Greetings and a belated Happy 2014, Bright Siders! It's a new year with a new winning team, which means new fans, which means more traffic, which means it's time for a guidelines refresher... and a whole new section of Bright Side of the Sun for you to run wild in!
By way of quick introduction, I'm Mike. I've written on and off for Bright Side of the Sun since 2008, and I'm back on again. Way back in 2009, I helped Seth Pollack (former BSotS editor and current SBNation NBA League Manager) draw up these guidelines. And given the increased traffic that's coming from the Phoenix Suns' early season success (Woo hoo!), it seemed like a good time to remind everyone that we do in fact have some rules in place here at Bright Side of the Sun.
Below is a video created by former (?) Bright Sider Leiland Tanner (aka Eutychus) that breaks it down nicely if reading ain't your thing. Here is a link to the text version. You can always find the guidelines by clicking "Library" and then "Community Guidelines" at the top of the page. Bet you didn't even know that was there. And if you're too lazy to do any of that (but really, please do), here's the TL;DR:
- Be Polite
- Back Up Your Arguments (and cite your sources)
- Rec the Good Stuff, Flag the Bad Stuff ("against the guidelines" bad, not "I disagree" bad)
- Stay on Topic
- No Racism, Homophobia, or other Personal Attacks
Pretty straight forward stuff, right? Frankly, I think the community does a pretty good job of keeping each other in check and that's the way it should be. However, if you see something that you feel requires moderator attention and none of us appear to be in the thread, flag it and then go to the bottom of the page and click on "
Masthead" and email one of us.
"But, Mike," you say, "I have a bomb-ass 4-team trade that nets the Suns 5 All-Stars or I just love/hate X Player and have a 200 word rant about it or damn this burrito is good and I just HAVE to let the world know right now!" And to that I say...
WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE!
Got a topic you want to discuss but there's no appropriate article or FanPost for it? The Madhouse is your jam. Borrowing a
nickname from the Suns' past, every Monday morning, we will post a new Madhouse thread on the front page. All topics, Suns-related or otherwise, are welcome in the Madhouse. Trade ideas, other teams' seasons, NBA trivia questions, movie reviews, what you had for dinner, etc. It's all on the table in there. You will be able to find it just below the top stories and
it will not move down or get bumped by new stories.
Some of you might be thinking "Isn't that what Solar Flares is for?" Well, it was. But Sreekar has made it such a wonderful round-up of discussable Suns news, that we felt we needed a new and completely content-free forum for everyone to play in. Hence, The Madhouse. Think of it as Bright Side of the Sun's break room or water cooler. It's our place to shoot the breeze about whatever we want whenever we want. Note: Community Guidelines still apply. Just not the one about Staying on Topic.
Thank you so much for your participation here at Bright Side of the Sun. The community is what makes this site so damn awesome and together we can make it awesomer.
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