What we do, who we are.

A few housekeeping points before we get things rolling on this first full weekend of Georgia Bulldog football. Some of these are things that longtime readers will know, some are just handy FYIs for those who are new to Game Day here at Dawg Sports.

You may recall that we have a set of community guidelines which are designed to foster the enjoyment of the site by all involved. Those guidelines apply to open comment threads, too. I’m certainly not saying that you can’t express your exhilaration and frustration, and just generally let your hair down. But as a reminder, even if you’re sitting in your living room you are, for all intents and purposes, in a public space.

So don’t act like you’re sitting in your bathrobe eating frosted flakes out of a Tupperware bowl. Act like you’re at a game watching party with some folks who you know, and some folks you don’t really know and probably shouldn’t offend needlessly because you may run into them at the grocery store later and man, is that going to be awkward. Try to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Remember that the Internet sucks as a context delivery apparatus. Be quick to compliment and slow to scold.

In other words, try to be a close approximation of the social creature your Mama raised you to be. In fact, let’s just go ahead and make that our rubric for all interactions this season: If you wouldn’t want Mama to read it, you probably shouldn’t type it.

Please also remember that, as Mama said, sometimes having good manners means putting up with the bad manners of others. Someone, somewhere is wrong online. It’ll be okay.

So what does this mean in concrete terms? Let’s keep the swearing to a minimum. I’m not saying you can’t drop an occasional dammit if Jim Chaney calls a third consecutive Terry Godwin Wild ‘Dawg pass to the corner of the endzone because Jacob Eason is really gonna get open this time. Or that you’re going to be nuked for expressing some frustration with missed tackles. But dropping F-bombs and calling fellow posters “idiots” or “morons” or “Brian Schottenheimer” won’t be tolerated.

While we as a staff are generally in favor of individual liberty, the First Amendment, bald eagles, and apple pie, we reserve the right to warn you when we think your particular mode of participation is a net detriment to the group. Our site guidelines are a guideline, not the United States Code. If you’d like to be banned, might I recommend asking a moderator to point out where a particular behavior/turn of phrase is discussed explicitly in the site guidelines?

Put another way, just like Studio 54 we don’t have to let you in, and just like the stage at the Apollo, we reserve the right to pull you out. We make every effort not to do so capriciously. But if it becomes obvious that no one wants to be around you, that you’re actually making multiple people miserable, we’re not going to force them to be so you can shout your barbaric yawp vis-a-vis the wheel route.

All of which is not meant to give you the impression that you need to be irrepressibly funny or fill the game thread with infographics to justify your presence. Please feel free to be you. So long as the you you’re being isn’t ruining a good time for everyone else.

On a related note, please remember that things like large pictures, cut & paste walls of text from other websites, and gif images (especially gif images) slow down site loading. When there are 15 comments on a post it frankly doesn’t change the price of PBR in downtown Athens one bit. But when there are 500+ comments, as there usually are in game threads, these bandwidth stealers can really be a pain. Let’s try to be sparing with them.

As a practical matter, we will put up an open comment thread on game day Saturdays first thing in the morning, before the big 3:30 kickoff slot, and again in the evening (usually around 7:00 pm eastern). When Georgia has a noon kickoff there will likely be an additional noon thread for that. When kickoff is in the evening a comment thread devoted to the UGA game will take the place of the evening thread.

If commenting on game threads gets heavy (as it often does) our practice is to open a new thread to make the navigation experience better. At a minimum, expect a first half thread, a second half thread, and a post-game thread. Don’t worry if the second half thread isn’t up two minutes before halftime ends. It’s coming.

Between you and me, we’ve also been known to put up a post-game “venting thread” for you to get your frustrations out after the Red and Black do something that looks particularly unakin to the Platonic ideal of college football. Hopefully, this will be the season in which we don’t have one of these. When everything goes just as God, Erk, and Uga V have ordained it.

But I somewhat doubt it. When one pops up, it isn’t an excuse to forget all the rules you just read above. Metaphorically, it’s the staff letting you travel a little over the speed limit or stagger back to your house when we might otherwise cuff you, because you’ve already had a rough night. It is not the time to loot the Wal-Mart and set City Hall on fire. Vent your frustrations at fate, God, and Mike Bobo, just not at your fellow posters or moderators. Don’t. Do. This.

Please don’t post any illegal game streams, pirated media, or pornography. I can’t believe this needs to be said, but past experience demonstrates that it does. Also don’t post pictures of butter. It gets DavetheDawg all excited and frankly we don’t need that. He’s excited enough about the fact that we have more than 10 scholarship offensive linemen.

Remember, if you meet one jerk, it’s okay. It just means you met a jerk. If everyone you meet seems like a jerk, maybe the jerk is you.

If any of this is confusing or requires additional clarification, please feel free to email me atmacondawg@gmail.com. Please also understand that what we’re trying to do here at Dawg Sports is to provide a place for UGA fans to enjoy college sports in the company of friends, new and old. Help us out with that, will you?

Go ‘Dawgs!!!