As a firm gif user, I’d be happy to keep it as it was.
•More often than not, a well placed gif can say a lot more than well written a paragraph.
•They also convey tone of voice when accompanied with a well versed paragraph.
•Also they add to the banter which I find a particular highlight of this forum.
I’d say the real issue is not necessarily the gifs, but the administration of some threads. In particular the speculation threads. In these threads the lack of news gets a lot of users bored and most often those threads revert to trivial levels of content. Pages of pages of off topic content such as puns, reoccurring jokes and gifs as replacement to on topic conversations.
This would be solved with admin doing a bit of tidying up and a “stop it” in particular when it’s excessive. Or have time limits of the speculation threads. Such as, if there hasn’t been any press news about a player for a set period time the thread closes.