Magical!!!
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Thereās ways around it, I mean. You just need to be a bit clever about how you do it, is all. Watch:
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Ā Ā
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moist
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As long as the context is shared on both ends, sure. Iām in a minority use case of having been away from most US pop culture a few decades and so I donāt always have any idea of the context of the image macro. Same for the back and forth with Japanese boards/twitter or IRL discussions with non-Westerners.
But then again I can just happily scroll past these things most of the time. With the exception of when its a direct reply and its something I dont understand. Those cases where Iāve tried to ask for clarification or āwhat does that mean?ā, sometimes it is perceived as if Iām back handedly challenging the person who replied with only a macro.
Anyhow, off to work now, Iāll pick up this thread later when Iām back to uncapped bandwidth.
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ETA: I know Iām getting likes for this, but really not surprised that itās not landing as I intended. Thereās some deep denial going on here.
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At the risk of revealing the magicianās secrets, you can post your short words and then follow them with invisible html entity codes, like a non-breaking space. The message editor does not interpret the code but does count the characters that make it, but they donāt appear in the final message.
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Iām just saying that if this is an āecho chamberā it is a pretty anemic one where you get the opportunity to re-evaluate your ignores every four months. So it is striking a balance between ācan people (including myself) changeā and ānobody should have to listen to this drivel ever againā.
As with much of politics you donāt have a fair solution until everyone is a little bit unhappy.
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This is sad.
As for image-only posts, it seems to me that some are positive (I would include the āthisā posts here, sorry @waetherman!), some are interesting, but some are simply ways of saying āyouāre a jerkā or āyour argument is crapā. I donāt recall if community guidelines permit the latter text posts.
Iāve occasionally posted sea lion images when someone from the āactuallyā crowd entered a discussion, but I decided to stop, because all it serves to do is goad the poster into doubling down, which doesnāt move the conversation forward. The most āproductiveā thing it might do is make the poster feel bad, but how is that a laudable goal?
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I said this back forever ago, but the mod policy on those is that if they add something to the conversation, weāll leave them there, but if they appear to have been placed expressly to antagonize, then theyāll be eaten appropriately.
If images are speech, then they need to follow the same guidelines as speech as well.
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Thatās great, but Iām not sure I know what it means. For example:
they appear to have been placed expressly to antagonize
Is this from the POV of the person who is/might be antagonized, or are we reading intent into the poster, or is there some independent scale?
For example, suppose a Jordan Peterson cultist posts something that at least looks like an argument, with the conclusion ātherefore we are lobsters.ā Person A posts, āyour argument is crapā (and nothing else). At the same time person B posts an image of someone rolling their eyes (and nothing else). To me these look like the same post. I gather from your second sentence that you would treat them the same, but then what? The people who posted them might have simply wanted to point out that the argument was crap, or might have wanted to annoy Lobster Man, or might have wanted to amuse other BB readers, or something else. In any of these cases it is a stretch to say that they add to the conversation, since (a) they seem possibly designed to simply shut it down, and (b) even if not they are only counterarguments in the sense of the famous Python sketch. (My own reaction is usually to find that the post adds to the conversation if I disagree with Mr. Lobster, but possibly feels like goading otherwise.)
Alternately, Lobster Man might reasonably feel attacked, does that mean he gets to complain that the posts are there to antagonize?
If it sounds like Iām expecting a particular answer here, or trying to force one, Iām really not. Speaking as a professional logician, I donāt trust logic in these situations, and think working through scenarios is more useful than stating axioms.
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This is no different than any other speech here - readers interpret the response and flag or not based on their take on the post. Moderators do the same.
This increases the chance that ambiguous images, especially without text, will be removed, yes. But such is the nature of the choice to communicate via images to begin with. 
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Ssshhhhh donāt say his name 
Also, canāt we have an exemption from good faith when dealing with Jordaddyites? Itās not like theyāre coming here to listen to anything anyone has to sayā¦
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TBH I ignore the content of most posts when I get the suspicion that the other party would be a little too ācertainā of who theyāre talking to and what the conversation will look like. Iām not here to role play with children who just need to prove who they are with themselves because Iām just flat tired of that shit now. Personally I think this board is actually more diverse because in order to have diverse points raised there has to be some space given up by certain parties in the discourse. To my thinking sometimes this means the most important thing you can communicate is: 
denied.
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Wouldnāt the argument be: having a diverse board is good and fine; that does not mean I am required to converse with everyone.
There are certain people I just find intolerable. It could be their āI know all you know nothingā mentality. It could be they are the āI am a strawman arguerā folks. And in some cases its the āevery time, I must quote every word or sentence and counter each and every little thing you saidāā¦I admittedly loathe that. And I am sure plenty here mute, ignore or stick pins in little Q dolls too.
Tolerating others is requiredā¦liking them or engaging with them is not.
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Nope, the signal that the space is open for marginalized voices has to be maintained externally from an individual sometimes or else it is meaningless. The practical final argument is simply: I donāt need to be here and I donāt need to read what people here talk about. This is how a lot of liberal blogs end up with the question āwhere are all the xyz people here, donāt you support our cause?ā The cause, perhaps, but the community is just another obstacle.
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