MGoBoard FAQ

Submitted by Brian on June 3rd, 2019 at 1:10 PM

Why can't I start threads?

New users are not entrusted with that capability until they reach 100 points. (Updated 11/29/2010)

How do I get points?

Every time you post a comment or reply in a thread you get a point.

Wait… then why do I have negative 60?

You can't see this yet—you won't until you get to 100 points, naturally—but all posts/comments come with the ability to vote up or down on them. If you post things that are displeasing to the general populace, you will lose points as people downvote you. You get two points per upvote and minus one per downvote.

How can I avoid downvotes?

Don't be redundant. Don't use stupid nicknames like O$U. Spell things correctly. Don't post useless replies like "I agree" and whatnot.

What happens when I get huge numbers of negative points?

I get dinged and I check your profile out to see if you're pure troll or not, and ban appropriately.

What should I title my threads?

Please make your thread titles as informative as possible: "Justin Feagin" is bad. "Justin Feagin leaving the team?" is good.

How can I bold stuff, insert images, embed videos, etc?

ShockFX provided a helpful primer on basic HTML if you'd like to add some visual pop to your posts.

Why did my post get deleted/edited?

Getting personal on college athletes usually results in a deletion, and virtually always when it's a Michigan player in question. Threads that invite flaming also get deleted. Threads with misleading titles designed to scare the crap out of readers before they click will either be deleted or edited so that their titles reflect their contents.

What is the board's tolerance for language?

Calibrate your language to what it would be at a Michigan tailgate with lots of strangers. We don't ban people for expletives (we do track them though) but we do ask that you avoid offensive language. If someone corrects your language (e.g. please don't use "thug" due to racial overtones) try to respect that. Avoid blasphemy too please--in this you can follow the main page writers' example in using cognates like gotdang, goldang, gotdam, or change up religious expressions to made up/generic polytheistic ones like "Pray to the holy Denard" or "the gods." 

Can I repeat premium information?

To a limited extent. More details are here. Briefly: don't hit CTRL+C, and don't repeat every last detail.

What's the offtopic policy?

In the offseason, offtopic posts are tolerated. During football season they are discouraged and may be subject to removal depending on how alert the moderators are. What counts as on- and off- topic?

ONTOPIC

  • Anything Michigan sports related
  • Anything related to other Big Ten teams or upcoming opponents
  • Stuff about the blog itself
  • University of Michigan topics that don't relate to sports

GRAY AREA

  • College sports in general
  • Ann Arbor

UNWELCOME, KTHX

  • Politics
  • Drew Sharp, Ace Williams, Mike Valenti. Saying stupid and/or false things about Michigan in order to get Michigan fans upset is a tried and true way to phish for clicks. Let's not feed the trolls.
  • Bewbs/Objectification of women. Whatever misogynistic "standard guy stuff" gets tolerated on other sports sites you visit will NOT fly here. 

OFFTOPIC

  • Pro sports of any variety
  • Everything else

We will let pro sports topics slide even during football season but "everything else" posts are likely to get the axe. A few known exceptions for annual local culture things (e.g. there's an annual thread at the opening of firearm deer season).

Can you connect me to another user?

No, sorry. We value our users' privacy too much to share their contact information and I don't have the time to service connections anymore. Social media outlets all have direct message options these days for individuals to connect.

I have another question.

Email me about it. Or Seth.

formerlyanonymous

January 24th, 2010 at 11:50 PM ^

Negative. Brian definitely isn't allowing you to know who votes on your posts. That would cause endless, and needless, feuds between posters. The only way to track the post is to go back and look at what you've done. Points aren't supposed to matter. They are there only to weed out those who would register right after a devastating Michigan loss to come and troll. There were some adjustments on what it takes to write a diary after the series of tubes that is MGoDiaries was clogged with some of the most useless posts imaginable.

M-Wolverine

January 27th, 2010 at 9:32 AM ^

I've had a question for awhile now, and it just came up again this week...

I remember reading a post (or posts) to the effect of "if you don't like what I say, tell me why, and I'll still get the points for it", and people posting just for points, etc, etc.

So, does one get points for people responding to their posts, or threads they create? How does that work? Because I've never notice much of a bump (or drop for that matter) for any threads I've created, whether they be long or small.

It doesn't matter much to me at this point, since I've got points to spare, but it may be informative for the desperate noob trying to earn their keep (yes, I remember what that felt like).

ixcuincle

August 23rd, 2010 at 4:36 PM ^

Getting extremely angry here...can't embed Youtube videos

The link in the first post says to simply paste the embed code for the video, but when I do, I just get this.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/barLaHrtvoM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/barLaHrtvoM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

There's no video seen, just HTML text. :|

OMG Shirtless

September 6th, 2010 at 1:16 PM ^

http://mgoblog.com/users/black-kerouac/track

It will keep track of threads you post in, and will list the number of new replies since you last viewed the thread.

Also this is helpful:

http://mgoblog.com/tracker

As it keeps the threads with the most recent comments at the top as opposed to sorting by the time the thread was started, like the sidebar.

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a subscription option where you can get email updates of when a new comment gets posted in a thread.

Seth9

September 19th, 2010 at 1:43 AM ^

Does the following clause still apply:

 

We will let pro sports topics slide even during football season but "everything else" posts are likely to get the axe.

formerlyanonymous

September 19th, 2010 at 9:36 AM ^

First, the following is limited to only Detroit teams (Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons, Lions, future Detroit MLS teams, etc). I don't like this rule, but Brian's email inbox is a democratic, complaint box, and since most of you are Detroit fans, yours gets to stay.

Game threads and VERY important news will be fine. The subjective level of what is deemed important is left to the decision of the moderators. My e-pinion is that news on trades, injuries to starters, or "yay! we made the playoffs" are all acceptable. Game threads should be enough to capture most of the rest.

To those who do start open threads, if you could be so kind as to invite and allow a little talk of other pro sports teams without them being the focus, that would be generous of you. A good, working example, the nightly college football viewing threads aren't just about ND/MSU, other games get discussed. Those work well.

The Harbaughnger

September 21st, 2010 at 11:50 AM ^

Pretty new to the site.

Posted a few times- some were well received, some were not.

I'm surprised at how bitterly some people respond to others (not talking about the completely worthless posts like "WOOO- MGOPOINTS!!!" Bitch away at these...). 

I get the impression I shouldn't post anything at all if I'm not an expert.

Seems like even the light-hearted stuff just for a laugh attracts the whole "THIS THREAD HAS FULL BLOWN AIDS..." crowd.

I'm almost afraid to post anything that's not expert analysis or inside news for fear of being bitched at to no end...

So, is it just me- Am I not getting something?  Or does every post attract a bitchy crowd?

I have to say I'm a little discouraged at the level of some of the negativity from some people here...I feel like they need a new category of points: MGoBitchPoints...

BTW, I'm posting this on the FAQ board in hopes that no one will be in here looking to murder me...Assuming that's what FAQ boards are for in the first place....

OMG Shirtless

September 21st, 2010 at 11:57 AM ^

1.  Up-voting your own OPs is a sure fire way to make a poor impression.

2.  Starting the thread about Denard's durability after it has been discussed several times is a sure fire way to make a poor impression.

3.  You started a thread called "Spitting..." about Roh and Jaws which was deleted pretty quickly.

4.  You got mixed in with the BlueJonny/NateSezGoBlue crowd last night.  The common presumption was that you were all the same person circle jerking each other with up votes.  Whether or not that is true, I don't know.  Most of those threads were pulled for stupidity.  

5.  Like it or not, this board functions the way it does based on Negative Reenforcement (When your dog shits on the rug, you smack the shit out of it with a newspaper - I don't know if Negative Reenforcement is the right term).  For better or worse, the only way people seem to learn to stop posting like jackasses is to mock the shit out of them.   Kindly explaining the rights and wrongs has proved useless time and time again.

The Harbaughnger

October 27th, 2010 at 2:43 PM ^

1. I Upvoted before I even knew what the arrows meant.

2. I'm new to the site- did not know there were extensive posts on Denards durability.

3. The thread 'Spitting...' was deleted because I specifically asked the MOD to delete it simply because I was tired of people bitching about something that looked funny.

4. I'm not the same person- no idea how that started.

5. You can't be a jackass unless you mean to be a jackass.  I didn't.  Makes the site feel like newcomers are not welcome. I get that negative reinforcement is sometimes necessary, but it should be reserved for people who really are jackasses- not the one's who are excited they just found what seemed like a great Michigan blog site.

Slippery Rock …

October 17th, 2010 at 11:17 AM ^

I have been following this site for a couple years, and it seems like the arrogant crowd is getting out of hand.  Before the great point requirement uppage of 2010, it seemed like 2/3 of the posts had someone in it crying about how the poster shouldn't be allowed to post regardless of the actual content.  What people really need to realize is that we are all here because we all love Michigan.  We're on the same team.  Furthermore,  we also need to realize that point total has very little to do with actual knowledge/fandom of Michigan football.  The culture of spitting in the face of users with fewer points than yourself is very silly.  It's not that the new users can't handle some good gestured ribbing, but that it isn't necessary.

Syyk

October 8th, 2010 at 11:20 AM ^

I think this has sort of been in the air for a while, but I thought it might be helpful if there was a push to start consolidating threads more.  I've noticed a lot of aggravation lately about new topics which are very similar to ones that have already been started.  In the last few days I have noticed new topics every time someone has a prediction for the UM/MSU game and we've had four or five topics about the #1 jersey that have been extremely similar.

If there was some sort of concerted effort by the mods and the regular posters to try and encourage posters to simply add replies to already existing threads, I think it would lower the stress-level around here a bit and make the board a bit easier to navigate as a whole.  I'm not sure how much good it would do to add something onto the FAQ about adding to similar threads rather than creating new ones, but I figure it couldn't hurt.

Also, in this same vein, it might be nice to break up the board into some sub-boards.  I'm not sure how feasible that is from a  technical standpoint, but I think it would reduce a lot of the complaining about irrelevant topics if we had an OT board.  I know this has been said before, but I just wanted to throw it out there again.

ShockFX

October 25th, 2010 at 10:53 AM ^

it's a joke that started at EverydayshouldbeSaturday that J Lehman, and then Ricky Stanzi love america more than anyone and exemplify awesomeness and patriotism.  Or something like that.  Someone link the appropriate Stanzi clips and J Lehman photos please?

m1jjb00

November 28th, 2010 at 2:12 PM ^

Did they show that sign or could you hear the chants in the 4th quarter?  I was there for the whole thing.  I used to feel a twinge of guilt when the kids wore their "Worst State Ever" t-shirts.  Uh, let's just say I'm past that.  The truck drivers seem to forget going 2-10-1.  Fortunes switch.  Jamiemac should take the under, however, on how classy I remain when that day happens.

wiper

December 3rd, 2010 at 10:25 PM ^

but why this thread set up?

specifically, why doesn't this board use the same set up as every other board in existence?

i find it difficult sometimes following threads because a) responses aren't in order, b) i have no idea where my response is likely to go in the thread sometimes (unless i'm replying to someone specifically), c) just seems scattered about.

why can't the boards just be normal? :) that way when i post in a thread, and i see it gets bumped again, i know where we're at in the thread and that maybe someone responded to me.

i dunno..

OMG Shirtless

December 3rd, 2010 at 10:36 PM ^

This is at the bottom of every thread:

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Additionally, use the "Recent Posts" or MGoBoard tab at the top and it should fix most of your problems.

Recent Posts: http://mgoblog.com/tracker

Direct MGoBoard Link: http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard

wiper

December 3rd, 2010 at 10:50 PM ^

but apparently i'm retarded, because i messed with all that before and can't figure out how to just set it up like a 'regular' message board: first response is first, last response is last and everything is just linear. this setup fucks with me hardcore for some reason...

i can't set it up so that threads go from first post to last post and that's it? where replying to someone doesn't go into the thread where you replied but at the end only with the original quote with it?

because that'd be the tits.

wiper

December 3rd, 2010 at 10:50 PM ^

but apparently i'm retarded, because i messed with all that before and can't figure out how to just set it up like a 'regular' message board: first response is first, last response is last and everything is just linear. this setup fucks with me hardcore for some reason...

i can't set it up so that threads go from first post to last post and that's it? where replying to someone doesn't go into the thread where you replied but at the end only with the original quote with it?

because that'd be the tits.

OMG Shirtless

December 3rd, 2010 at 10:59 PM ^

"Listed-Expanded" and "Date-Oldest First" would work for the most part.  However, the board doesn't autoquote replies (I think this is an option with vBulletin software) and people generally don't use the block quotes in replies, so I think people find it harder to work with.

wiper

December 3rd, 2010 at 11:04 PM ^

that's what i'm using now (list expanded and date oldest) but i wish it was v-bulletin i guess...making pages 300 responses and getting around to putting up an avatar helps a lot, as i can just scroll until i see my avatar. :)

thanks!

M-Wolverine

December 4th, 2010 at 12:26 AM ^

To see all the threads you've posted in, and it will list them in order of most recent responses, and which ones have "new" posts. Then you can just look at the ones with the red "new" label. And if someone replied to you at that point, it should be labeled new.