds think alike, I AM GREAT.

It takes FOREVER to carry out suggestions. I've made 4, and only part of one of them has been completely fulfilled. It just takes a while.

I tried to define a meme a couple months back, didn't help. =D

"The main problem seems to be that the people who are excited about the popularity of this site and want to register something don’t seem to understand what a meme actually is. Having read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson many years ago, I had a good idea of what a meme was. I understood that a meme is a symbol or idea that got passed on from one person to many others and from them to many many others, with each person creating some new spin or mutation of it. I understood that replication and evolution were integral to memetic fortitude and popularity. I know that propagation alone is not memetic, simply viral.

(from a comment I left in a deadpooled article)
Think of this site as a dictionary. You don’t add words to the language by adding them to the dictionary first. You add terms to the dictionary because they are commonly used as words by a significant portion of the general public.

Recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary was the term “Spyware”. Spyware was a term so commonly used by a significant portion of the population that a major dictionary added it to their list of defined words. If “Spyware” had been in use by you and a friend to refer to something, but nothing showed up on Google Trends, or wasn’t generally known and accepted… Then it’s not really a good fit for a dictionary."

It has to be widespread (propagation), it has to evolve and change (mutation) to be a meme.

@Rihk

I see what you mean, but my point is that this explaination of what a meme is shouldn't be lost in the forums, or down in the comments of some deadpooled entry. It should be a dominate page somewhere on the site.

@Average Joe

I completely agree, I want the agreed-upon definition of a meme on the front page, on every screen, I want it to pop up when you try submitting a new meme entry, maybe even several times…

Yeah, and maybe a name filter when you submmit a meme. If what you are submitting resembles the name of a pre-existing meme(s), you are shown what that/those meme(s) is/are, so you have the chance to cancel your entry before you create a duplicate.

Hi all! i think they're all valid suggestions & yes, Chris has been working on an intro page about memetics and how to create an entry… so there's a few things that we've been planning:

*a KYM dictionary
*a kick-ass ranking system
*how-to create a meme entry

I know that the last two agendas are to be worked out by admins, but i don't see why we can't start "drafting" a list of terms to include in the dictionary. plus, we've been talking about it for so long, so…

here's the link to kym dictionary thread: https://knowyourmeme.com/forums/1-general/topics/196-dictionary

all in all, your suggestions will not go unnoticed. thanks guys-

Make more rankings above Researcher, please. Also, you need to be at least a Jr. Researcher to submit meme entries. That would relieve the admins.

Why wasn't this carried out?

Because the only ideas people these days really seem to remember are the bad ones.

Like fucking snuggies.

i don't like fornicating with fabric.