The State of Memes & Games
#The State of Memes & Games
##Introduction
Memes & Games is an important sub-board to me, and one that I have spent countless hours on throughout the years. It is the reason I have stayed on the boards for over 4 years, it is where I’ve met pretty much the only friends I have, etc. M&G has been a place where people can relax, post memes, and pretty much just hang out. In the years I have spent being active there, I’ve got to know most of the frequent posters, and interacting with the community. And one thing that I have noticed, is that the majority of posted there are specifically going to M&G to destress. Obviously not everyone if there for that reason, but a very very high number are. People are stressed, and want to relax laughing with their fellow community members about a shared experience: League of Legends. Times have changed though. The section has been slowly but surely falling into disarray. Posts that don’t even belong in the section constantly flood it. Rules are inconsistently enforced, such as the “no video” rule. Most of the time videos are left up even though the rule states otherwise, which makes it feel very unfair on the rare occasions it is enforced. This rule should either be enforced, or it should be removed. Both enforcing it or removing it are legitimate options but keeping it up but usually not enforcing it is the worst possible way to go about this. There is still a community there that is trying. Posters such as RustyPug, Lord Apex, Speedameen, and a few others are still actively posting and becoming a community. But a community requires support to grow and prosper. And that support simply doesn’t exist in M&G.
##Why does this matter?
If people go to the M&G section, and all they see is negativity and indistinguishable content from gameplay, what motivation is there to make their own memes? When posts will either get ignored or buried in a flood of complaints, what possible motivation is there for people to make effort in their memes? When no standards exist, the community will not have standards. This lack of order is stifling the community and drowning it in negativity. Anyone who has been on the boards for a while can likely recall how active and friendly the M&G section used to be. Groups of friends would form, and people would form friendships and recognize individuals not just their memes. But now, these people are mostly gone. Many have grown frustrated with M&G, and have left the section or even the boards. And this isn’t surprising, as it comes back to what I said before about why people come to M&G in the first place.
People go to relax and laugh at memes. If the section is overrun with spam and negativity, they don’t argue against it. They don’t fight it. They simply leave. When M&G ceases to be a relaxing atmosphere, it ceases to have any reason to exist.
Not just more moderation
A common fear people have whenever anything like this is brought up is stricter moderation. Strict moderation is unpleasant for all parties involved, as it feels oppressive from the community’s perspective and is a ton of unnecessary work from the mod team’s perspective. But stricter moderation is not at all what I am suggesting. There are three core elements that I feel need to be addressed, none of which result in stricter rules:
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Consistency. Right now, there are rules in place that are rarely enforced, but are still occasionally enforced. This is extremely frustrated to experience, as it means you have seen multiple others break this rule without consequence yet you get your post removed. Examples of such rules are recruitment threads (i.e., “looking for gold support”), and the “no videos” rule. Recruitment threads and video posts technically don’t belong in M&G. Yet the majority of the time you can post them without consequence. So many don’t even know it is against the rules. inconsistent moderation is one of the most effective things at killing a community. These rules need to be either A: Enforced regularly not sporadically, or B: Removed. Both are fine option, but you need to commit to one of them. Enforcing randomly is just frustrating.
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When people don’t see any moderators interacting with the community there, it makes moderators seem like faceless punishment bots. Moderators don’t help users post images there, help them with broken links, etc. I have made a guide (and to the mod’s credit, they were willing to pin it), and do what I can to help people. But it isn’t the same. People need someone with mod powers who will actually help them. They need to see someone in the mod team actually give a shit about them in order to feel heard. They need leadership. The mods themselves recognize the need for leadership, making specialists in GD and making sure GD feels well represented. Gameplay, PB, even Ask the community have specialist. Yet the only specialist in M&G isn’t even active on M&G. There is not a single M&G specialist in the mod team, and not a single active specialist in M&G. This is a problem.
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Why is a specialist needed in M&G? No board posts as many images as M&G. And as I am sure everyone is aware, the boards is NOT user friendly. Posting images is not easy and requires a certain amount of trial and error to get the hang of. Someone who is actively helping people post images is needed. Yet I am the only one doing it. Nobody in the mod team is helping people out there.
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Listening to feedback. Nothing is more important to keeping a community alive then listening to community feedback. Rules should be regularly discussed with the community, and the community should have a say in the rules. Yet, the rules in M&G haven’t been updated since Nov 2017. There has not been a discussion in M&G about the rules since before that. I get it, it takes a volunteer team time to get things done. Nobody expects them to just snap their fingers and make everything perfect. But, even for a volunteer time there is a limit to how long is reasonable. A year and a half is a long time. The mod team has said they recognize a problem with M&G and are looking into it for many many months. Yet, nothing ever actually happens. There comes a point when decisions need to be made, not just discussed.
##What can be done about this?
So far I have listed a bunch of problems, but complaining achieves nothing. Anyone can find what problems exist Afterall, it is fixing the problem that is the hard part. So here are a few suggestions for things I think could help. Obviously, any changes would require plenty of communication with the community of M&G, in order to ensure the community there is being represented:
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Solution A: Rebuild M&G as it currently stands Basically, keep the current rules and purpose of M&G, and make it actually work. This would require consistent moderation (not random enforcement), communication with the community, and support for the community. There would need to be someone in the mod team who actually cares about the community there helping people repair broken posts, helping people learn to use the boards, listening to feedback, etc.
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Solution B: Embrace the chaos of M&G, and formalize it. Another possible solution is to accept the structured community M&G used to have is too difficult to save. Instead, M&G would become a wild west type board (which it already is, though not intentionally) where a wide variety of posts can be made. This would require moderators to remove the rules that don’t get enforced (such as removing the rule against recruitment threads, the rule against videos, etc). M&G’s rules would be updated to reflect that it is basically, for lack of a better term, the board’s “trash can”. Memes, recruitment, gameplay posts, videos, etc., would all be welcome there, and moderators would ignore it all. This is what is currently happening, but this solution is to formalize it in a way that makes it less frustrating as posters at least know what they are getting into. I don’t like this plan as it feels redundant to GD, but still it is a possible solution.
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Solution C: Kill M&G, merge with GD. One thing is certain. The current moderation team either can’t enforce rules in M&G due to limited staff or coordination, or they refuse to due to a lack of motivation. Solution C accepts this and no longer tries to fight it. Since M&G cannot or will not be supported, and since M&G has become a lesser GD (as recruitment threads, gameplay threads, videos, and memes are all posted there), M&G would be merged with GD. The reason for this is for whatever reason, the mods are capable of supporting and listening to GD but not to M&G. If M&G is going to be ignored and left unsupported, it should be merged with a similar place that can be supported. GD and M&G already have basically the same content, but GD is far bigger. If M&G is going to allow the same content as GD, it should just be absorbed into GD.
TL;DR M&G is flooded with spam, gameplay posts, recruitment posts, and complaining This spam and negativity is driving people away. Inconsistent enforcement of rules is frustrating. If a rule can’t be enforced, it should be removed. M&G needs to be supported, not ignored. If it isn’t possible to moderate M&G, this needs to be admitted and M&G merged with GD Doing nothing is the worst possible course of action, as it lets the community slowly but surely rot into nothingness.
P.S. Last time I made a similar post, I was told I wanted moderators to curate what is funny. This is obviously not the case. This is a straw man argument that I haven’t even suggested. So, if anyone decides to make this argument, I will just ignore you as you are either trolling or not reading the post.
