Reminder - Covid Related Discussions on the GB

[Dirk]

The General Board is a place for active, fun and informed discussion about basketball and the NBA. It has survived the test of time and we, mods and users, should all want to keep fostering a good community here.

With that in mind, this topic aims to to provide a reminder for the discussions about covid/vaccine throughout the season. It mostly calls for our good sense, as we never registered on RealGM to discuss viruses or vaccines and we have a multitude of better places to discuss that, including here on the forum, on the Current Affairs section. We will also try to maintain a permanent thread open on the GB.

If you are going to dive into those discussions, you are expected to look like you're interested in productive discussion and not simply making throwaway comments that you can make anywhere else. Unfortunately, we often just see low effort antagonistic posts that just carry over animosity from the 'we versus them' battles we see 24x7.

Users here have their own identity, we don't expect you to treat other users as 'friends', but you should at least dignify them as unique individuals and not just label them as being 'x' or 'y', simply because their opinion is different than yours.

There is a very clear distinction between topics that organically invite discussions about covid/vaccine and topics that do not, but get derailed because someone makes off comments. The latter is simply not acceptable.
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Topics about NBA policies/Covid/Vaccine
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These topics naturally invite discussion about covid/vaccines and it's where we ask that you participate in these topics as you would in constructive, face-to-face discussions. The forum allows for long form discussion. Use it. Do not turn it into a twitter/youtube like comments section.

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Derailing topics
Self explanatory. Simply do not make off comments that derail a topic into covid/political related discussions.

Report users who for no good reason turn a basketball discussion into a vaccine discussion.

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Freedom to discuss
Users can express their opinions freely as long as they are genuine and not just simply trying to provoke reactions from others. Basically, don't go to topics to just get reactions out of others.

No user will be banned or suspended because they think the vaccine is/isn't effective, or they think that "COVID is not that serious". We don't expect anyone to feel like they can't express their genuine opinions about any given topic.

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Open mind, tolerance
No matter how strongly one feels about their visions of the world, how we are right and some others are completely wrong, the GB truly is not the place for anyone to lecture others or to police opinions. As long as users post in a respectful matter, they're entitled to have different opinions.

Users have every right to disagree with another user and explain their vision. But they are not free to degrade, insult, or belittle them. It does not matter what title or power they hold in these forums, you are expected to follow this rule.

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Do not generalise
The opinions you see on the GB belong to unique users. They do not reflect the forum. Mods. They do not reflect other users. Their fanbase. City. Region.

Users speak for themselves. Mods try to ensure there's a decent level of discussion, but if you see posts that make you uncomfortable, it does not mean mods agree with them.

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Spreading misinformation
Promoting obvious falsehoods will lead to warnings and bans depending on pattern and user history. If you are going to make certain claims, you are expected to source your posts well. Remember, this is the GB, it is not the place to discuss theories and conspiracies.

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User history - Users with Current Affairs warnings/bans
Every user has a user history. And that history is the most important thing when determining what sort of discipline should be enforced on a user.

- If your history shows you as having a pattern of flooding OT/political type topics, while not actually being active on basketball related topics, you will stand out and be suspended.

- If your history shows you has having been warned/banned on the Current Affairs board, you should consider it a privilege to post on the GB and as such... you are required to elevate discussion and not act as if you are battling on the Currency Affairs board.

While we're happy to try to accommodate organic discussions that pop up, we are not here to see politically motivated users take over entire topics. Remember, we signed up for a sports forum. Not for a political forum.

We expect some good sense. You have the entire internet to discuss politics, covid and vaccines. If you decide to post on the GB, we expect it to be a genuine attempt at discussing things and not simply just stirring the pot of the other side.

There will be very little tolerance for users with a negative history in these discussions and who continue to generate issues in these topics.

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Moderating tools
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Mods don't want to have anyone banned from the GB because of discussions around covid. It's a very unique time and we all hope that we'll move past it sooner rather than later, without seeing users banned because of arguments over it.

But at the same time, we need to contain things better.

- locking topics: some topics simply don't belong on the GB, others run their course, occasionally some pre-emptive locks. More often than not, mods defer to users keeping a good level of discussion in the threads.

- temporary suspensions: from hours, to weeks, to months, usually for users who are lowering the level of a topic and who relentlessly post the same things. It's okay for a user to be engaged in a discussion, but not okay to flood topics with posts. There are times where a user or two have 70% of posts in certain topics.

- bans: for users who have no redeeming value to the GB. They were never active in basketball discussions and all of a sudden came alive in "ot" discussions.

The GB is for basketball discussion. If you only are truly active for OT discussions, you are in the wrong forum. Moderators will more aggressively suspend and ban users who have no real activity in basketball discussions, have previous warnings and bans for political type discussions.

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Moderator discretion
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Moderating is complex and will never be uniform. I.e, you may see very similar posts treated differently. You may see 'similar topics', where one was promptly locked and the other was not. There is a lot of info that a user does not have access to.

Moderators have the right to use their discretion to make judgements and take action they feel is appropriate. If you have any questions, just ask them.

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No backseat moderating
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Do not comment on what mods do and don't do on the forum. Backseat moderating will be an instant suspension.

If you have an issue with anything, you are encouraged to send a personal message to any mod and express your thoughts.