Man, that outrage was 100% real and I'm on that side. It was about the site loading like molasses because of fifty blink tags and giant dragon gifs. That mess taught forums how to make rules that worked.
Okay but the "fifty blink tags and giant dragon gifs" is the perfect example lol. That mess was real. But how did rules actually fix it? Like did forums just start banning those specific things, or was it more about setting a general "don't break the site" standard that let mods step in? I'm trying to picture the shift from total chaos to something actually working.