Guide to Commenting

The site has seen terrific growth in the past year and that's been a source of pride for Hugo and I. Even better we are getting lots of comments, which is great because it shows people are reading. Our number of members has grown from less than 200 members back last August to over 600 now and many of you are taking the time to comment on various posts and fanposts. And our GameThreads are seeing more and more people in them and are quite lively and great fun.

All that said I'm going to suggest some guidelines for comments. As the community grows, and that's what we have here a community, we get the odd little problem along the way. It is the price of growth. I've been very lucky, in the almost year on here I've yet to ban someone, which speaks to how great our members are, some sites ban people everyday. That being said, odds are the streak is not going to last forever, so if you don't want to be banned or have your comments deleted here are some things to look for:

In Post Comments:

• remember we are trying to build a community, that means try to get along. That doesn't mean agree always, that means disagree reasonably. Intelligent people can disagree, it is baseball not math, there isn't always a right answer.
• Hugo and I have said it a lot but treat the place like it is our living room. Be comfortable, but don't say things you wouldn't say to my face in my living room.
• don't say that someone is insane or delusional or stupid or whatever because they don't agree with you. Smart folks can disagree. Hugo's the smartest guy I know and I disagree with him several times a week. If you if say something about a members mental health, expect your post to be deleted. 
• don't tell us how smart you are, if you are so smart it will shine out from your comments. Telling us you know more about baseball than any of us won't carry any weight. We are all fans here and all equals. If you are smarter than everyone, don't waste your time here, apply for a front office job. If you start with 'I know more than you because I coached....' or whatever, don't expect the rest of your post to be read. Of course, if you are JP or work in the Jays front office, let me know. We'll interview you.
• don't get upset if I or Hugo or someone disagrees with you. Often if I think someone has a point but could express it better I'll take the other side to try to draw out a conversation. If I do and you get upset, don't be surprised if I don't comment on your stuff again.
• try to come up with better than 'JP sucks' or 'player X is crappy', it doesn't exactly make for intelligent conversation.
• obvious things: don't use all capitals. Makes your post hard to read and is the internet equivalent to yelling. No one listens to someone yelling.
• flip side, if your comment is long, use proper punctuation, use periods and use capitals to start a new sentence. We aren't the grammar police but I've seen 200 word comments with no capitals and they are very hard to read. You want your stuff read, do things to make it easy to read.
• don't try to start a fight or try to annoy people. Again it is a community and if you are trying to start a fight, you'll likely get your stuff deleted or  you, likely, won't get your stuff read. And why bother to comment if you don't want it read.
• being obvious again, this is a Blue Jays fan site, you want to talk other teams, there are wonderful sites in SB Nation for all MLB teams. Again, we may warn, likely we'll delete and if it becomes a problem we'll ban.  Of course you can talk about other teams thru the eyes of a Jays fan but anyone can tell the difference and if you can't we'll tell you you have crossed the line. 

In Game Threads

• don't just try to annoy. If you say something designed to get someone mad or get me mad, odds are it will be deleted and you could be warned or banned. 
• keep the swearing to a minimum. It's sports and when something bad happens, well words come out sometimes. But it shouldn't happen often. And, as in the rules, don't direct it at a player. 
• in the gamethread if a moderator says stop something, just stop, don't make it a debate. We want to watch the game, if we have to spend time in a debate we'll miss some game. In the future this is going to be like arguing balls and strikes. We say stop, you argue, you are banned. Stop the first time. Again we are building a community and we'll do things we feel that will help the community.
• remember we are Jays fans, you rag on my team, you rag on me, I expect if you are here you like the Jays.
• like in the post comments, you are welcome to argue, invited to argue, but say nothing personal. Because someone likes Overbay and you don't that doesn't mean you call him a name. If you don't like someone's opinion say so, but remember intelligent people can disagree. 
• some of us, in the thread, are friends and we might tease each other some, but until you know who you can and can't tease, be careful and courteous. 
• being polite is never a bad thing. Be nice to new folks and be nice to people asking questions. Sometimes people ask questions because they are trying to get conversation going. Answer politely, don't act like they are dumb because they don't know the answer.
• and most important...the less said about ointment and Roger Clemens balls the better.

Remember these things are just a guide and there will likely be other things that come up that we may warn about, we reserve the right to add rules as we feel necessary, again if we say 'don't do that', don't argue that it isn't 'against the rules' just go along with us.