A Few Posting Guidelines

Hey everybody. As your probably already know, the site kind of blew up over the past week. We've received more traffic than any other point in our history - May of 2011 is already our biggest traffic month ever, and we still have over half of it to go. With that has come a ton of new users and a lot of commenting. The response has been amazing, and I can't thank everyone enough for supporting us.

The increased commenting has made things tougher as far as rules and moderating go. When we were medium-sized - and I expect to return to that size again soon - it was easy to sift through the comments and it was easier to give leeway to some people. But in the commotion of the past few days, that's become harder.

People flying off the handle hasn't helped. New commenters don't always understand the culture of the site, either, and that leads to misunderstandings and frustration. And dozens of comments about the same thing, especially when that thing is depressing, negative, or blown out of proportion, really aren't needed.

So, if you're new the site or just need a quick refresher course, here are a few guidelines to follow over the next couple of days. We'll be stricter with these than usual, as the relative urgency of the time calls for it.

Don't bad-mouth recruits or players. I think most people have done a good job of this, but this is always stressed. If you want to say that Sterling Gibbs' decommitment isn't killer because Maryland has depth at the PG spot already between Terrell Stoglin and Pe'Shon Howard, making Gibbs' presence not completely necessary, that's fine. Saying Gibbs just sucks and was lucky to get an MD offer in the first place, however, isn't cool, in addition to being just inaccurate. Also, no "HAVE FUN AT TOWSON" comments, or the like. Those will be deleted posthaste.

Use proper grammar and spelling. This is just common courtesy. I'm not going to delete a comment / post just because you misspell words or don't use paragraphs, but you appear much more intelligent when what you type/write is grammatically correct, etc. More importantly, it's much easier for others to read, especially when you put in paragraph breaks in long comments. This doesn't have to be the Queen's English or anything, just universally accepted, aesthetic grammar.

Don't be repetitive or redundant. Basically, don't go through a thread and say the same thing over and over. I'm not talking verbatim, but in terms of themes and whatnot. If you're upset that Turgeon let Faust out of his LOI, discuss that in one place. Don't go around each thread and post in eleven different spots.

Avoid sky-is-falling meltdowns. A lot of the stuff that recently came out and will come out in the future is worthy of legitimate discussion, but it can get high-jacked by the "This is embarrassing for the program!" vitriol that still doesn't make any sense to me. For the record, you can be upset and post that you are - I am too. But any ranting that makes no sense - especially if it violates the three guidelines mentioned above - isn't necessary.

Don't act like you know what is happening or what is going to. Do you know for a fact that Rob Ehsan isn't coming back? Or that Nick Faust is going somewhere else? Or that Seth Allen is for sure better than Gibbs, or for sure worse? No? Then don't state it as fact. Please, discuss these things, but saying things that are opinions or guesses as facts (eg, "Faust is/isn't coming back, it's a fact and anyone who doesn't recognize it is being stupid,") isn't cool. It's just annoying. Please present your opinions and guesses, but just don't say they're anything but what they are.

Basically: just keep discussion productive and intelligent. That's all I ask. If you check off this box, your comment will stay up.

Thanks again, everyone. Very few people ever have problems with this, but it can't hurt to bring them up. I hope this didn't turn any off or away - it's just a reminder of a few rules we already have in place, and a heads-up that we're going to be enforcing them more aggressively in the near future. If something you were going to post is in violation of this, then maybe edit it - I still want to read what everyone has to say, if possible.

Also, you may notice that I have a new avatar. Figured it was time to distinguish myself a tad.