<<<Message board rules of conduct - please read>>>

All members should be aware of the following Rules Of Conduct.

1. This site is dedicated for Ravens talk. Think of it as a virtual 'tailgate' where football topics are discussed with fellow fans. We encourage friendly discussion according to the rules herein. From time to time, we may allow off topic discussions in the Ravens 24x7 room ("main board"), but these type of discussions may be moved / deleted at the moderators discretion during the football season or when Ravens discussion becomes the priority.

2. Personal Insults of any kind (name calling, abusive language directed at another member, threats of violence, etc.) are never tolerated. Remember the virtual tailgate scenario. If it's not something that you would say in person at a real tailgate, don't say it.

3. Baiting, or posting in a manner meant to incite a negative response from another poster is not allowed and will be dealt with at the discretion of the moderator.

4. Trolling, repetitive posts that do not add value to the flow of a discussion, excessive smack talk or disruptive discussions will be dealt with at the discretion of the moderator. NOTE: Trolling can be any post that's sole design is to generate a negative reaction from the board - by Ravens fans as well as other team's fans.

5. In-room directions of the moderators must be followed. Failure to follow these directions may result in an infraction.

6. Thread topics are to be non-duplicative, posted in appropriate forums with meaningful titles, and followed at all times. If the discussions veers off topic too far, the moderator may shut down, merge or trash the thread as they see fit. Repeated attempts to take a thread off topic or hijacking a thread, causing a disruption, may result in an infraction.

7. Spam, advertisements, promotion of illegal streams, etc will be removed and the poster may face an infractions leading up to and including a permanent ban.

8. Any discussion of race, religion, politics or other talking points that could lead to overly heated discussions shall be limited to the Politics Forum, and shall not be used in user names - which also may not be vulgar, and do not imitate a famous person, e.g. Ravens player.

9. Moderators reserve the right to move, delete, merge any post or thread that warrants such, or edit inappropriate posts, including large sections of quoted text.

10. "Outing" a moderators action is never allowed on any forum. If an infraction or warning is received from a moderator, discussing such in any room of the forum will result in further infractions and possible banishment. If a poster has an issue with any moderator action, Private Messaging should be used to dialog with the moderator. The forums are not the place to discuss moderator actions and any such posts are subject to deletion and the poster may subject to possible infractions.

11. We encourage the cross-posting of articles from news sources to generate and facilitate jovial discussion on out message board. Please do not cut and paste the complete article into a thread. Instead, post a paragraph (or two, if they are short) and then provide a link to the original article.

12. Threads are syndicated across many of our partners. While we do not frown upon bad language in the body of your posts, please refrain from using any of George Carlin's seven dirty words in the title. It will be edited/deleted and and the poster may be subject to possible infractions.


EDIT:
After discussing with some of the other mods, we felt that there were two primary areas that are a bit too ambiguous for effective moderation. This has also been problematic as there are several posters that purposely do these things without any regard for other posters. So, here it is:

Trolling:

• Is defined as purposefully and knowingly agitating a particular RSR member or group of RSR members with the intent of soliciting a negative response. Trolling is almost always synonymous with baiting, which is also purposefully and knowingly posting something with the intentions of soliciting a negative response from another poster in an attempt to get them in trouble with the mods.

Hijacking:
Is defined as purposefully and knowingly posting content (particularly of negative context) with intentions of derailing a thread from the original topic.