While we await the start of the biggest series between the Cubs and a NL Central rival in five years, I wanted to say a few words about posting here; there are a lot of new BCB members and I think a few reminders are in order, just so we all get along and this site continues to be a great place for Cubs fans to congregate.
First, here are the words you all agreed to when you signed up for your BCB account:
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. Thanks.
I don't think this is too much to ask and virtually everyone here goes along. But I've been getting too many emails lately from concerned people who have been worried about the increasing amount of profanity and personal attacks. Let me make it clear: those things are not acceptable. I can understand a bit of profanity in a game thread -- sometimes the heat of the moment makes all of us do that -- but let's try to keep it to a minimum.
On the personal attacks: the acceptable level of those is zero. If you disagree with someone, say so. But saying "You're an idiot", or language like that, is just plain wrong. I refer everyone again to the quote box above. Every single post here is written by a real person with real feelings. You may disagree with that person's opinion. But that does not give you the right to call that person names.
Thanks for understanding.
On a similar but related topic, I have also received a number of emails regarding the fast pace with which the FanPost list gets filled up. This is a double-edged sword. BCB is an active site and so, it's going to get more posts than others with less traffic. And I don't want to discourage anyone from participating. One simple thing that everyone can do is check the recent post list or do a site search to see if your topic has been covered within, say, the last couple of days. If it has, post your thoughts in a comment in the original post, or in the game recap -- I will always have a recap up quickly, usually within an hour or two after the end of day games and by 9 am CT on the morning following night games. That will avoid things such as having three or four FanPosts about Jeff Samardzija within a few hours.
One thing that also might help is more use of the FanShot section. Perhaps I haven't done a good enough job of explaining what FanShots can be used for. Most of you have used them primarily for photos and/or video, which is fine -- but you can and should also use them for quick links or quotes or lists or things that you don't really have anything more to write about than to say, "Hey, here's a link I found, it's interesting." In that regard, please check out this FanShot Tutorial posted last week on the SBN Padres site Gaslamp Ball, which explains in more detail how it's supposed to work.
Finally, there have been a number of people who have signed up for an account here for, apparently, the express purpose of making a post to promote their site selling merchandise. Such spam posts will be deleted without notice.
Thanks for reading this -- as this pennant race heats up in August and September, I'd expect even more people to stop by and check out BCB, and I'd like it to be a welcoming place for every Cubs fan as our team goes runnin' down a dream.
Now let's go get those Brewers tonight. Go Cubs!