Establishing Game Thread Guidelines

We have a lot of new faces around the site this spring, which is great news. We've had several game threads this spring eclipse 1000 comments, which is fantastic. Having a large and active community is one of this site's biggest strengths.

With that said, I wanted to take a moment to review the rules and guidelines for posting here, and establish some new ones, to ensure the best possible experience for all involved.

To start, if you haven't yet, please take a look at the Omnibus BCB Posting Guide we put together back in March. I don't intend to bog this site down with all kinds of rules and regulations, but that guide highlights the exceptions: the somewhat short list of things that will not be tolerated.

Over the last week or so, I've come to realize that Game Threads create some scenarios not covered by the original guide that I'd like to address. Consider this an addendum to the guide, focused specifically on Game Threads.

All the commenting rules laid out in the guide still apply to game threads. In short, cursing, name calling and/or excessive aggressiveness directed towards other commenters, spamming and trolling are not allowed in game threads. For more details on those rules, visit the original guide.

Any and all pictures with excessive nudity and/or offensive material will be deleted on sight, and repeat offenders can face disciplinary action. I've got another note on pictures that I'll post below, but here are the basic rules for what we won't tolerate: If you're posting a picture that would not be allowed to air on TV, odds are it shouldn't be here, either. I'd also rather not see photographs depicting excessive violence or pain, like someone getting hit in the face with a baseball. If you see something you deem offensive, don't hesitate to flag it: knowing someone was offended by a picture is frequently enough reason to delete it.

If you post a photo comment, please type something in the subject field so people who don't want to see it can collapse it. You can collapse any titled comment by clicking on the subject bar. Comments without subjects cannot be collapsed.

The remaining notes aren't rules, per se, just consider them guidelines:

For everyone in the game thread who's not you, the real-life Brewers are significantly more important than your fantasy team. If you need an opposing player to hit a home run so you can win your fantasy matchup, most of us likely don't care. We're here to cheer for the reality Brewers. We won't kick you out for excessive fantasy rooting, but we might mock you, and that's not much fun either.

Posting pictures slows down the Game Threads for everyone, so please don't post them excessively. This goes double for animated gifs. If you're in a game thread with 200-250 comments and it's starting to lag, odds are pictures are slowing it down. For that reason, please think twice before posting pictures of any kind in game threads, and please refrain from multiple postings of the same image or gratuitous overuse. If you're posting pictures more than once or twice a game, odds are that's too much. Having pictures in the game thread is frequently entertaining and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but please be considerate of your fellow readers/commenters, many of whom are just trying to discuss the game in a thread that isn't lagged and bogged down in off-topic pics.

Thanks for doing your part to keep Game Threads fun for everyone.