Step away for a few days....

Here's my response to Bangate and Newbiegate, along with some of my philosophies on how I run the site. I felt compelled to write this after reading Irwin's diary, and after the discussion that Josh from Hollywood started.

This site is growing. Mo' posters, mo' problems. The signal-to-noise ratio is starting to become less appealing. Get used to it. I've asked my benevolent Athletics Nation overlord for a Recommended Diaries feature similar to what is over at AN right now. It isn't as easy as copy-and-pasting some code, so it could take a while. Other than that, if you don't like a diary, ignore it. If you don't like a post, ignore it. Every forum in the history of the internet has a self-appointed vanguard of the olden ways. They were all weenies too.

I don't like the curse words the kids use these days on the site. I feel it cheapens my writing, as I make great effort to not swear -- great, great effort, as my sense of humor in the physical world relies on shock value as much as it does anything else -- because when a new person comes to visit the site, the swearing might be the impression taken away from the site. But I don't delete those posts, because it might stifle discussion or give off an authoritarian feel to the site.

One-off political comments will be overlooked. Repeated offenses will get a warning. Politically-charged diaries will be deleted. This is a place to get away from junk like that.

Personal attacks will always be deleted. If the attacker doesn't get the hint, they get the boot. I've deleted confrontational posts from a couple of prolific posters in this spirit. Some of the posters would surprise you. Some wouldn't. But they're all still around because they got the hint. Responding to this with this will get the post yoinked. No question. I wouldn't have banned the poster until the behavior was repeated, though. In this case it was repeated, but there weren't any warning deletions. I don't fault Josh from Hollywood for doing what he did, because I never shared this philosophy with him or the other two posters with "keys to the site". Josh is doing a heck of a job in my place, and I can't thank him enough.

There was a poster, who will obviously not be named, that came on to this site like a coked up ferret. After discovering what the "post new diary" feature could do, he started posting diaries at an obscene rate. It was like a 15th-century person that was shown how to work a Polaroid. The diaries were the equivalent of sixteen blurry pictures of 15th-century toes. I struggled with what to do, as I didn't want the site to get cluttered, but nothing offensive was being posted. I would have sent an e-mail of the posts didn't stop, but they did. The person realized how things went down around here, and is now one of my absolute favorite posters. When he's coherent, at least. But he brings a wicked wit and a different perspective to the site. Had I started deleting his original thoughts, he might have stopped coming around. That would have been a loss.

It may seem as if I write about the halcyon days of alt.sports.baseball.sf-giants as if they were some pure mountain spring of internet Giants discussion. They weren't. There were trolls, there were morons, and there was a self-appointed vanguard of the olden ways. They were weenies back then, as well. My first post to asbsf-g can be read here. It was poorly argued, confrontational, and haughty. It was recognized as such. I eventually learned where I went wrong. But if, in the interest of maintaining some sort of desired signal-to-noise ratio, there were a way for the old-timers to keep out new posters who made bad first impressions, I surely would have been bounced. And I wouldn't have spent my college years on asbsf-g. And I sure as hell wouldn't have started Waiting for Boof a few years later.

The key points to take away:

1. Don't insult other posters. Even if you've been here since the first day, just don't do it.
   
2. Today's newbie is tomorrow's regular. Don't be a weenie.
   
3. If you're new, think before you post. Irwin's diary touched on some great points.
   
4. I'm a big fan of punctuation and grammar. But I don't think I have a family member who knows how to find the shift key. That doesn't make them bad people with bad ideas. Well, except for Uncle Ron Fascist, but you knew that.