Chopnation.com Forum Rules

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Forum Rules

Imagine yourself at a party. You chat with other guests and generally do your best to get along with everyone, even if they might not share the same opinions as you do. You don't go screaming at people for seeing a play or trade differently than you do, jumping up and down on the dining room table and calling them stupid. You'd be shown the door. So it is at Chop Nation.

What to do:

• Talk to other people as if they're intelligent fans of the game.
• Use proper spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
• Use nice language and remember that this is a family-friendly forum.
• Search for existing discussions before starting new topics.
• Provide links to articles instead of quoting the entire text, and provide a short description or snippet from the article.
• Always link to the source of your information.
• Only quote the part of the previous post to which you are responding, not the whole post.
• Take any warnings received seriously.

What NOT to do:

• Talk down to other posters / lecture others / state opinion as fact.
  • Resolution: Treat everyone as you want to be treated.
• Make reasonable debates personal.
  • Resolution: Realize others may have a differing opinion, and that's okay.
• Post offensive messages with the sole purpose of angering others.
  • Resolution: Carefully read what you've written to make sure it's not offensive.
• Post the same idea/theory over and over again.
  • Resolution: Pick a spot, state your opinion, and move on.
• Hurl insults left and right in hopes of starting a "debate."
  • Resolution: If you want to fight, take it to PM or email; the boards are not the place for Cut Down Wars. We're not in 7th grade.
• Post pointless messages that just say, "me too!" or "LOL!!!11!!"
  • Resolution: You have something worthwhile to say; we've seen it. Add it to the conversation!
• Post spam.
  • Resolution: Take it elsewhere.

Remember, quality over quantity. No one cares how many posts you have. Be respectful of your fellow posters, agree to disagree when differences present themselves, and never ever make things personal. We realize sometimes heated conversations will occur and we do encourage you to make your opinion known. Just try to stay on the subject matter and not the person behind it.

We reserve the right to warn or ban posters for infractions of the posted rules or for any other action deemed detrimental to the site or your fellow users.

Thanks, and enjoy Chop Nation!

A special thanks goes out to Lauren T. (aka RainIsBeautiful) for her extraordinary efforts in making this new set of rules possible. Also many thanks to KB34 for his help in posting these rules.

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Chopnation.com Staff Information

Site Owner
OptimusPrime

Administrators

• Dreamscape
• Hobbes
• KB 34

Moderators

• Chris_Moderato
• Middle Man

If there is something you feel needs to be addressed, feel free to contact your favorite moderator using the private messaging option. Problems that should be worked out in private have a tendency to become bigger problems when they become public.

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Familiarize Yourself With Chopnation.com

Site History

• In April of 2006, a group of posters from another Braves-related website decided that they were not interested in the path that website was going and wanted to recreate the atmosphere they were used to.
• At the time the website was created, only forums existed. In July, a call went out for writers for the planned front page. A month later, regular columns were added.
• In the spring of 2007, the cumbersome design of the front page was redesigned using Wordpress with the relaunch in August of 2007 creating a solid buzz.
• Over time, the forum software became a problem. In late 2008 and into the new year, the decision was made to move on to a new server and new software. Vbulletin was purchased and the move was planned. Unfortunately, all post history was lost as the previous software's database was problematic.
• On June 8th, the new forum was launched. Blogs are planned for the future.

Gamethreads
During the season, gamethreads serve as a place for fans to discuss the game in progress. If there is a questionable management move, someone will bring it up. When a highlight quality play happens, someone will comment about it. These are great resources for discussion and even catching up on what happened after missing a game.

Yahoo Fantasy Sports
Fantasy sports are fun when the league is filled with great people, that is the consensus here. Chopnation is extremely active in fantasy sports including:

• Four fantasy baseball Keeper Leagues
• A fantasy football keeper league
• A fantasy basketball keeper league

Non-keeper leagues are always welcome to be added to the website.

Interesting Threads
Long standing threads have stood the test of time. One thread in particular "Who will be the last person to post in THIS thread" had 413 pages and any and all topics were discussed. Canadabravesfan's by-game update of HR and RBI leaders for the Braves has also been greatly helpful.

Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter
We have social networking covered with our Myspace page, found here. On facebook, you can find us by searching for "Chopnation.com, Your Atlanta Braves Community." You can also keep track of us via our Twitter page.

Our Longtime Poster gokartmozart posted these guidelines for debate, which are excellent. This is the kind of discussion we hope to have here.

Here are a few points that I learned from an ethics class I took once. They can really be used in any philosophical debate.

1. Finding the truth is more important than being right or winning the debate.

2. There is nothing embarrassing about being wrong. But being wrong while arrogantly insisting that you are right and ignoring arguments against you is VERY embarrassing. When someone you are debating points out a problem with your argument or view, acknowledge it. Remember you are more interested in finding the truth than winning the debate.

3. Generally speaking, emotions are not good indicators of truth. People are wrong all the time about things they believe in passionately. Therefore, when debating, replace all language that triggers an emotional response (like name calling or bumper sticker slogans like Abortion is Murder) with language that does not trigger an emotional response.

4. Consistently question your own views. Constantly ask yourself, "why do I believe this?". In a debate, imagine you are going up against an ideal opponent (that is someone who disagrees with you, but is supremely intelligent, very well informed, and supremely moral). That is, work hard to make sure that you understand your opponent's view in all of its complexity. Always ask, what would an ideal opponent say in response to my argument.

5. Do NOT state conclusions that are stronger than your evidence supports. Think very hard before using words like "obvious," "everyone," "all," etc. These are VERY strong claims.

There you have them, straight from my notes that I have kept around for far too many years. You can take them or leave them, but if more people followed these simple rules and guidelines, the world would be a much happier place.

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Chopnation.com Suspension Policy
Quality posting is something we strive for here at chopnation.com. When personal attacks, vulgarity, and spam become prevalent, the thrill of being part of such a great community is weakened. In an effort to ensure quality, we are introducing a suspension policy that the staff would like to never use. It is really simple and works like this.

If it is determined by an administrator that a poster has violated the rules, a warning will be sent via a private message, and the other administrators will be notified.

If the poster continues to violate the rules, the individual is suspended for a week and the other administrators are notified.

If the poster continues to violate the rules, they are banned.

Three strikes, you're out, just like baseball.

If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to contact a moderator or administrator with them.

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Article Posting

Please post links to any source material in posts.
Do not just post a link to an article. If you want to start a discussion, tell us what you want to discuss.
Post the relevant part of the article that you want to discuss so that people don't have to read through the entire article
If the article is from a free source on the interweb you may post as much of it as you want to, as long as what you post is relevant to the discussion.
If you are starting a discussion about an article from a subscriber site such as BP Premium, you have to post a link to that site. You may post only the part of the article that is relevant to the discussion. If you post too much of it the mods will delete as much of the article as they deem necessary so we don't get in trouble for copyright violations.

Thanks to absintheofmalaise for that information.

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One of the new additions to chopnation since the changeover in software is the blog feature. This is for any of our posters who would like to comment about the Atlanta Braves or baseball in general. We encourage your participation and look forward to you expressing your thoughts. Here are some guidelines to keep the discussion headed in a positive direction.

All Forum Rules Apply - Think of the blog software in much the same way as a post to a thread. Excessive language isn't the way to go. Keep it family friendly and there are thumbs up all around

We Want Your Thoughts! - If you have found an article and wish to start a discussion with it, please use the forum for that. If the article gets you going on a rant, then maybe it's blog material. But the article should be a minor part of your blog post. Please no quotes from the article and your comments on how the writer was correct.

Keep it centered on the Braves or Baseball - Remember that the vision of this site was not fantasy sports, tv shows, music, or politics. This is a Braves site. Discussions on other teams is also acceptable. In the offseason, we may open it up for football, basketball, or other such topics, but let's try to keep the focus on baseball. A few extra notes about other sports, music, movies, and general life topics is acceptable. If Peter King can get away with it, we don't know why you can't.

Ask Questions - We have a good number of mods for a reason. If you have questions on how to use the blog feature or if certain topics are acceptable, send us a note. We are here to help.

In the future, the blogs of this website will be given more focus than they are right now so if you want to get started and have your blog established, get going. We look forward to reading your thoughts.