Community Guidelines
 
Gearheads. We have joined and left and returned again. We have been here from the beginning. We know quite a bit about each other, not so unlike soldiers that might be stuck together on a 6 month tour. We know who is funny. We know who waves his dirty socks in our face and thinks its funny, but we love him anyway. We know who it is that we want beside us when the bullets start flying, and who can run into the enemy's camp and back again without a scratch. We have gamed, and laughed, written about things trivial and about things profoundly personal. And we are our own little band of brothers.

Through it all, we have endured each others' rants and outbursts which when they got out of hand, were dealt with quickly, and apologies and forgiveness were forthcoming to smooth things over. Yet, every time it happens, it is unpleasant for all of us.

The administration has spent some time pondering how to maintain the jovial atmosphere and yet deal effectively with the disruptions, and put out the fires before they become blazes.

Athletics Nation has established and used a set of Guidelines and disciplinary measures that has provided that much larger community with some boundaries designed to enhance the experience for everyone. We are adopting the guidelines but creating our own, more flexible and humorous system of enforcement that is more suited to our tight-knit community and the technology of this blog. The guidelines are re-written below. The measures of discipline are as follows and will be accompanied by an image/es:

1. Thread Locked - Any posts beyond this will be deleted.

2. Diary Locked - Any further posts in this diary will be deleted.

3. No Hate Speech - This is your first and last warning.

4. Step Away From the Keyboard - Take a deep breath or two before you continue posting.

5. Troll - Nothing to see here, move along.

Free Speech on Gearheads

Gearheads believes strongly in free speech and in celebrating a diversity of people, and of ideas, on the site. Users are, in general, free to express their opinions without fear of retribution. The diversity of personalities, beliefs, and styles is appreciated as being part of what makes Gearheads strong. papi and Gearhead's committee of moderators all operate within this belief system.

However, Gearheads is a community, and free speech does not mean "the right to say what you want, when you want, how you want," without being sensitive to, and respectful towards, the community as a whole. In a community, speech is not "free"--it comes with responsibility.

The following are simply not acceptable on Gearheads (excepting, in some cases, for obvious humor between people with an existing rapport); they violate Gearheads' Community Guidelines, and are subject to sanction as outlined below:

1 Personal attacks on community members, directly or through sarcasm/belittling, e.g., "You're an idiot," "You don't know what you're talking about, dumbass," "Apparently, you wouldn't know a good game if it smacked you on the ass and called you Sally, or you'd know...", "My Chihuahua knows more about gaming than you do," etc.

2 Comments that are intolerant or prejudiced (sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.) in nature, e.g., words like gay or any variation thereof or racist or are bigoted against a certain religion.

3 Harassing/Baiting of users, e.g., making fun of someone for a game they like. Or even just relentlessly making fun of someone's skills in Gears.

4 Relentless negativity will not be tolerated. What constitutes "relentless negativity"? It's simple: simply posting this aspect of the game sucks over and over again. There is nothing helpful about someone who constantly says that something "sucks" and complains relentlessly. The goal is to make this community fun for everyone.

5 Comments that bring politics into Gearheads (which is a non-political blog), e.g., "Bush/Clinton ruined this country by...", "Check out this link about the war in Iraq," etc. And just so that all Gearheads are clear, Gearheads does accept political advertising as long as it is not offensive in any way, shape or form, but we subscribe to the belief that advertising and editorial are separate. So there will occasionally be political ads that run. Just like any other media outlet, just because a political ad runs, it doesn't mean we endorse or support whatever cause it happens to be.