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Message Board Rules

Board Rules, Policies, and Enforcement
Last updated March 23, 2011
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All comments for and complaints about the moderators and the site should be handled privately (not on the forum). The board is not meant to be used as a referendum on moderator activities. It is disruptive, and although you think you may know which mod is responsible for certain actions, I assure you that it is easy to guess wrongly. Please send an email to recruitingboard@rivals.com. All of the mods and some key Rivals personnel will receive this email. Please note that the moderators no longer have access to most member email addresses. Therefore, we will not be able to issue warnings and/or explain why you were blacklisted until you contact us.
QUICK START
The Goal: To provide a positive experience for as many members as possible, while still maintaining the mission of this being a college football recruiting board. The Rivals National Recruiting Board will never be perfect nor will it please everyone, but it can be a fun place -- the place -- for fans to get information about football recruiting and discuss other topics of interest. Visiting The NRB should be a positive and enjoyable experience.
How can moderators help? By consistently enforcing the rules, removing inappropriate posts, locking posts that have run their course, and blacklisting disruptive members.
How can members help? We simply ask that everyone act like an adult. Don't be a butt, don't be a troll, don't be overly negative, and don't attack or harass other members. Of course, there are other basic rules that need to be followed (listed below), but we're talking about the average day-to-day discussions that take place on the forum. Just as important, members can help by starting good discussions, sharing good info, posting links to interesting articles, helping other members, alerting us to inappropriate posts, etc.
In addition, we need your help to enforce the rules. Moderators are not employees of Rivals. We are volunteers and there is no guarantee of 24/7 moderation or that moderators will read specific posts. Like other posters on the board, we road posts that are mostly of interest to us. If you see something that breaks the rules, email the mods. Please don't assume that we are enforcing the rules unevenly, and make a post about it. You will be banned. There is no external motive to intentionally moderate for one fan base over another. It is very likely that you may see faster moderation for posts about certain schools, but the reason is because we read those threads more frequently. That is why we need to rely on you to help keep the boards moderated as evenly as possible. It is impractical to have 75 mods representing every school. As such, just send us an email, and we will look at the thread or post, and more times than not, agree with your assessment.
DISCUSSION TOPICS
The NRB is first and foremost for discussion of football recruiting activities. While football related posts are allowed, posts that deviate into attacking certain schools, posters, or are overly negative towards a particular program may be deleted, especially if they become serial in nature. Certain off topic posts are allowed, but please begin those subject lines with the designation OT.
- Posts about politics, pornographic, religious or other controversial or contentious topics will be deleted.
- Please don't post a message on another forum and then post a link to it on the NRB.
RULES
1. You can not call out a mod or question a mod for a moderating decision by starting a thread on the board or posting in another thread. The proper procedure is to email the moderators. If you feel that a specific mod may be too close to the situation, and you are uncomfortable with a decision that you think that mod made, or may make, copy all of the moderators by emailing us at recruitingboard@rivals.com.
2. No profanity, racist or sexist comments. This includes using abbreviations or changing one letter of a swear word such that the word(s) are still interpreted by most as profane.
3. No pornographic or obscene material of any kind. Any user posting pornographic pictures, or links to such material will be blacklisted. This includes materials within a signature file or avatar.
4. No attacking other posters. If you feel the need to harass another poster, don't do it. If you have an issue with a poster contact a mod. Don't take it upon yourself to put the poster in their place. What is considered attacking other posters?
Bringing up their name in posts that they did not start or were not involved in, just to get a reaction from them.
Bringing up a post that a poster made in another thread or from another board in order to attempt to ridicule or attack them.
Consistently responding to their posts and responding with no merit other than to belittle them.
In short, making a poster a target.
5. Do not post unsubstantiated rumors about other schools players, coaches, etc. If you have a link to a news story, that is one thing (unless it is an arrest, discipline, or overtly negative). But if you have heard something 'from a friend of a friend,' this is not the website to post innuendo and rumor about a Rival school. Those posts will be removed.
6. No repetitive negative posting. What makes a repetitive post? If you come to the forum and consistently say the exact same thing about the exact same topic day in and day out, that is being repetitive. Be sure to understand that no one is saying that you can not be critical. But this site will not be overrun by the same people coming on the site day after day saying the same negative things.
7. No serial posting about any rival school. If it is determined that the majority of the posts that you participate in fit the agenda of trying to harass another school or poster than your post will be deleted and you will be banned. The board is meant to be a place where posters from all fan bases can enjoy speaking with one another and nobody should be subjected to having to deal with a poster who's only goal is to make things uncomfortable for a particular fan base. Contribute to other conversations or you will be relegated to your own teams smack board.
8. No posts or threads about another schools arrests, arrest record, discipline, etc. These threads are antagonistic and only lead to flaming. Rival fans who post these threads are not looking to inform for the sake of providing information. They are clearly trying to poke fun and embarrass a rival school.
9. No posts about another school failing to qualify players or a specific player not qualifying. It does not look good to mock a kid who is unable to qualify for whatever reason. These are just kids. We should not be happy about their failure.
10. OT Topics may be locked or deleted based upon the moderators discretion. This is first and foremost a football recruiting board, and the burden for thread deletions will be much lower for any non football recruiting related posts. The board has a great balance of these posts and topical posts, and as moderators we will try to make sure that it does not become too much of an OT board, especially during football and peak recruiting seasons. We also enjoy many of these OT Topics, but they need to be balanced with posts that fit the mission of the board.
11. No flaming: If a poster come onto the board with the intent only to flame, and continues to post nothing but flames or engages in no substantive discussion, the poster's posts will be deleted and the poster will be banned at the mod's discretion.
12. No attacking recruits: Just because a player may choose another school does not give you the right to blast them, in any circumstance.
13. No posting of commercial offers, competing websites or spamming of the board will be permitted.: All threads will be deleted at the discretion of the board moderator.
14. No posting or distribution of any material that infringes and/or violates any right of a third party or any law. Post will be deleted and member can be banned at the moderators discretion. This means no posting of premium information from other web sites. In many cases mods will have no idea what is premium from public. In these cases we will only act when we are informed by the site. Please email us about the thread and copy the site in question, so we can help get these threads removed.
15. Do not give out your personal information on the message board or chat room. Please keep in mind that whenever you give out personal information (such as your email, phone number etc.) online --- for example, via message boards or chat --- that information can be collected and used by people you don't know. You give out your personal information at your own risk. We are not responsible for any actions that occur if you give out your personal information.
16. No fishing. Do not attempt to trick fellow posters into posting their email address by promising the inside scoop on a situation. These poor attempts at humor are very disruptive to the board.
17. The moderators reserve the right to remove any post and blacklist any member that they feel significantly contributes to a decline in the overall quality and/or civility of the forum.
The golden rule is a good one to follow: Do unto others as you would have done unto you.
To the vast majority of fans who read this site and already function within this rule set, thank you very much for your adult candor and responsible posting.
HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS
- When a subject begins to dominate the forum (when there are dozens of threads about the same thing), the moderators may start an 'official thread' for that particular subject. Any additional posts about that subject posted outside of the official thread will be deleted. Having an official thread DOES NOT mean we want you to stop talking about a subject; it means we don't want that specific subject to dominate the forum. Please note that we CANNOT merge threads.
- All posts during a game should be in a single game thread. Other posts may be deleted if it is out of hand.
- RECRUITING QUESTIONS FOR RIVALS STAFF:
For all recruiting related questions for the Rivals staff, please title your thread with the subject and the CORRECT spelling of the analyst the question is intended to. If you have a question for the entire staff, write "all analysts."
FORUM TIPS
- Err on the side of caution. While revising the rules we removed a large portion of the previous rules. Many of the rules remain the same, but we no longer attempt to list every example of breaking a rule. If you think your post might be borderline, err on the side of caution. Email the moderators to ask before making your post. The burden is on you.
- You don't have to respond to a post you disagree with.
- Don't post when you're angry. It's ok to turn off your computer sometimes.
- Don't click on posts that you know will upset you. Only you have control of your mouse.
- If you don't like what is being discussed on a particular day, please start some new discussions.
- Heated discussions are to be expected at times, but stay away from getting personal.
- Feel free to ask questions and start discussions, but please read the forum before posting.
- Do not post using ALL CAPS. It is Internet code for YELLING and is seldom appropriate.
- Do not correct peoples spelling or grammar
- Very large signature mess up the forum for other users. Please keep your signature to a reasonable size - meaning, all signatures must be 600 or less pixels in width. Also there is no need to stack 2, 3, 4 or more photos on top of one another. When that happens it causes members to have to scroll down an excessive amount just to read a post (the purpose of the forum is to read posts, not look at someone's favorite pictures). If your signature is disabled a second time, it will be automatically turned off for a month.
- We all have our pet peeves. When you see one of your pet peeves, just ignore it.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How long will the blacklist or signature ban last?
1st Offense: 2 weeks with no National recruiting Board Access including viewing the board
2nd Offense: 1 month of the same penalty
3rd Offense: Permanent enforcement of the same penalty
It also depends on the "tone" you use when contacting us. We reserve the right to increase penalties based upon how you deal with us in private. We are volunteers being asked to enforce these rules. We won't be perfect, but we ask that you try to treat us courteously when emailing us.
I've been blacklisted. What is the process to be reinstated?
In most cases, you must contact us before the blacklist will be canceled. You may contact the moderators by emailing them at recruitingboard@rivals.com to ask for reinstatement. Please keep in mind that blasting the moderators or threatening to cancel will not help your cause. If you received an insult, ultimatum or threat, what would your response be?
If I am blacklisted, is my subscription canceled and will I get a refund?
Only a member can make changes to his subscription, including cancellation. If you are blacklisted, your subscription is not canceled, and thus you still have access to premium content from your teams board. Additionally, Rivals.com does not issue refunds for unused portions of subscriptions. When you cancel your subscription, you will continue to have access to premium content until the end of your current subscription term.
How do I contact the moderators?
You may contact the moderators by sending an email to recruitingboard@rivals.com, or to contact a specific moderator click the moderator drop down menu pictured below, and click the word email next to their name. This menu can only be seen when looking at the list of threads. For some reason it does not appear once you are inside of a specific thread. For the quickest results, try copying multiple mods on the same message. Not all mods are available all of the time.
I've contacted the moderators. Why haven't I received a reply?
The moderator that deleted your post or blacklisted you may not be online or have access to email. Please be patient. Give us at least 24 hours before sending out a new email, although most responses to emails will be received fairly rapidly.
My post was deleted. Why?
Two possibilities. One, your post broke one of the rules or needed to be deleted for another reason. Two, your post may have been fine but you replied to a post that was deleted. The software that manages the message board automatically deletes any post that responded to a deleted post. Moderators have no control over it. If you do not mean to directly reply to a post that you think might get deleted, choose another post within the thread to reply to.
My post was deleted but there are posts worse that mine remain. Why?
We try to keep a close watch on the forum but missing bad posts is inevitable. Please let us know if you see an inappropriate post. We don't read every thread and rely on posters emails to help keep things running smoothly.
How do I report an inappropriate post?
You may contact the moderators by emailing them at recruitingboard@rivals.com. Please include a link to the questionable post.
Rule Changes
Please check back frequently as rules may be changed, added, or amended based upon things that we did not foresee while drafting this initial rule set. When changes are made, we will post an (Last Updated on x/x/xx) at the top of this document.
It's a free country, why can't I say whatever I want on the forums?
Yes, it is a free country, but the Rivals National Board is privately owned.
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