Most of the time, gifs are used for reaction images, as you’re seeing here. You have to admit, this’ll make it much more fun to deal with trolls and stuff? Or just the Pit in general?
This alone? Maybe not. Along with other things (like avatars, posting pictures, links to videos, etc)? Most definitely.
Good grief, they’re annoying. Who wants to see an animated gif of someone’s reaction? They must be a lot more interesting for the poster than for the reader. It’s like the person who elbows you after telling a joke, saying “Didja get it? Huh? Huh?” Seems incredibly juvenile. Or low IQ.
If animated GIFs were needed for the survival of a site, then why do most social media sites make you click to view them?
Sure, this is not some horrible thing that will cause harm to the board. But your reaction is just as silly. It’s not like people came here, saw that animated GIFs weren’t allowed, and left. Heck, most people likely didn’t even know there was a rule against them. They just aren’t generally useful for the types of conversations we tend to have here.
The reason I think it is a bad idea is that, while it won’t attract anyone, there are many people who find autoplaying animations quite annoying, so it might actually detract. Rather than making the place look more “hip”, I’d argue autoplaying GIFs make the board seem older.
It’s generally considered cringe when older places try to change to seem more hip. Surely I don’t need to go find the ancient “Hello, fellow kids” meme, right?
Hows about us fuddyduddys make some kind of fraternity pledge that we will never, ever use animated gifs on this site … unless they are really appropriate in context or very funny?
Weren’t the same arguments used against avatars?
Same response-Did adding avatars bring new people in, or even slow down the rate they were leaving? If yes, then fine.
Follow up question-Who left because we wouldn’t add avatars before?
ITT:
lawlz
Love it. You’re so smart to use that.
Hey, @Cecil_Adams looky here!!!
That thing nearly gave me a seizure. For reals.
Possums freak me out so I have to desensitize. Yeah, that’s it.
Then there’s this:
EH KITTEH SUCH SURPRISES
No. I’ve always been strongly in favour of avatars, and strongly not in favour of animated gifs.
A little visual information to identify posters adds value to the site. But excessive and intrusive visual distraction devalues the site.
Our greatest strength is intelligent conversation. That is how we are different, and that is what we should be promoting. Intrusive animations discourage intelligent conversation in a way that avatars, small emojis, and reasonable use of images and embedded videos don’t.
There are thousands of sites where people can post cute animations for a quick LOL and an ego boost instead of a reasonable or entertaining exchange of ideas. That’s not the kind of site we want to be.
Just kidding—my reaction is more like this:
Can’t we be both, like the late Earl Warren Message Board?
Honestly this place has gone downhill ever since they let people use words.
Real intellectuals only need 10’s. I swear you millennials won’t be happy until you get a trophy for getting a toy in your Happy Meal.
I’m a total layman when it comes to tech stuff - do GIFs or videos pose any malware threat when posted like this?
I’m not a fan of animated GIFs, but I’m willing to give them a try. It seems that the powers that be can turn them off again if they’re causing problems.
(edit: link screwed up, del)
I’m fine with them. One of my coworkers puts on a weekly music lounge on Microsoft Teams, and when a catchy tune comes up, listeners will occasionally put a GIF of somebody dancing. I’ve used Napoleon Dynamite, Steve Harvey, Bugs Bunny, tribal dancers, rugby teams doing war hakas, and so on.
Of course, the fact that we’re all using company-issued laptops that reflect the latest level of computer tech might have something to do with it, but really, don’t assume that past computer glitches like GIF slowdowns are still around. It’s not that costly to upgrade.
I don’t think they were ever turned off; just against the rules. I accidentally posted a gif once (I thought it was a jpeg) and a mod had to manually change it to a link.