We interrupt your Orioles talk for a comment on off-season conduct

That is all.

Pick a random Open Thread from last winter. Would you feel welcome to comment if you weren’t a regular here?

That said, I’m just as guilty as anyone. And no one’s asking for opinionless robots as commentors.

against short sleeve dress shirts. Then I’ll be OK.

Discuss.

Address the argument, not the person. That means you are not at liberty to tell people they are stupid because they disagree with you, or that they should go to hell, or anything else inflammatory about a person. This line gets crossed way too often around here and I’m putting down the hammer.

And address the argument in a friendly manner or else the line between the person and argument will get blurred.

When I first started to lurk here in 2009, I was leery about commenting because the community felt very tight-knit, and almost cliquey. I did make a stupid mistake when I wrote a two sentence fanpost and was berated, rightfully so. I went back to lurking. When I did start posting on a regular basis, I still felt like an outsider. Some of you have been posting here for several years, and coupled with being a young kid, for a while I never broke into the pack. I came here from Yahoo and I could sense a lot of resentment because the community was growing, which in my mind was a positive thing. Sure, we had guys like chuckthefan posting here and coming off like a moron, but for the most part I think the growth has been good and beneficial.

But what is this about? I’ve noticed that over the past few months I think CC has been better about welcoming people and making them feel part of a community. And that’s a really good thing. Sure, we have our inside jokes and we do provide a heavy dose of snark, which new members may not understand at first, but we’ve developed a better awareness of what our comments might mean to new members… even in the off-season.

I’ll admit that there are times where I still feel like I’m not really part of this community, but it’s much better than a few months ago. Anyway, I think Stacey’s advice is important because in the past we’ve had problems. Sorry for the rambling…

Roots Welcome Michele Bachmann to ‘Fallon’ With ‘Lyin’ Ass Bitch’

The thing that drives me nuts, and I feel like probably would scare off new people, is when there’s some argument on a topic we’ve had 10+ arguments about in the past where two or three people are going back and forth and it’s indented to the maximum and you can’t see anything else, and everyone who comes to the thread after that has to scroll through 100 posts of this to get to actual discussion.

It’s not good for CC when every thread is blowing up with that stuff. It’s okay if people are jovial and silly and having a good time doing that, but it’s not good when the rancor is practically palpable between the involved parties.

If mods are out of a thread and come back and see one of these things, the people involved shouldn’t be surprised if next time you go to post, you have a warning or a ban message. This thread is your first warning. Other SBN sites make use of short-length bans to remind people to chill out when necessary and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Nobody is looking to ban you, whoever you are, unless you’re a troll from another site in which case, yes, I am looking to ban you.

But if you are a member of CC and someone who loves the Orioles, I’m not looking to ban you, even for just a day. Think before you wade into the 99th debate on the same topic or a similar one – or if you must, then keep it absolutely civil and drop it some point before it’s 50 posts later – and you will never even notice or run afoul of our current effort to keep things under control.

This is the carrot: you, as a CC member, can do your part, by not getting into insane arguments, towards keeping CC the kind of place people want to come and talk (about the Orioles or whatever) and be with like-minded individuals – more or less, though you may disagree sometimes – perhaps even friends. An awesome place that wins Mobbie awards because it’s the best place on the internet to both get your Orioles news and have a place to talk about it (or anything else) with other informed O’s fans.

Hopefully none of us ever need the stick. Be mindful, though: it is there.

I know some of you think it’s adorable to purposely bring up controversial topics, but do us all a favor and use some discretion.

If we’ve learned one thing from the Orioles career of Felix Pie, it’s that being adorable is no guard against being terrible.

My rule of thumb is: Once the chat queue gets smashed over on the right side, there’s nothing good that can come of it.

My second rule of thumb is: Sign some goddamn free agents.

Happy Thanksgiving, Yall.

don’t jump all over new posters for bringing up something you’ve already discussed ad nauseum. not everyone lurks for a year.

just something that pissed me off when i was new.

the kid gloves come off in march/april

… and a high-ranking member here referred to my preferred political candidate using a very unflattering term. I didn’t say anything, but it definitely made coming here less fun.

Then again, OH just banned someone for not using proper capitalization and punctuation and then mildly snarking about it when reprimanded. So this place is quite a bit more lenient.

Rule of life.