MetsGeek.com Appropriate Comment Protocol and Decorum

We are constantly striving to maintain a reasonably-high level of discourse in the comments, but unfortunately certain forces conspire to reduce the social and intellectual refinement of individual posts to sub-paleolithic gibberish. Here then are some guidelines that will be enforced by the proprietors of this site.

Profanity
Hey, we all curse. Sometimes we curse for no reason, and other times we curse because Willie Randolph has confounded us once again. This site has a profanity filter that translates all extreme vulgarity into pound signs (####). It isn’t necessary to disguise profanity by transposing or replacing certain characters. Curse away… the profanity filter will take care of the rest. Everyone here can infer what expletive #### implies.

Hateful Speech
Deriding someone because of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. will not be tolerated. Period. The first time you break this rule you will be banned from commenting on this site forever.

Yelling
Typing your response using all capital letters does not improve the likelihood that your argument will be a convincing one. It will make you look like a cretin and an imbecile and will almost certainly increase the likelihood that nobody will care what you had to say in the first place.

Poor Grammar and Spelling
This is not an English class, but your posts will have more impact and your arguments will be more convincing if you can establish your literacy to be at-or-above that of your average fourth grader. Accurate punctuation will go a long way towards proving that you are not, in fact, a numbskull.

If you can’t bother to take the time to check your spelling and grammar before you click “Submit” then most people won’t bother taking the time to read your gorklike scrawl anyway. If you can’t write intelligently, please don’t write at all.

Fighting and Name-calling
Don’t get into a fight in the comments. There are plenty of Mets message boards out there that will apparently tolerate your crap; we will not. If you start a pissing match with someone else on this site we will delete your posts. If you continue this behavior you will be banned from commenting.

Note that arguing a point about the Mets or baseball, etc. is fine. Healthy debate is what being a baseball fan is all about. Debates become problematic when they degenerate into name-calling and mudslinging. Don’t let it happen.

Don’t call Mets players or personnel names unless the name is actually funny or clever. For example: “The Run Fairy” (Felix Heredia) or “Clueless Willie” are funny. “Willie Randoof” is neither funny nor clever. It is stupid, and it reflects poorly on you (i.e. it makes you look stupid).

Handles

The name you choose is your representation on the site — because it’s an internet board there’s no face to face communication, so the handle you choose is the only recognizable way to distinguish who you are. For that reason, please stick with the handle you give yourself and do not steal somebody elses. Obviously coincidences will happen with multiple posters going by the name of ‘Joe’ or ‘John’, but if somebody’s handle is ‘MetsWin2006′, please refrain from posting as such. Stealing somebody else’s handle for the sake of posing as them or insulting them is a bannable offense. You wouldn’t want somebody stealing your identity, please respect the fact that other’s don’t want that either.

Plugs

Please do not spam the boards with links to your website — these posts will be deleted. You can, as always, link to your website in the “Website” section provided in the comments. If you’ve got a Mets-related website that needs a plug, let us know, and we’ll gladly link to your site via our “Links” section. You are allowed to post a link as long as it’s relevant to the discussion at hand — but if it is not relevant it will be removed.