/u/libertas on getting rid of memes/image macros in a growing subreddit:

I used to think this. I am a very big proponent of free speech, so I figured this was an extension of that. It isn't. There is actually a very important reason to ban them. There is a natural process at work that WILL reduce the quality of content of any rapidly expanding subreddit without action. As a 6+ year reddit user, I have seen it happen again and again and again. If we don't make a decision now about the kind of community we want to have here, the subreddit will eventually become overrun with lowest common denominator type bullshit like memes and image macros. Right now there's still a lot worth saving, but there's not much time left. We are at the tipping point, and it's starting to run away from us as we speak. Why and how does this process happen? Meme comments by their nature attract upvotes easily, because they are short and can be read quickly, are funny and clever at first, inspire an 'in joke' sort of feeling (if you're cool and get it, you upvote). We'll call this LOW-EFFORT CONTENT. Longer, more insightful comments, the kind that makes this one of my favorite subreddits, take longer to read, you don't always agree with them, and in general require much more effort from the reader to earn upvotes. We'll call this HIGH-EFFORT CONTENT. So to begin with, even in a community that is naturally biased against memes, they have a competitive advantage over interesting comments. So even if most people in the subreddit are against memes, they can still rise to prominence, because it's just easier to read and upvote them. Second, this effect is greatly exacerbated when new users who don't get the ethos of the subreddit join. They are far more likely to engage in low effort upvoting behavior. Once a subreddit reaches a certain critical mass, low effort content beats high effort content, every time. It sucks, but that's how it is. So you have to make a choice about which you would rather have. As a subreddit gets diluted with more new users, the high-effort, mind expanding comments are overwhelmed by low effort jokes, and valuable contributors become discouraged and stop contributing as much. Once they start gaining a toehold, people writing and reading mind-expanding comments are going to look elsewhere, and as the size of the subreddit expands people will spend more time contributing memes, because that's what works. All of a sudden you have a crap subreddit. It's a really poisonous process that has ruined many a subreddit. What we have learned is that unless you have a very clear vision of the kind of subreddit you want to have, and moderate accordingly, you will eventually end up with a memebin. /r/askscience has been very successful in maintaining the quality of their subreddit as subscribers have increased, because they insist that only science gets posted in /r/askscience, and anything that isn't gets removed. Their achievement is really quite incredible. Almost 250,000 users and every article and comment is thought-provoking, intelligent and on-topic. I hereby propose that only thought-provoking, mind-expanding articles and comments are appropriate in this subreddit. It's why I come here. This is subjective and obviously needs elaboration, but if we don't make this choice now, we are choosing to have dumbed down memes, jokes, pictures, etc as the primary content in this subreddit, with interesting stuff being mostly relegated to the sidelines. It WILL happen in 2012. It's just a matter of time. The process really starts to pick up speed around 10,000 subscribers.