Proposed Twins Daily Comment Policy - Feedback Desired

Stating the obvious, but how about an automatic permanent ban for anybody posting spam?

Regarding #7, why are people under the delusion they have "rights" on this website. Admin can pretty much say and do whatever you want with the comments and who they allow to comment. Nobody is stopping you from calling Gardy stupid, just that the powers that be just don't want it on their website. If you can't live with that, go somewhere else.

Considering I have seen ESPN link to this site as recently as Monday, this type of control doesn't seem difficult to understand. Common sense and common courtesy folks. Pretty simple.

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Originally Posted by Fire Dan Gladden

Stating the obvious, but how about an automatic permanent ban for anybody posting spam?

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That has been the policy. We can throw it in there for good measure but I doubt spammers really care about forum rules.

First time poster, long time reader. Living in San Diego, I do not get a lot of Twins coverage. I love this site. Just wanted to say "thank you guys very much for the Twins Daily". Been a Twins fan since 1965 and i really appreciate all the hard work you guys put in to make this the best site for coverage of the Twins and their minor league teams. Please keep up the good work

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Originally Posted by rickyriolo

First time poster, long time reader. Living in San Diego, I do not get a lot of Twins coverage. I love this site. Just wanted to say "thank you guys very much for the Twins Daily". Been a Twins fan since 1965 and i really appreciate all the hard work you guys put in to make this the best site for coverage of the Twins and their minor league teams. Please keep up the good work

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Thanks for reading and visiting! We're trying to fill a niche here (an undeveloped one, odd as that is) and I think we're well on our way to doing it.

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Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

Mauerzy, I'll just respond this way without quotes. It's easier.

3. We're not going to clamp down on misspellings or limited use of abbreviations. This rule will probably be used very rarely and only for spam-like posters whose entries generally consist of "lolz", "ur bad @ beisbol" and nonsense of that sort. It hasn't been a problem at all but we're throwing it in there for good measure.

4. Feel free to use as many links and quotes as your lil old heart desires.

5. If you're tired of a poster's ranting, feel free to PM a moderator/admin about it or attack the point he/she is trying to make. You can even mention that you're tired of hearing his/her tripe, just be sure to add significant content to your post beyond that short sentence. We're trying to cut down on comments such as "dumb post" or "read this already, lame". They have no place on the board.

6. We're sticking to something close to a prime time television rule. If it can't be said on network television, reconsider saying it. The same applies to photos and imagery.

7. Moderators and admins will be deciding what is appropriate or not. Generally, we're forgiving folk. Very few people will receive a ban of any kind without ample warning and if you feel the warning is unjust, all of us will deliberate over the "offense".

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Thanks for the response and all the hard work. I think 99.99% of the people here should have no problem living by these rules. For those who can't, as many have already said, they can go rant somewhere else.

I have been an avid Twins fan my entire life, however only until the last few years have I begun to really dig in to the inter workings of the organization. This website have helped me do so tremendously, and I have to say you are all doing a great job building on the Twins fan base. Please keep up the good work, you are doing something nobody else on the web is doing (for the Twins that is...)

I object to #1 in order to protect the ability to post stark raving drunken comments at 1 a.m, forget that you ever did it over night, and then wake up the next morning to find an entire string of angry ad hominem type replies from people who you really got going. For me, those replies make the hangover severely more beawrable.

I am glad to see these. Seem to be a lot of personal attacks lately, that adding nothing to the conversation. While it isn't a policy, why do people go into threads, read them, then say they are stupid threads? Clearly, at least one person wants to have that conversation, if you don't, don't comment or read it. Pretty simple really.

While I am probably considered negative by some, and I can be at times admittedly, at least I try to back up comments with facts, and try very, very hard not to attack people. Hopefully we can all tolerate those that don't agree with us all the time. It's that disagreement that actually leads to new ideas, and progress.

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Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Regarding #4, we encourage linking to other sites with articles regarding the Twins. If you copy one sentence out of there to help illustrate your point, that's OK. There are copyright issues that could come in to play. And, secondly, we are a blogger/writer community. IF someone writes something really good and you feel it should be noticed, we have no problem with people going to that site, reading the article and then coming back to discuss. It's just not right, especially if the information is behind a pay wall.

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I don't think we have a problem with someone copying a paragraph to illustrate a point from the story, or summarizing an article. We just don't want someone going out an lifting a full (or most of a full) story and republishing it here. We want people to respect our intellectual property. We should respect theirs.

Thank you John!

I think one addition is needed to Rule #1. Please add 'front office' to the list of teams, players, agents, etc.

In regards to that, I recall reading many very negative comments about Mr. Ryan or the FO in the past week regarding what should be done about Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka. When Mr. Ryan did what some of us wanted and few expected, I have been returning to this site expecting to see several of those posters leave comments that they were wrong. I am still looking for those admissions or apologies.

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Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

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Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

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Originally Posted by drivlikejehu

Anyplace with comments needs a policy. The only one here I question is #1, as it relates to people other than commenters/post authors. Obviously, there shouldn't be tolerance in those cases. But, a rival team? How does that work- we wouldn't be able to say "The White Sox are garbage"? I mean, I get that it's not intelligent conversation, but this is sports. So long as it isn't vulgar, I don't see the problem.

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I don't foresee a world where we get too upset about something getting frustrated in a game thread and posting "Jeff Gray is garbage". Technically, it is against the rules. It's also a heat of the moment game thread written by a frustrated poster after Gray just gave himself whiplash watching a pitch go over the wall.

As with most things, keep it in reason. Everybody gets mad and posts stupid crap. It happens. But most posters filter those posts in between dozens of worthwhile posts that are much calmer and rational. We're all fans here. We understand the pain of watching Jeff Gray take the mound.

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Although I would say that we could say that "Jeff Gray is pitching like crap... again!!" and that would be just fine... By all accounts, Gray is a tremendous person, a great teammate, and obviously a pretty good pitcher - in context - so to call him 'garbage' is just unnecessary.

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That's fine, but what about, I dunno, Scott Boras? Should it really be an offense to insult him, sans foul language? It's not *necessary* of course, but that just seems like an overly broad restriction that wouldn't actually be enforced. In which case it's really just the same as "stuff we don't like." Which is fine except there could be cases of actual misunderstandings (as opposed to known violations that are objected to after sanctions).

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Originally Posted by roger

Thank you John!

I think one addition is needed to Rule #1. Please add 'front office' to the list of teams, players, agents, etc.

In regards to that, I recall reading many very negative comments about Mr. Ryan or the FO in the past week regarding what should be done about Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka. When Mr. Ryan did what some of us wanted and few expected, I have been returning to this site expecting to see several of those posters leave comments that they were wrong. I am still looking for those admissions or apologies.

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Just so we're clear, this policy does NOT mean that we can't be critical of Ryan or of moves he makes or doesn't make. It just can't be a personal attack.

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Originally Posted by drivlikejehu

That's fine, but what about, I dunno, Scott Boras? Should it really be an offense to insult him, sans foul language? It's not *necessary* of course, but that just seems like an overly broad restriction that wouldn't actually be enforced. In which case it's really just the same as "stuff we don't like." Which is fine except there could be cases of actual misunderstandings (as opposed to known violations that are objected to after sanctions).

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Yep, Boras is included too. Obviosly, we'll need to be even-handed. If the point was that Boras screwed up big time with Mark Appel, that's legitimate. If the post is "Boras is a greedy SOB" that might be deleted and maybe earn a warning.

Not a big fan of the "no personal attacks" rule, just because it seems unnecessarily restrictive. Yeah, I get that "Jeff Gray is pitching poorly, as evidenced by his horrible xFIP" is much nicer to say than "Jeff Gray is a pile of horse excrement (because I can't say the s-word)", but there's some element of passion that comes with being a sports fan, and I think there should be some level of discretion there. In my internet forum experience, I think personal attacks on fellow posters are a far greater concern than personal attacks on public figures - while the latter certainly don't reflect well on the community, they're also generally nothing more than harmless venting in most cases. It's not a strong objection to the rule, but I think it's also something that seems a bit restrictive if it's enforced in a black and white manner.

Ultimately, I think the last rule is the only truly necessary one - if there's something you guys think is inappropriate, for whatever reason, then do what you need to do. I'm not a terribly frequent visitor here, but I think I can speak for plenty of Twins' blogosphere consumers when I say that we trust you guys to make good decisions, regardless of formal policy.

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Originally Posted by John Bonnes

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Originally Posted by drivlikejehu

That's fine, but what about, I dunno, Scott Boras? Should it really be an offense to insult him, sans foul language? It's not *necessary* of course, but that just seems like an overly broad restriction that wouldn't actually be enforced. In which case it's really just the same as "stuff we don't like." Which is fine except there could be cases of actual misunderstandings (as opposed to known violations that are objected to after sanctions).

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Yep, Boras is included too. Obviosly, we'll need to be even-handed. If the point was that Boras screwed up big time with Mark Appel, that's legitimate. If the post is "Boras is a greedy SOB" that might be deleted and maybe earn a warning.

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Why do you need to be even-handed? Say, for instance, a player on another team made negative comments about the Twins. By this logic, the comments policy towards him should be identical as that with respect to Joe Mauer. That doesn't make any sense. You have no legal or ethical duty to be "even-handed." It's different with a site that isn't tied to any particular team. Then there would be an issue of favoritism. In this case, there is supposed to be favoritism.

I think you borrowed rules without really considering important differences between who consumes/comments.

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Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Regarding #4, we encourage linking to other sites with articles regarding the Twins. If you copy one sentence out of there to help illustrate your point, that's OK. There are copyright issues that could come in to play. And, secondly, we are a blogger/writer community. IF someone writes something really good and you feel it should be noticed, we have no problem with people going to that site, reading the article and then coming back to discuss. It's just not right, especially if the information is behind a pay wall.

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I think that the original question was about what some of us do... repost content on the blog area here, which we own the copyright and have preciously posted on our own sites. I don't think that you all would have an issue with that because there are no copyright violations :)

Same way Twinscentic re-posts articles between here and the Strib.

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Originally Posted by John Bonnes

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Originally Posted by roger

Thank you John!

I think one addition is needed to Rule #1. Please add 'front office' to the list of teams, players, agents, etc.

In regards to that, I recall reading many very negative comments about Mr. Ryan or the FO in the past week regarding what should be done about Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka. When Mr. Ryan did what some of us wanted and few expected, I have been returning to this site expecting to see several of those posters leave comments that they were wrong. I am still looking for those admissions or apologies.

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Just so we're clear, this policy does NOT mean that we can't be critical of Ryan or of moves he makes or doesn't make. It just can't be a personal attack.

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Granted, but if you are going to have a policy against everyone in the game, why exclude front office personnell? Being critical is one thing, but the negative comments about them and certain people constantly saying they should be fired etc. get old very quickly.

Overall, I don't have a problem with the rules although like several have mentioned above, the real question is in enforcement and I hope that we have opportunities to revisit the policy should we find the enforcement to be more restrictive than we anticipated.

I'm a little puzzled by the difference between what Brock says about avatars: We're sticking to something close to a prime time television rule. If it can't be said on network television, reconsider saying it. And how what he said in that statement relates to rule #2 on swearing. It seems to me that there is a lot that is said on prime time television that can be construed as a violation of rule #2.

One last thing about posters who are repeatedly negative. It is JUST as annoying to read posters who are unerringly positive -- especially when they don't state a factual basis for their position.

One last thing, it is my strong personal desire that the administrators will use the private messaging system to debate appropriateness with a particular poster rather than some of the back-and-forth that we've seen. I hope that posters will also honor resolving any issues in a more private manner.

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Originally Posted by JB_Iowa

I'm a little puzzled by the difference between what Brock says about avatars: We're sticking to something close to a prime time television rule. If it can't be said on network television, reconsider saying it. And how what he said in that statement relates to rule #2 on swearing. It seems to me that there is a lot that is said on prime time television that can be construed as a violation of rule #2.

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Well, it all depends on what you consider a "swear word". In most cases, we're sticking to what is found on television and using that as a guide. We figure that if you can flip on Parks & Rec and hear a word, then you can't really come back to TD and bitch about seeing it there.

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Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

Well, it all depends on what you consider a "swear word". In most cases, we're sticking to what is found on television and using that as a guide. We figure that if you can flip on Parks & Rec and hear a word, then you can't really come back to TD and bitch about seeing it there.

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Thank you for the clarification. I feel much more comfortable with that.