General Guidelines

We loves us from free speech, but the following behavior will not be tolerated on CC, and may be subject to immediate banning (this has been freely adapted from Athletics Nation, the original SBN blog):

• Personal attacks on community members, either directly or through sarcasm belittling, e.g., "You're an asshole", "Climbed down from the trees recently, did you?", etc. Exceptions may be made if it's obvious the two community members have an existing rapport with each other;
• Comments that are intolerant or prejudiced (sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.) in nature, e.g., "The umpire has a vagina", "The O's shouldn't sign Japanese players", "Doesn't ZAUN look gay in this picture?", etc.;
• Relentless negativity will not be tolerated. What constitutes "relentless negativity"? It's simple: simply posting the Orioles suck 100 percent of the time without reasoning or proposing solutions. There is nothing helpful about someone who constantly says that their team "sucks" and complains. CC is aiming to be better than that. There's a difference between someone who aims to point out flaws and be constructive vs. someone who is destructive;
• Comments that bring politics, or other highly inflammatory non-baseball related topics, onto CC (which is a non-political blog), e.g., "Bush/Clinton ruined this country by...", "Check out this link about the war in Iraq," etc. There is some leeway with this in context—if an announcer during a game brings in politics, it's bound to wind up in the gamethread, and can be tossed around a bit so long as discourse remains respectful and it doesn't take over the thread. Remember this is a baseball blog. 
• When discussing the Orioles, swearing and/or cursing is permitted, but try to keep it out of subject lines so it doesn't show up on the front page. 

Fanpost / FanShot/ Open Thread Guidelines

This is a bit trickier, and this is the section we may need to revise a bit. There is limited room for FanPosts, and they have the most prominent placement on the site, so it's important that they be great. Not just good, great. The FanPosts are the reason people keep coming back here—if they become crappy, the whole site suffers.

To make room for less-focused commentary on the site, we have also have FanShots and Open Threads. Anything that can't adhere to the guidelines below belongs in one of these two places.

FanShots are somewhat underused because they're a little further down the page, but they are the perfect place for quick hits from around the web: a link, picture, quote, or video that you think other members of the community would enjoy. Anything from "This website has cool Orioles shirts" to "The Sun reports that so-and-so will be called up this week" to video of last night's game. There is no need for analysis in Fan Shots, just use common sense to determine if the content is appropriate for a baseball blog.

Open Threads are a place to just hang out and chat, like you just entered a bar with a bunch of Orioles fans in it. It's okay to go off-topic, post pictures, whatever. Just follow the General Guidelines above, and use the Replybutton to keep threads straight. 

Getting back to FanPosts, if you have something larger to say, something you've thought about and want to discuss, by all means, write a FanPost! Here are some pointers:

1. Composition. FanPosts should have correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. We won't delete for an occasional typo, but there is a big difference between the hurried posts of a gamethread and a piece of work you have time to edit.Fanposts should also be formatted so as to be easy to read. Use paragraph breaks, bolding and italicizing, bullet points, etc. The point is to invite discussion, and if users click through and see a solid block of ranting text, chances are they aren't even going to finish even reading it, let alone comment. Don't write a fanpost saying, "sorry I didn't have time to spellcheck this". There's a spellcheck button on the banner right above you: USE IT!. If you don't have time to make a proper fanpost, then what you're saying belongs in an Open Thread. 
2. Subjects. Subjects should be specific, well-thought out, and say something about the contents of the post. No more Fanposts with subjects like "I can't take it!" or "What do you think?" or even "Trade rumors". Strive to be specific.
3. Link Your Sources. Don't report an event/story without citing your source. Anything that is going to be cited must have links. And citing an aggregate site (MLBTradeRumors or the like) doesn't count. Cite the original author, as s/he should get credit for the journalism. 
4. Offer Your Own Analysis. A Fanpost is a bit like an essay. If you want to discuss something, then think of what your take on it is, and put that in. Then think of the different ways it could be viewed by others and address those as well (e.g., "some might say Kranitz was a bad hire, but here's why they're wrong...") Endless polls asking basic unanswerable questions ("Who is better, A or B"?) are no more a contribution than asking whether Miller Lite tastes great or is less filling. It's just space-filler. In general, you shouldn't ask the question unless the answer is truly important to you. 
5. When to Call Attention to News Items. It's okay to basically cut-and-paste and then link to someone else's basic news article (e.g., "SI analyzes the 'Trembley effect'", BP ratings and the like) if you think it's a particularly insightful, or particularly stupid, piece of journalism. But again, ask yourself: does this merit discussion, or is it just something people would want to know? If it's the latter, put it in a FanShot or an Open Thread. If it's more than that, and you think it should be a FanPost, then offer up some analysis—why do you think it's brilliant, or stupid, or whatever. It's also okay to make a FanPost if you see something that's MAJOR breaking news (an established player or heralded rookie getting injured or traded), and want to get the word out there. Minor stuff (the DFA'ing of a bench player, a mostly anonymous AA player spending a week in AAA) belongs in FanShots or the Open Threads.
6. No Fanposts for One Trade Rumor. The Hot Stove heats up a few different times a year. We will post an "Ongoing Rumor Thread" at the top of the FanPosts for the latest updates. You shouldn't write a FanPost for any ONE trade rumor. The exception is being breaking news that is actually news, i.e., a trade that HAS HAPPENED. 
7. One FanPost per Day. We're going to start enforcing this pretty much immediately. If you are posting four or five Fanposts in a day, you're not really understanding what the Fanposts are for, and you're also not leaving room for hundreds of other contributors to the site. Obviously there may be exceptions to this when news is breaking. The site won't delete your second Fanpost, that will fall to us. Don't put us in this position! Choose your topics carefully. 

Overall, think about what you want to say. Think about whether what you're writing is really a contribution that will engender a discussion, or if you're just posting for the sake of posting or because you're bored, or whatever. If you've got a bee in your bonnet and you want to write about it, take the time to compose your FanPost, edit it, and preview it, so that it will be interesting to the other members of the community. 

Also, support your fellow authors and recommend Fanposts you like by clicking the "Rec" button. It appears right under a FanPost after you've clicked through to read it. The more the community at large makes a habit of recommending the best FanPosts, the better the site's quality will be overall. 

Lastly, everything written above was designed to help to explain the policies CC generally uses. This is a private blog and it is entirely at the administrators' discretion how to interpret and implement these guidelines.