Announcement Regarding Derailing Discussion

[fatlever]

Announcement Regarding Derailing Discussion

Over the past few months the mods have been fairly liberal about allowing the board to freely share their thoughts. However, that has come at a price due to posters with an agenda derailing the discussion of the threads on the board, most often the game threads. Unfortunately, the derailing of threads is a problem that does not appear to be going away, even though we have made numerous posts asking everyone to cease that behavior. We are going to be much more proactive in the coming weeks to end that destructive behavior, suspending and banning repeat offenders.

We ask that in depth discussion about particular players be contained to that player's individual threads, rather than creeping into other threads and ruining any productive discussions in the process. For the game threads, we ask that discussion be kept to things that pertain to that particular game and not a microscope of Jeremy Lin (or any other players). Personal biases that result in the bashing of other players, the coach, the system or anything else, for the sole purpose of making your favorite player look better is not acceptable.

Obviously this announcement is related to many of the Jeremy Lin fans, although applies to everyone. First, we would like to state, this is not meant to lump all Lin fans together. There are a lot of high quality discussions being presented by many of the biggest Lin fans on the board. Many of the new Lin fans have done an excellent job of integrating themselves into the board and are sharing insightful points about all of the Hornets players. We all hope those guys stick around for a long time. However, there are many Lin fans that are here for the wrong reasons and are not improving the quality of discussion on the board. These posters are only concerned about discussing Lin or any player or coach they believe is getting in his way or holding him back, or discussion things that have happened to Lin in his past. It is this group of fans that are hurting the overall atmosphere of the board and as a result causing long time Hornets fans to leave this board. We cannot let this behavior continue.

Once again, we simply ask that if you care to post on this forum, understand this is a Charlotte Hornets forum, first and foremost, and not a Jeremy Lin forum. No one player is above the team. There are literally dozens of places on the Internet where one can go to specifically talk about Lin. We are absolutely welcoming of all fans, including the most rabid Lin fans, as long as they adhere to the rules of the board and understand what will and will not be tolerated, especially the game threads and threads outside of the dedicated Lin thread.

Public warnings will be followed by suspensions and bans.

Do not backseat moderate. If you see something that is derailing the discussion, flag the post and the mods will review.

Thank you for your understanding. I hope we can all work towards making this a great place for all of us to discuss the Hornets and basketball in general.

[Howard Mass]

I just wanted to come by and say that Senior Moderator Fatlever and our Charlotte Hornets Moderating Team have my full backing here.

[fatlever]

The baiting, trolling and derailing in the game threads has been a huge problem in the last week. We have reached out to the head moderator Howard Mass for help in dealing with many of the posters who are habitual in creating these problems. We have already suspended 3 posters for their actions in the game threads this week and there are several others who are under close watch. Hopefully we can move forward and put these recent problems behind us. If not, we will continue suspending those who continue to engage in this bad behavior.