Let this be a lesson to you all. Actions carry consequences.
It all started innocuously enough. First, there was a story in The Red & Black about a minor conduct violation committed by Knowshon Moreno during his redshirt freshman year. Then, MaconDawg authored a humorous posting about the incident. This hilarious piece, which included a link to the paper Moreno had to write as penance, was picked up by several message boards and by Every Day Should Be Saturday. That was when the trouble started.
You see, there apparently is a University of Georgia conduct regulation governing the public dissemination of information from student conduct files. The Red & Black can do it, because independent student newspapers have access to such information under the Georgia Open Records Act. Likewise, Holly and Orson are protected, because they were never students at the University of Georgia, so they lie beyond the reach of the powers that be in Athens.
We here at Dawg Sports, however, are neither journalists nor graduates of either the University of Florida or the University of Tennessee. Ordinarily, all of these are good things, but, today, this presents a problem. Let this be a part of the lesson to you.


Another part of the lesson, by the way, is that Knowshon Moreno’s middle name is "Rockwell", indicating that he was christened in honor of Brock Landers’s sidekick from "Boogie Nights."
The short version is that someone in authority in Athens saw MaconDawg’s story, contacted me as the registered proprietor of this weblog, and informed me that I had violated University conduct regulations by allowing the story to be published. As a consequence of this, my records would be flagged and, if left unresolved, this could have led to the revocation of my baccalaureate and law degrees from the University of Georgia, which would have left me unable to practice law.
Needless to say, this was a big deal. Fortunately, I was able to reach an informal resolution agreement with the Office of Judicial Programs, by which I admitted responsibility and agreed to accept the sanction of an educational research paper, which I submitted to the conduct review board advisor assigned to my case.
This was my research paper, written about the harmful effects of excessive weblogging on the health and lifestyles of others around me:
06/12/08
Excessive Blogging Essay
The night I was working on a short 3,500-word posting called "Why the Michigan-Utah Game Will be a Blowout, Although I’m Not Sure for Which Team" approximately 6 o’clock I received an e-mail so I proceeded to read it. When I opened it, it said we did too much blogging here at Dawg Sports and asked us to cut it out, so I went back into Microsoft Word and I willingly cut out the six-paragraph middle section on Big Ten non-conference scheduling during the Progressive Era with no problem. After shortening up the posting, MaconDawg and I left the weblog to go practice law so we could make sure there would not be anymore problems with our blogging level.
Approximately two hours later I received another e-mail saying we had violated internet regulations of excessive blogging. I was confused by this e-mail because MaconDawg posted this story only around 3 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon which is not during peak blogging hours. The peak blogging hours on Wednesday night during the offseason are from 8 p.m. to midnight, and my co-author and me are very aware of this. It did not seem as if we were blogging enough that we were filling up the SB Nation homepage or an RSS reader; we were merely expressing our excitement that a Georgia football player was disciplined over something not involving an open container or a suspended license. Being busted by an overzealous humorless resident assistant seemed to us like a major improvement over being busted by an overzealous humorless campus cop.
After taking
In conclusion, I learned a lot about excessive blogging and its effects on others around me. To show the responsibility I have gained over this situation I was recently asked on this weblog one night after peak blogging hours if I could
"Web Sited"
Web Site 1 - http://www.rockytoptalk.com/2008/3/5/7121/91915
Web Site 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8DAeic8Yus
No word yet whether my paper was formatted properly.
(Full disclosure: I was a part of the Student Judiciary at the Office of Judicial Programs from 1989 to 1993, serving as chief justice in 1991. I’d like to think I never handed down a sanction as ludicrous, pointless, and childish as making someone write a paper, but I’m sure I probably did. Also, lest rival fans be tempted to mock Moreno’s command of the language, I would like to point out that Knowshon evidently knows that "affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun. I defy you to find me a guy with a sociology degree from Auburn who knows that.)
Go ‘Dawgs!