These gifs are kind of childish and unnecessary, but honestly, so is a lot of the text. It's not like the subject matter in this thread is serious enough to elicit a professional atmosphere, nor is it important enough that the gifs are distracting from larger, informative issues. They can be annoying when used in excess, yes, but so can people's general posts, and I'm not about to go around deleting, censoring or redacting on-topic posts simply because I find their composition subjectively irritating.
To people using a lot of gifs: Be mindful of the fact that even to those who enjoy them, using them is a sophisticated balancing act of when to use and not use them in order to generate the most successful impact. Whether or not they have any just grounds to do so, be aware that should enough people get annoyed at you (or something you are vaguely associated with) they will blame your gifs as a scapegoat and some arbitrary enforcement policy will probably stroll in and kill the fun for everyone.
To people bothered by slow load times due to gifs: the more you voice disapproval, the more you acknowledge them and thus provide incentive to encourage their use. Even if I did wish to restrict their use, I would not be able to enforce such a policy consistently since I really don't dwell in this thread longer than the occasional "Hello" or when directly summoned.
To all: Remember to keep your posts on-topic, regardless of whether or not you are using gifs. If this tension continues to derail the thread, I will take decisive action to realign it (that will involve warnings/infractions). But I would like to think that you can all take the initiative to diffuse the situation naturally without my authoritative intervention.
