OOC: Official RolePages Policy on Animated Gifs

It has come to my attention that a number of members have begun posting blogs which contain animated GIF's that are set to run on an infinite loop. While I understand that these are visually appealing and are an interesting part of image based role playing, we have received a number of complaints about them.

First of all, when these GIF's are set to run on an infinite loop they tend to slow down the load speed of the home page. This is a problem that affects everyone in the community and which can harm the site as a whole.

I have also been informed that these GIF's can be hazardous to the health of people who suffer from epilepsy, and that exposure to them can trigger an episode.

Finally, the blog posts containing these GIF's generally do not contain any content or information beyond the one or two second clip.

As such I am instituting the following rules concerning the posting of animated GIF's to the home page blogs of this site.

1. If you do post an animated GIF to a home page blog it CAN NOT be set to an infinite loop. It is only permissible to set it to a maximum of 3 loops before it stop moving.

2. Further, if you do post an animated GIF it must be in relation to a story or character that you are role playing. The blog must also contain a certain amount of written or visual content in addition to the animated GIF.

While this may seem harsh, there are several alternatives to posting these moving images directly in home page blogs.

- The blog can be posted with a title, and with a few lines of written content, and then the GIF can be posted farther down, or in the comments section where it will not appear on the home page.

- The image can also be posted in any of the Worlds, or in the Forum, assuming of course that the world's administrator or the forum post creator allows you to do so.

- We also have a fully functioning video upload section of the site where you can post videos of any length that you desire, pertaining to your role playing character.

As of now I have informed the Administrators of the site that they have permission to delete any post or GIF which fails to comply with these guidelines. However I am also open to feedback about this issue and I welcome everyone to leave your opinions as replies to this post. Thank you.

19 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of RolePages to add comments!

Join RolePages

Comment by Joseph Gambit on May 14, 2012 at 1:41pm: We've taken steps to limit the number of animated GIFs being posted including spreading awareness of the problems they cause, and adding additional administrative staff to help take them down as quickly as possible. Since taking these actions the number of animated GIF's being posted in blogs has decreased, and the time they spend on the home page before being edited or deleted has grown shorter.

In the future you can assist these efforts by commenting on any blog post containing an animated GIF and letting the poster know, in the most polite way that you can, that their post is against site policies. You can also link them to the blog or the forum where we explain why these guidelines were put in place. This will give them a chance to learn why animated GIF's are harmful, and possibly take down or fix the post themselves.

As far as inventory lists and character bios, those are not currently against the rules and guidelines of the site. However if these blogs do bother you, I suggest that you start a discussion about it in the OOC section of the forum so that we can see how all of the different members of the site view this issue.

Artificial Comment by Carol on May 14, 2012 at 10:47am: Honestly, these people don't know where they're supposed to post this sort of thing. They figure blogs are meant for anything they can't fit into the categories in their basic description and honestly, there's no rules against inventory lists and character bios either. Let's face it, a large proportion of roleplayers, perhaps even the majority now don't roleplay using chat and they've got their own way of doing things. I'm not really sure if it's our place to try and instruct or educate them on "how we do things around here."

... I just fight back by pushing my blog back to the top several times to cover up the piles of bios and inventories and .gifs. Speaking of .gifs, if you see any, reporting them to Chron or Admin. I'm sure they'd sort them out quickishly!

Monster Comment by Elexin di Sighisoara on May 13, 2012 at 6:56pm: It's just another way of trolling without trolling. Same with the inventory lists and the endless character bios that should be posted in the Worlds or on the character profile page.

Comment by Delilah on May 13, 2012 at 6:50pm: There does seem to be even more people posting, as if to spite this blog..I just saw one blog yesterday with two animated gifts within the same blog post with literally 6 words written..

Nature Comment by Raelin Wolvarian Aero on May 13, 2012 at 4:45pm: THANK GOD <3

Undead Comment by Cecilia di Sighisoara on May 13, 2012 at 9:06am: Yeah, what can we do? Ask them to take it down?

Comment by Dark on May 13, 2012 at 2:49am: (some people arent listening to the rules but what can we do?)

Human Comment by Laryka Dior on May 11, 2012 at 7:08pm: ( I for one am happy to see this come up. I used to pride myself on attempting to read all the new blog postings....for awhile there the frontpage of Rolepages was like looking at a bad MySpace site, gave me a headache and made me go elsewhere and I'm sure I missed some interesting writing. Thanks.)

Comment by Joseph Gambit on May 11, 2012 at 1:28pm: I am bumping this post because I want to make sure that anyone who has concerns about this issue has a place to voice them.

Comment by Joseph Gambit on May 11, 2012 at 1:27pm: When you create an animated GIF you have the ability to set frame rate and repeat settings. However you do not have this ability when embedding an animated GIF from another website.

The real issue here is with the GIF's looping on the home page of the site. If you are willing to post text or pictures above the animated GIF and push it down below the fold so it shows in the blog, but not on the home page, then the posting will be fine. You also have the option of posting a still image from the GIF on the blog, and linking to the animated version.