Given that the draft starts today and attention and traffic increases, wanted to repost the generic ethos the owners are shooting for here. I know with COVID that things are tough and there's not a million sporting events to talk about and things will naturally gravitate towards the shitstorm we're dealing with, but wanted to reinforce some guidance...
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Welcome. As we embark on the 2020 NFL Draft here at X4 (and the first under new management in some time!) we felt it necessary to provide a quick clarification and some thoughts about moderation as traffic, interest, and posts pick up.
No one wants to create a set of rules that is 1) unrealistic 2) overbearing and 3) makes moderating a nightmare. If we were to sum up the rules as concisely as possible it would be Wil Wheaton’s rule of the internet "Don't be a dick" with a minor update:
“Don’t constantly be a dick”
Easy peasy. We all have bad days and we'll allow for that. Just don't constantly and consistently be a dick.
How does one “be a dick?” Glad you asked.
- Don't drive every conversation or thread with your shitty political viewpoint. Yes your political viewpoint is shitty. Yours too. And especially yours. If you’re gonna constantly throw red meat out there (subtle or subtle as a hammer to the face) trying to goad people into a political debate, we’re gonna delete it. If you’re going to willfully misinterpret the most vanilla and generic post and turn it into a political issue you must respond to, we’ll delete that. If you absolutely must, there are at least 3-4 sites (dunno might be more?) on the Internet for you to argue politics. Enjoy yourself there!
- Don't be an obvious and constant troll. We all know what trolling is and we banned the 2 main culprits of it before the start of last season. And even then we let Herp and Derp run roughshod over the Vikings thread for more than a year. I mean, come on, be smart about this and it doesn't even look like trolling - be funny and clever and unique instead of just sounding like a 14 year old boy hopped up on Mountain Dew and Adderall and we'll probably never do anything.
- Don't be mean spirited/personal. Sports by its nature lends to trash talking. Good-natured back and forth is expected (NOTE FUKK THE BEARS AND EVERY ONE OF THEIR FANS. ALWAYS), but when this is all you have to offer or it's over the top, it gets old quickly.
- Don't engage in the obvious stuff– no porn, no discussion about the TV series True Blood, no nudity, no links to sites that we really don’t need to mention, no Greta Van Fleet videos. Just, you know, be cool
Are the mods/owners perfect? NOOOOOPE. Are we going to delete/pull/clean up everything in whatever you deem in a “reasonable” amount of time? Almost certainly not. Are we going to delete everything that you personally think is some veiled political statement trying to make you angry? Negative. But, we'll try our damnedest to keep this place fun and interesting.
If you see a post we should be addressing and we haven't yet, PM one of us or just report it. Not saying we'll agree with you every time, but we all have lives and partners and children and at least one of us has a massive drinking problem (I'm working on not spilling so much though!), so we can't be monitoring 24/7/365.
We are here to talk about the Packers and almost exclusively sports, have some fun, ignore Fedya's Movies to Tivo (unless there's a global pandemic and you have the tastes of a 97 year old), shoot the shit, and ultimately be the virtual bar to argue about meaningless crap. This place runs very well, and there aren't problems to fix. But, we know that traffic and posts will increase as the the draft and football season kicks off and we just want to get ahead of it. If you are constantly throwing out bait or personal attacks, we’ll address. If you’re constantly taking the most routine comment and twisting it into a political issue, we’ll address. If you’re not being a dick all the time we’ll all get along swimmingly.
Finally. Fuck the bears.
Go Packers!
Grave Digger, Packerboi, Timpranillo