Buffalo Rumblings Community Guidelines

Community Guidelines
What follows are rules and guidelines for posting content - whether it be FanPosts, FanShots or in-thread comments - at Buffalo Rumblings, and the associated punishments for violations of said rules and guidelines.

IMPORTANT: If you receive a warning or a ban for breaking one of these rules, and wish to object to that punishment or question its motive, please do so by emailing buffalorumblings@gmail.com. Do not write a comment or FanPost with said objection; it will be deleted without warning, and a temporary user ban will be issued.

Profanity: Try not to swear at all. If you can't resist, keep the explicit words as mild as possible; even then, we can't promise it'll stick around very long. Intelligent, passionate discourse can be held without the need for cussing. Comments containing profanity will be deleted. FanPosts and FanShots containing profanity will be hidden, and the author will be contacted and asked to remove or change the offending language within 24 hours. If after 24 hours no change has occurred, the FanPost or FanShot will be deleted.

Personal Attacks: Whether directly or through belittling or sarcastic commentary, any derogatory remarks made toward a fellow user will be deleted - even if you're not alone in thinking it's deserved. First-time offenders will be warned. Second-time offenders will be banned temporarily, and must request re-instatement. Third-time offenders will be banned permanently. Attack a person's ideas, not their person.

Intolerance: Any comment or content containing intolerance of other groups (i.e. homophobic, sexist or racist commentary) will be deleted without warning, and a temporary ban issued for first-time offenders. Second-time offenders will be banned permanently.

Politics: The only time politics should enter discussions at Buffalo Rumblings is when discussing anything football-related, especially to the team's status in Western New York and its stadium lease. Tread carefully. Any discussion containing political dialogue that devolves into something unrelated to football will be deleted without warning. This is not the place to discuss politics.

Religion: In almost no circumstance should religion be discussed here. Religious conversations will be deleted. Exceptions can be made, but we expect those to be very rare cases. The same holds true for user names and avatars.

Trolling: This is a loosely-defined and overused term. For our purposes, trolling includes the following: relentless negativity (without substantiated opinions), baiting community members, persistent hating on one player or organizational member, relentless commenting (i.e. spamming), or any other odd behavior that the moderator staff believes crosses the line. Troll commentary will be deleted; a warning will be issued for first-time offenders, and a ban will be issued for second-time offenders.

Game streams: Any live game stream from a website not affiliated with the NFL or one of the major television networks with exclusive broadcasting rights is illegal. Do not ask for an illegal game stream in our GameThreads. These requests will be deleted, and the user warned.

Avatars and usernames: Illicit or profane avatars will be deleted. Illicit or profane usernames will be banned.

Free advertising: This blog is about discussing the Buffalo Bills. If you run your own football or Bills website, you are not permitted to post your work here, unless it is a) in the FanShot section, or b) used as a link in the context of a discussion we're having, and within your own comment on our blog. Comments containing links to your work will be deleted. FanPosts replicating or linking to your work will be deleted. First-time offenders will be warned, and second-time offenders will be banned.

Copyright: FanPosts that cite information from another source without proper attribution (i.e. copying and pasting an entire article without linking it) will be deleted. FanPosts that contain photos will have the photos removed - unless the author of the FanPost owns that photo. Any photo posted in a comments section must be sourced, and GIF animations must be posted with a subject line so that users may collapse the comment if they find the animation irritating.

Breaking News: Brian and Matt will update the front page with any news that needs breaking here. If you beat them to it, they'll give you a shout-out in their post - and yours will be deleted. This is done to keep our newsworthy discussions as focused (i.e. not spread between multiple posts) as possible.

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