Forum rules and general guidelines for posting and commenting. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. You should always use your best judgment and keep in mind that the site is read by a very diverse group of people including children. Most of us are alumni or students of a Catholic, Vincentian University and we should reflect that spirit of charity and respect. Do you represent your school well or do you represent your school as an idiot? Use common sense and basic levels of civility:
1. You will not post copyrighted material on this website in any form.
2. No cursing. That generally includes no using characters to replace letters, use of creating spelling or spacing, etc.. We're not going to try to give you a comprehensive list of what cursing or modified cursing breaks the rules. If you're guilty, you know you are, and we're not going to play lawyer with you about it.
3. No insulting other posters. You can disagree with somebody. You can explain why their idea or theory or opinion doesn't make sense. You can even gently mock their ideas. You cannot, however, insult other posters. Even if you think their post is stupid, try to restrain yourself from calling them stupid. Don't demean them, their jobs, their family members, etc.. We let a certain amount slide by because some of it is inevitably part of the nature of debate and discussion, but we will use our judgement to move, edit, or delete posts when we think it gets out of hand.
4. No trolling, baiting, flaming, etc. This is defined as posting for the sole or primary purpose of inciting other posters. Again, we are not going to play lawyer with you about it, so if you stay far away from the line it won't be an issue.
5. No derogatory statements about members of the clergy. A classic violation here is failing to use an appropriate honorific. Whether you like someone or not, or share their religious views or not, including the proper honorific is simply good manners. This rule is equally applicable to all religions and faiths.
6. No derogatory posts regarding race, color, ethnicity, creed, or religion. This applies both to individuals and institutions of any race, color, ethnicity, creed and religion.
7. No personally derogatory statements about SJU employees or players. You are free to comment on the quality of someone's work or play. You cannot comment on their coloring, weight, intelligence, or other personal characteristics, certainly not in a negative way.
8. No spamming the site. Make your point. Just don't do it over and over and over and over and over to the point where it is repetitive. Eventually we will start doing something with your posts so that your fellow posters are not subjected to reading the same thing.
9. Post in the appropriate forum. We have about a dozen forums. Don't start a religion or women's basketball or lacrosse thread in the hoops forum. Eventually, we'll move it. If a thread starts fine and then veers off topic, eventually we will move all or part of the thread to where we think it belongs.
10. Give the moderators a break. We all started as posters - just like you. And we're still posters - just like you. We are volunteers, and we get absolutely nothing for the joy of moderating. No money, no parting gifts, nothing - except the headache of reading the site, trying to exercise our best judgment about how to keep things within the rules, and the grief from the offended parties about what we did and when we did it and how we did it. If you don't understand or don't like what we did, don't call out the moderators publicly. Send any one of us a PM. You'll get an answer, we promise. We can't promise that you'll like it, but you will get one, and it will almost certainly be that we are using our judgement to keep things in compliance with one of the above rules.
1. You will not post copyrighted material on this website in any form.
2. No cursing. That generally includes no using characters to replace letters, use of creating spelling or spacing, etc.. We're not going to try to give you a comprehensive list of what cursing or modified cursing breaks the rules. If you're guilty, you know you are, and we're not going to play lawyer with you about it.
3. No insulting other posters. You can disagree with somebody. You can explain why their idea or theory or opinion doesn't make sense. You can even gently mock their ideas. You cannot, however, insult other posters. Even if you think their post is stupid, try to restrain yourself from calling them stupid. Don't demean them, their jobs, their family members, etc.. We let a certain amount slide by because some of it is inevitably part of the nature of debate and discussion, but we will use our judgement to move, edit, or delete posts when we think it gets out of hand.
4. No trolling, baiting, flaming, etc. This is defined as posting for the sole or primary purpose of inciting other posters. Again, we are not going to play lawyer with you about it, so if you stay far away from the line it won't be an issue.
5. No derogatory statements about members of the clergy. A classic violation here is failing to use an appropriate honorific. Whether you like someone or not, or share their religious views or not, including the proper honorific is simply good manners. This rule is equally applicable to all religions and faiths.
6. No derogatory posts regarding race, color, ethnicity, creed, or religion. This applies both to individuals and institutions of any race, color, ethnicity, creed and religion.
7. No personally derogatory statements about SJU employees or players. You are free to comment on the quality of someone's work or play. You cannot comment on their coloring, weight, intelligence, or other personal characteristics, certainly not in a negative way.
8. No spamming the site. Make your point. Just don't do it over and over and over and over and over to the point where it is repetitive. Eventually we will start doing something with your posts so that your fellow posters are not subjected to reading the same thing.
9. Post in the appropriate forum. We have about a dozen forums. Don't start a religion or women's basketball or lacrosse thread in the hoops forum. Eventually, we'll move it. If a thread starts fine and then veers off topic, eventually we will move all or part of the thread to where we think it belongs.
10. Give the moderators a break. We all started as posters - just like you. And we're still posters - just like you. We are volunteers, and we get absolutely nothing for the joy of moderating. No money, no parting gifts, nothing - except the headache of reading the site, trying to exercise our best judgment about how to keep things within the rules, and the grief from the offended parties about what we did and when we did it and how we did it. If you don't understand or don't like what we did, don't call out the moderators publicly. Send any one of us a PM. You'll get an answer, we promise. We can't promise that you'll like it, but you will get one, and it will almost certainly be that we are using our judgement to keep things in compliance with one of the above rules.