BBB Commenting and Posting Guidelines

Welcome to Bluebird Banter! This is our little space on the web where we chat, argue, complain, and praise what is happening with our Toronto Blue Jays. Mostly these days, we are just grateful to be watching baseball again. To keep it a civil community and enjoyable place to be, we have rules.

Most of the rules fall under the umbrella of one idea: this blog is like our living room. Act like you’d like to be invited back. We enjoy having you, so please come in, wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, and stay a while. But remember, the last beer is mine.

• Our first rule is an important one. No suggestions of violence, self-harm or ill will towards any player, person or group of people are allowed, ever. I’m bolding this one, because there are occasional jokes about hurting a player, blowing up a stadium or suggesting that all fans of a team or certain journalists should come to some sort of rather cruel end. There is zero tolerance for this here.
• No derogatory references to race, nationality, sexual orientation or ethnicity at all, ever. Any version of the word retard is also unacceptable.
• Don’t be sexist. I know sports blogs tend to be a men’s club, but we have female members. My wife may also look in, and If you get on her bad side, I may have to ban you.
• Profanity isn’t allowed here, so please try to keep George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” off the site (I’m showing my age with this reference). Profanity brings a negative tone to comments, and members have come to appreciate the atmosphere here. There are also people who are averse to profanity, and they shouldn’t have to miss out on talking about baseball with us.
• I’ve noticed people using one of the 7 words but putting a * or special character in one (or more) of the letters. The implication has the same effect, and it’s still not allowed.
• However, using “Roger Clemens” or “Farrelling” as a substitution is still fair game.
• Insulting Blue Jays players is allowed, within limits, but please 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 well. We like to cheer for our team.
• Don’t try to annoy people or start fights
• Don’t attack other posters. You are free to debate and disagree with their ideas but please try to stay away from calling anyone stupid, crazy, etc. It doesn’t make for a rational debate.
• Also, as a request, it would be nice if we were a little friendlier to new folks. We were all new at one time. With that said, expect that people are going to challenge your opinions. Roll with it. Defend your position. Intelligent people can disagree.
• 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.
• No religion or politics please. There is enough of that in the world already, and we prefer to stick to baseball here. The casual mentioning of a politician isn’t a big deal, but starting a Liberals vs. Conservatives argument is a bigger deal. Also, please also try to refrain from using His name (in vain or otherwise). It’s ok to go off topic, but please try to avoid controversial topics of this nature.
• We aren’t grammar police, so don’t worry about getting things perfect. However, if you want things read, make them readable. If you are posting something long, use periods, commas, and start sentences with capitals. If you have a lot to say, write a FanPost!
• Don’t copy and paste an article from another site. If you see something worth sharing, post a link.
• Discussion of illegal streams is not permitted.
• Don’t argue with the moderators about rules. If you are asked to stop something, stop it. Moderating isn’t fun, so please don’t make it worse. Starting a debate about the rules adds nothing to a thread. 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. If you have a complaint, email me, and then I can deal with it at a time of my choosing.
• Don’t use this site as a place to promote yourself or your work. SB Nation doesn’t exist to give free promotion to other sites.
• Remember we are all fans here and are all equal. You may think you are smarter than all of us. You might even be (it isn’t all that hard). If you are that smart, show us…don’t tell us.
• New for 2020, any debates over the legitimacy or seriousness of COVID-19 are also prohibited. If you happen to be a doctor or have specialized knowledge in infectious diseases, there are lots of epidemiologists and researchers who would benefit more from hearing from you than we would. Otherwise, please don’t speak out of line on things you aren’t knowledgable in.

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. We love when our members stand up for each other, but we also have mods for that. If you want to be a mod, send me an email.

What happens if you break a rule?

1) One of the moderators might ask you to stop. If you are asked to stop something, please do, and don’t argue. If a comment or FanPost crosses the line, it will likely be deleted.

2) We may issue 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 rarely send warnings, but it does happen. A warning isn’t personal, so don’t take it personally.

3) We can also ban you. If we continue with our soccer analogy, banning would be the red card. If you are banned you can still read the site, but you will no longer be allowed to post or comment. We generally 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 ban-hammer. Running the site is a hobby for us, and we aren’t willing to put up with too much aggravation. With that said, other than spammers, we’ve only banned a handful of people. Our members are generally pretty great.

If you feel as if you’ve been unfairly banned, (we do all have bad days), send me a reasonable email and we will consider reinstating you. 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.

After warnings, I will often get emails complaining that “someone else did it too and you didn’t warn them”. Please note, 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 about someone else’s warning with you. Honestly, warnings are not personal. Generally a day or two after a warning I’ve forgotten about it.

With all this said, we hope you come by often and join in the discussions. This is a pretty wonderful place to be.

Lastly, Go Jays Go!

(Credit to Kate for cleaning this up. Thanks Kate.)