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Last updated: March 17, 2023
Rules
Breaking these is grounds for a comment deletion, warning, and/or a ban — not necessarily in that order. There is no “three strikes and you’re out” rule, if you are obviously just here to be a troll and adding nothing to the conversation you will be banned.
Personal Attacks. In other words, steer clear of “you’re an idiot” or “you suck.” A good rule of thumb: attack a poster’s ideas, not the poster themselves. We want this place to be somewhere where people can debate various topics with civility, not a demolition derby.
The “isms”. It could probably go without saying, but we’ll say anyway that racism, sexism, and derogatory comments about someone’s race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation will not be tolerated.
Trolling/flame-baiting. Posting something simply to draw a reaction out of people is no fun for anyone involved. It’s okay to be upset, it’s okay to be sarcastic, but do not do it just to see how angry you can make fellow commenters.
Political talk. This is a baseball blog, not a political one. Fans who read this blog come from all points in the political spectrum, but have one thing in common: they are Guardians fans. That’s the community we want to cultivate here at Covering the Corner: a group of diverse individuals who love talking to each other about baseball. Political debate is not something we want to bring into this community.
Profanity. Keep it to a PG-13 level, at most. If you really want to swear, wrap the word in tags and hide a replacement word in there. Same effect and it usually draws a chuckle out of us.
Snobbery. Users are not required to like Arrested Development — neither the TV show nor the hip-hop group — and should not be badgered about it.
Comment spam. This is dumping a bunch of links into a comment in order to boost a site’s search engine ranking. First offense = banishment.
Sock puppets. These are users with multiple accounts. This hasn’t happened all that often, but we’d like to nip this in the bud before it becomes a bigger problem. If you’ve forgotten your password, e-mail one of us and we’ll set you up with a password reset. Don’t create a new account.
Blatant site spamming. Don’t misconstrue the title; we have absolutely no problem with users mentioning their sites/blogs here, and in particular posting a FanShot with a link to one of your articles. The larger the Cleveland blogoshere, the better for all involved. But please do not post content verbatim from your website or blog. Post a proper FanShot link, and you’ll get traffic. If you’ve started a new blog and would like to be added to our Cleveland blogroll, please e-mail one of us. Provided the blog (a) is relevant, (b) has original content, and (c) is updated regularly, we’ll be happy to include it.
Our readers should treat users from other SBN sites with respect, even if they happen to root for the Yankees. In other words, everything that applies to your behavior toward fellow Cleveland fans should apply to fans of rival teams; ground-rule violations toward fans of other teams will be actively discouraged and moderated just as vehemently as violations against regular readers.
Guidelines
Breaking these guidelines will normally not get you banned, although you may get a warning just as a friendly reminder. Other users are also encouraged to (politely) remind newer users that they are breaking these guidelines in the comments.
Use of “Indians” in comments. As a staff, we have chosen not to refer to the team as “Indians” when writing about them due to the hateful nature of the name and its recent change. Referring to the team in the past tense as “Indians” or “Tribe” in your own comments or FanPosts is perfectly fine if you choose. You will not be warned or banned simply for using the team name — it was once the name, after all. However, comments that are meant as nothing more than to complain about staff or other commenters not using the name can and will warrant a warning/ban.
Proper grammar and punctuation. We are not saying you need to be perfect, but at least make an attempt. We are not a big stickler on proper capitalization, but punctuation is important so we know what you are trying to say. Most of the time this will not result in much more than a word in the comment section, but if an offending comment is particularly bad, it will be deleted.
If you are a fan of another team, let us know. It’s always great seeing fans of other teams coming in and talking Cleveland baseball. If you are one of those people, let us know in your comment. It helps other commenters frame what you are saying in proper context, instead of just coming off as a disgruntled Guardians fan (we have enough of those as it is).