Posting and Commenting Guidelines

With the regular season about to start, I figured it is time to post the rules again.

What we have here is a community where we can chat, argue, complain and praise what is happening with our Blue Jays. To keep it a civil community, we have rules.

Most of the rules fall under the umbrella of one idea: this blog is our living room. Make yourself comfortable, we like having you. Act like you'd like to be invited back. Remember, the last beer is mine.

• No derogatory references to race, nationality, sexual orientation or ethnicity at all, ever.
• Don’t be sexist. I know sports blogs tend to be a men's club, but try not to act stupid. We may be mostly guys but we have female members. And my wife may look in. You get on her bad side, I have to ban you. If you aren’t sure there the line is, follow some female baseball writers on twitter, you’ll get a great lesson in sexism.
• Profanity isn't allowed. Try to keep George Carlin's 7 words out of it (I'm showing my age with this reference). As well, I'd rather we stay away from using His name, in vain or otherwise. On top of that never ever direct profanity at the players.
• Unless the player is Roger Clemens.
• I've noticed people using one of the 7 words but putting a * in one (or more) of the letters. Still not allowed.
• Insulting Jays players is allowed, within limits, but remember this is our team. If you say something juvenile, you might get called out on it. Telling us that our player is about to strikeout doesn't go over big. We cheer for our team.
• A word that pops up a bit is retard. This word, or any version of it, is unacceptable.
• No suggestion that violence towards any person or group of people are allowed, ever. I’m going to underline this one, because occasionally someone says something silly, thinking it’s a joke, about blowing up a stadium or suggesting that all fans of team X should come to some sort of rather cruel end. It might be that the world has changed, but these things are not jokes.
• Also, not so much a rule, as a request, we get new folks here all the time, it would be nice if we were a little friendlier to new folks. We were all new at one time.
• Discussion of illegal streams is not allowed at all.
• Don't attack other posters. Disagree with their ideas, but try to stay away from calling them names. Calling someone stupid, crazy, etc. doesn't make for rational debate.
• On the flip of that, some of us have been friends for a while and some ribbing takes place. Take it in stride. Generally it means we like you.
• Expect that people are going to challenge your opinions. Roll with it. Expect folks aren't going to just take your word. Defend your position. Intelligent people can disagree.
• Remember we are all fans here and all equal. You may think you are smarter than all of us. You might even be (isn't all that hard). If you are that smart, show us, don’t tell us.
• Don't try to annoy people or start fights.
• Don't copy and paste an article from another site. If you see something cool, post a link.
• We aren't grammar police, don't worry about getting things perfect. But, if you want things read, make them readable. If you are posting something long, use periods and start sentences with capitals.
• Don't argue with the moderators about rules. If you are asked to stop something, stop it. Moderating isn't fun, don't make it worse. It doesn't add to a thread to turn into a debate on the rules. I especially hate this in GameThreads. I love the threads, but I mostly love watching the game. If you want to try to distract me from the game with an argument about rules, we won't be friends. Got a complaint, email me and then I can deal with it at a time of my choosing.
• No religion or politics please. What I mean is let's not start arguing politics. The casual mentioning of a politician isn't a big deal. Starting a Liberals vs. Conservatives argument is a bigger deal. Religion....let's stay away from that all together.
• Don't use this place as just a way to promote your site. SB Nation doesn't exist to give free promotion for other sites.

What should you do if you feel someone has broken the rules? Under every comment there is a flag button, if you hit that, a menu will come up. The menu will ask you why you are flagging it. The ‘flag' will mark it for the mods. We can't see everything that happens on here, so if you flag it, we can take appropriate action.

Please don't take it upon yourself to tell people to stop saying something. We have mods for that. If you want to be a mod, send me an email.

So what happens if you cross the line? Well, one of the moderators might ask you to stop. If you are asked to stop something, please do, don't argue.

If a FanPost or a comment crosses the line, it might be deleted.

We may give a formal warning. If that happens the next time you log into the site the warning will come up. Consider it the equivalent to a yellow card in soccer. We very rarely send warnings but it does happen. A warning isn't personal, so don't take it personally.

And we can ban. Banning would be the red card. If you are banned you will no longer be allowed to post on here. You can read but not comment. Sometimes it gets to the point that someone is more trouble than they are worth. Running the site is a hobby for us, we aren't willing to put up with much aggravation. That said, other than spammers, we've only banned a handful of people. Our members are great.

Generally, we don't ban someone until they become intolerable. I have to come to the site every day, if there is a poster that is making me not want to come, then, sorry, it is you or me and I've got the button. If you want to send a note telling me you didn't deserve to be banned, (we do all have bad days), try being reasonable and we will consider it. Half the time I get an email telling me how terrible the site is, and then, an hour or two later, they sign up under a new screen name thinking I'm not going to notice.

I get emails, after warnings, complaining that ‘someone else did it too and you didn’t warn them’, putting me in the spot of telling them I don’t discuss warnings with anyone other than the person being warned. I won’t talk about your warning with someone else and I won’t talk to you about someone else’s warning. Honest...warnings are not personal. Generally a day or two after a warning I’ve forgotten about it.

All that said, please if you have something you want to say, comment or write up a FanPost or FanShot. The fun of being here is reading people's opinions.