Up to this point, Twins Daily hasn't had an official policy regarding comments; it's mostly been "be civil." Sometimes this has worked. Sometimes it hasn't. We've talked a lot amongst ourselves about being a little clearer and decided that whatever we adopt will have a link on the footer of the site and be re-posted occasionally to make sure everyone knows the rules. I'd like to propose this as the new policy, which we based on the
policy for MLBTradeRumors.com. But before we charge ahead, I think it's important to get the community's feedback.
Comments of this nature are not allowed:
1. Personal attacks or insults towards other commenters, the post author, journalists, teams, players, or agents This should be a given, but yes I agree.
2. Inappropriate language, including swearing and related censor bypass attempts, lewdness, and crude terms for body parts, bodily functions, and physical acts. Overall, we don’t want any language that a parent would not want their kid to see. Again, this should be a given. And I like this rule especially because it forces people with no logical arguments to cut out the use of foul language to drive a point.
3. Juvenile comments or extensive use of text message-type spelling. People should always use proper spelling and grammar, but using things such as smart phones and tablets makes it easier to use shortened versions of words. I'd say the juvenile comments should for sure be ruled out, but short form typing is used too often to do away with. IMO as long as the person can illustrate a point with facts or a good solid opinion, they can say it however they'd like.
4. Copying entire stories from elsewhere on the internet. What about links or quotes to make a point?
5. Comments about how you're sick of this topic or it's not newsworthy. This one confuses me... Can't we state if we are tired of people calling for Gardy's head every time the littlest thing happens? This rule seems too vague, and I'd argue that the other rules would eliminate people excessively infringing upon this.
6. No inappropriate avatars or images are allowed. Will somebody clearly define inappropriate? Who monitors this?
7. Anything else we deem bad for business. Again, who is doing the "deeming"? How will they remain objective in their censorship?
Breaking the rules will result in deleted posts and bans. Attempts to circumvent bans will results in all accounts being permanently banned (along with their IP address).
I suspect the rules that will be most concerning are #2 and #1 (though I encourage feedback on all of them), so let me quickly address those two. I'm a big free speech guy, and I wrestled with both, but I've come to embrace them. Here is why:
#2 - I have recently received emails from parents of minors who love these boards for Twins news. I'm not naive enough to think they don't know vulgarity (I think I was at the height of my vulgarity as a teen) but I don't see any compelling reason to have this language on the board and I can think of plenty of reasons to not have it, such as increased credibility for threads that offer terrific debate and can even be newsworthy.
#1. It's one thing to say "Gardenhire is stupid to always bat a middle infielder second." It's another to say "Gardenhire is stupid." I wrote about five paragraphs in the forum last week criticizing Phil Mackey's latest salary story, so I'm not saying we can't be critical. But I cringe when five comments later I read "Mackey is an idiot." That's just a personal attack.
I'm not suggesting this to protect players feelings or get the Twins or media to like us. I'm suggesting this because
1. It adds nothing to the discussion. These comments will not be missed.
2. It makes us - and I mean the whole community - look bad.
Twins Daily was not started to be a playground. It was started to raise the overall quality of baseball coverage. If we want to do that - if we want to gain credibility, if we want to continue to draw in independent voices and readers, if we want our content to be cited and used by others - then we cannot look like rube chat.
OK, that's the proposal. Please provide your feedback below.