Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4918917-20140312225024/@comment-4918917-20140317012111

But around the same time (a bit later than when MC discussions started) people started talking about Polandballs. I see this as a way of people to get around the "no political discussion" rule as as everyone knows Polandballs are in its core political memes. Polandballs also reinforced stereotypes that has been going on in the chat for months for the same reason: Polandballs has stereotypes at its core too. And this, coupled with the influx of new members who'd be all too happy to adapt to these unhealthy trends in order to fit in (imo anyway) has been off-putting to me mostly, but some other chat members as well. From 13 March 2014 onwards where I have applied the limit on stereotypes, there has been considerably less usage of stereotypes in the chat. Polandballs on their own don't necessarily invoke stereotypes and political debate but it rather depends on the context. After all, the rule isn't a complete ban but to ask users to watch where they are going and not go overboard, as with MC discussion. In my eyes, the best thing to do from now is to see how effective the limit on stereotypes itself is in the long term. You raise a valid argument here; worst case scenario, we can enforce a limit but I think the situation is improving - the past few days have not been as obnoxious in comparison to before 13 March.