The last few days, we have noticed an uptick in trolling and wildly argumentative and disrespectful behavior in the game threads and game wraps. Last night's game wrap in particular was really bad. We would like to remind everyone that, although we try to keep this site as open and accessible as possible, this is not a free for all.
When we say things like "be excellent to each other", we're not just making a show. This is an expectation for you as a commenter on this site. We expect everyone to be respectful to one another.
In the first draft thread of this season, S-n-P laid out ground rules for this site. These have been copied and pasted below the fold of this one....please read them, as these things will be enforced in the future. We highly value this site and the positive contributions being made that make this place more than just a news feed or generic coverage of the highlights, and we don't want that marred by arguments and behavior that take away from the online community that has been established.
From S-n-P...
I'd also like to take this opportunity to crib a post from Blazers Edge about site etiquette:
All of Blazer Nation is going through a difficult time. It appears to many as if a dream held for nearly four years--an entire generation of players--is slipping away. The future is uncertain but doesn't look positive compared to previous seasons. That's generating a lot of grief and angst.
People tend to deal with grief and angst in different ways. Some react with anger, lashing out at the source and anyone who gets in the way. Some evidence anticipatory grief. To assimilate the experience they throw it into overdrive, talking about future losses as if they were a certainty, feeling everything all at once to get through it. Some try to seize control over the experience by being unkind to others, taunting and lording over, grasping for one kind of power when another has been robbed beyond their ability to retrieve. Others are just honest about their sadness but need to pour it out and talk through it, sometimes repeatedly. Finally there are some who just plug their ears and pretend it's not happening at all (and woe be to anyone who tries to convince them differently). We've seen all of those responses at Blazersedge this season. We've also seen plenty of folks trying to make relatively normal comments amidst this sea of different responses and getting caught up in the mess, sometimes getting their feelings bruised in return.
As you can imagine, it gets tricky trying to sort through all of this. It's difficult to define the line between letting people work through their stuff and allowing that stuff to impede someone else's working through. That's the task these mods face.
From the very beginning we identified what this would look like if it went wrong. You only have to go back five or six years to the heart of the Jailblazer era to see ugliness in full bloom among Blazer fans. Back then there were two camps.
This rule also applies to those who repeat similar arguments in multiple threads. We need to hear things a couple times but not dozens. Responding with the same argument every time someone brings up a given subject gets tiresome and quickly becomes a form of conversation-stifling intimidation. In this case you're not talking to people, but over them.
OK then, I think this post has gone on long enough and it covered a lot of ground. I'm going to add those 3 rules to the "keep it clean, don't be mean" mantra...