I've been blogging at this site for over a year now and haven't ever felt the need to post any sort of community guidelines. I still don't from the comments in the threads here. Honestly, you guys have been great. However, after watching with interest some shenanigans at Bleed Cubbie Blue today, I thought it might be in the community's best interest if we laid out some general do's and dont's, yeses and nos when it comes to commenting and diaries.
Do feel free to express your opinions regarding the Rockies and generally anything that surrounds them. From time to time, you can also gush or rant about other sports teams you follow, but try to keep things generally on topic.
When it comes to politics, I'm in the minority among my counterparts apparently in that I will allow some political discussion on this site as long as it pertains directly to baseball or the Rockies. Besides that, quick off the cuff comments about politicians or parties (as occurred today a couple of threads down) are acceptable to me, but do not personalize them to any poster on the Row or you will find yourself banned quickly. I'm well aware that my own political background could be different from others, yet I allow for and respect those differences. Also, I'm not naive enough to believe that politics doesn't mix with professional sports and by avoiding it altogether we could also avoid some important Rockies or baseball related discussions.
As we saw earlier this season with the Rockies, the same principles apply to religion. I just ask that readers and commenters respect their fellow Rockies fans here.
Along those lines: Insulting my opinions is fine as long as you've got something legit to back it up, insulting me or any other poster is not fine. Know the difference. Be careful, if you're offended, don't jump to a hasty conclusion regarding the intent of the comment, seek clarification and if there's a serious problem, please e-mail either me or RFNY.
If you want your account completely deleted, simply turn off your computer, smash it a few times and promise never to replace it or get on the internet again. Seriously. It won't happen if you start whining about it like that.
I'm not going to delete comments with mild vulgarity, and in game situations I understand if you somehow let something slip (the words, they practically typed themselves, I swear!) but it's not the standard speech on this site and please respect the community by refraining from regularly using terms that others could find offensive.
As far as administration of the site is concerned, please realize that RFNY and I have the final say, and if we don't like something, we can either choose to get rid of it or not, capricious as that might be. I try and keep things as democratic as possible here, but in the end, the democracy of this site's a sham, and I am just a (so far) benevolent dictator.
I'm actually going to be doing more posts this offseason about the business of sportsblogging, but if you're wondering if we make any money at this, well yes, but the amount so far might only be impressive in Malawi. Believe me, you only wish you had an army of child laborers working for as cheap as I have on this blog (see, off the cuff political comment =acceptable) working for your small business. That's not to say that I won't at some point in the future sell out more. Remember, Rox Girl=Dictatoress, but I try and keep that side of things from being too obtrusive to my readers.
Speaking of which, if you want to advertise on this site, there are actually a couple of ways to do it, either through blogads through the link to the left or via direct e-mail to myself. The way not to do it is by putting a bunch of unsolicited spam links in the comments. If you do it this way, I will ban you, erase the comments, and e-mail you a bill. I will then locate a brick and mortar address through the spam you used, and send them a bill.
I am happy to post links to Rockies related sites for free, and other baseball/sports sites as I see fit, please e-mail me if you want to be linked.
I am not (nor is RFNY) affiliated with the Colorado Rockies baseball club or any major media concern, other than the fact that I wear the Rockies logo on my Todd Helton authentically licensed jersey/sleepshirt and have a tattoo of Tinker Bell on my derrierre (just kidding, but now that I think about it...) The SportsBlogsNetwork isn't at the moment, either, unless you count the DailyKos blog a media concern, which with its size, you might, that's up to you, but he did play a founding role. I will welcome any other questions regarding the blog either publicly in the comments or privately by e-mail, but I wanted to put a few things out there so we're all clear.
Like I said, so far you have been great, there's just been a couple of instances with spambots in the comments, but other than that, it's been pretty smooth sailing.