Hi.

Over the last few weeks I've noticed we have quite a few new posters here.

So first, I'd like to welcome everyone who's new and let you know that we welcome all views about the Cubs and baseball, whether you're in high school and just beginning to follow the team, whether you're someone (like me) whose Cub fandom goes back to the days of Santo, Williams and Banks, whether you are heavily into statistical analysis or not, everyone is welcome here.

What is not welcome are personal attacks. You can disagree with someone's position on a topic without name-calling or profanity. I realize that the occasional dirty word is going to slip out during a heated game thread -- that's understandable. But in ordinary discourse here -- keep it clean.

Follow me after the jump for links to a number of posts that have been made here over the last few years that are still relevant to formatting posts, where things are here, and where your post should (and shouldn't) go.

The first thing every new poster should do -- and also, some of you who have been here a while, too, because I've updated them -- is read the BCB Community Guidelines. These are designed to be guidelines, not hard, rigid rules. As I said, everyone is welcome here -- as long as you treat everyone else well. Please remember that behind every post and comment here is a real, live, breathing human being like yourself. I think these are the most important words to remember, words you all see and agree to when you first sign up:

When posting at this blog, please follow this one simple rule: Before hitting "post" to post your remarks, ask yourself: "Would I be embarrassed to say this in front of strangers who were physically present in the room with me and could respond to my face?" If the answer is "yes," then don't post. BCB encourages and welcomes all opinions, no matter how strong; however, personal attacks, vulgarity, and other uncivilized forms of expression are not welcome.

Not too onerous, I wouldn't think.

Now, let's move on to some posts that will help you format the things you want to post here and find out where the best place to put them is.

• BCB 101, posted last February, is an excellent overview of how to format your posts, what goes in them, the difference between a FanPost and FanShot (basically: FanPosts are your ideas, FanShots are links or photos or videos you find and want to share with us); it contains a wealth of information.
• A Few Words About FanPosts And FanShots is from November 2008; it describes in more detail what you should put in each of those and how to format them.
• And if that's not quite enough, check out A Few More Words About Posting At BCB; one of the key points there is to avoid duplication; this is a busy site and so I'd appreciate it if you would check both the FanPost and FanShot lists to see if your topic is already being discussed before you post. In conjunction with that, see BCB 101 for examples of how to write a good headline for your post so that people can figure out what's inside.
• Finally, there are a few more formatting tips at the "Posting Tips" page.

Thanks for reading through these; it will make the site look better, and make your own posts better. All of these posts are permanently located on the right sidebar under "BCB Specials & Site Info" to make them easy to find whenever you need them.

Here's to a great 2010 for BCB and the Cubs!