Post images as text: Clarification on rule please!

[Shian]

I've seen several people that use text fonts as symbols as decoration. Is this spam? What is considered spam?

Anything not needed for the subject? ie. single symbols at the beginning or end? I've seen those around a lot more often.
Headers such as a couple of these ♥♥♥ at the bottom and top of every post?
What about the chat room format?
Or signing their name in every post even though its not a joint account?
What about putting their name in the subject line? Is that spam too?

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸
Where is the line?
---[]--- ---[]--- ---[]--- ---[]--- ---[]---

Does this fall under the "Post image rule" where as long as it's not an image, it's allowed or does it fall under the general spam rule where if it's not necessary for the discussion, it's spam and does not belong?

Do I report these types of posts or not because they're getting to be quite frequently seen. Another rule clarification would be nice.

[sapiosexual]

If it's not technically an image, I don't believe so. Adding symbols such as • ♀ ♫ etc with your keyboard does not count as pictures, I believe.

[Naira]

I think they were called ''Fonts'', am i right? I have seen people do that on Roleplays and often get warned by a Mod, because these Fonts count as images and if you post them in every one of your posts, they are spam.

[sapiosexual]

If you're talking about the FontMeme images, then that is spam, as those are counted as images

[Naira]

If you're talking about the FontMeme images, then that is spam, as those are counted as images

Yup! That's right! c;

EDIT":Or do you mean symbols like this?

[nickjr]

✔ • •

nickjr: I think Shian means things like
nickjr: everything I'm doing in
nickjr: this post.

- nickjr

• • ✘

(no, I don't type like that normally; I'm trying to use this post as an example)

Rule clarification would be nice. I don't think that the potential lag on some computers was the main reason for the decorative-images ban, given that the announcement mainly focuses on the fact that the images are spam... and decorative text like the above could be considered spam, right?

(I mentioned the potential lag on some computers only because someone might try to say that the images were banned to reduce lag; the announcement doe not focus on that at all, so I figured I should throw it out there)

[Shian]

^exactly that.

There's some people that add just a single symbol to the begging of their post and there's others that make it as complex as the example where half the post is added as decorative text.

The rule isn't all that clear on what is and is not okay or if that's even covered.

[sapiosexual]

I don't believe so then, since they're just keyboard symbols and are not images. However if they were images than I believe so.

[Shian]

Except the universal spam rule is, "If it's not relevant to the post or aids in the discussion, don't add it."

It would also be spam to attach any other random images into every post you make - that's what a signature is for. If the image isn't specifically relevant to the topic you're responding to, then it doesn't belong in your post.

So it's confusing and not at all clear.

[nickjr]

I think we know that decorative images are not okay. xD;

But even though they're "just keyboard symbols"... well, they're not adding anything to the discussion, are they? The ban on decorative images was apparently implemented to lower spam (since that's what the announcement focuses on); it doesn't address text symbols, but text symbols serve the same purpose as the decorative images people were using. The only difference is that the decorative text is text, not images.

That's where the clarification is needed: does the ban on frequently decorating posts apply to both text and images, or does it apply only to images? If it only applies to images but not text, why is that? If it's because of potential lag on some computers, why wasn't it mentioned in the announcement? o.O;

ninja'd. Oh well -brick'd-