Yep, I get it...I'm a reward for effort guy and don't like seeing people expect reward after not showing any. Here for instance, I'm far more likely to curate a post in which personality and effort exist than when it is not, stock images, shite text etc. I'm moving towards muting posts in my communities that include stock images. I think you'll understand to some degree...Imagine I came along and said in a post in the gardening community, I've gardening and growing plants and blah blah blah...then use images of Hyde Park. Lol. Nutbags.
Cheers to effort!
Oh no, I don't allow stock images in Hive Garden unless it's more of a philosophical post or exploring a theme that doesn't really need original images. For example, I wrote a post about platypus but I aint got no platypus images so I used them from a site, making sure I referenced them. But, yeah 'I grew tomatoes' with a stock image, and WORSE - omg - when they've got a watermark, now that's just facepalm material.
I get that, I'd allow that also, but considering my communities are about experiences it would be difficult to justify. I try to be balanced though.
Lol...watermarked images...senseless.
I often get people saying things like, but I don't have images of such and such to match the topic. OK, use somethign that doesn't match...it's not rocket science...Work it out people. I refer them to my posts and suggest that many of the images I use (all my own) don't necessarily match the topic. Oh lordy, are they writing for the New York Times or something? Jeez!
I'm moving towards own images only on the #weekend-engagement and of course, no AI bullshit. I'll mute those who don't comply I guess, after a request of an edit, or maybe without warning. We'll see.