Ramping Down Of OT Season: Your Guide - The Thread-Friendly Version (Bumped From Yesterday)

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

BUMPED SO WE REACH AS MANY AS POSSIBLE - LSA

NOTE: If you read the full diary version of this, please disregard, but for those of you that haven't yet seen the guidelines posted regarding the cessation of OT approaching, now is your opportunity. 

OT Season officially comes to an end at midnight on midnight Saturday, so 11:59:59 PM Friday is the last minute of OT threads. To start the ramp-down, however, at midnight on Friday, you may no longer post threads about your favorite shows, movies, books, music and so forth.  Friday can be a transitional day for OT, giving people an opportunity to get their final OT threads in.

One further point, when we say “end of OT season”, it is more a “significant narrowing of scope” – in other words, not every single OT thread will be removed outright. What you must do, if you plan on posting such a thread, is provide a pretty damn good explanation of why it should stay (or the reason may be self-evident) – and yes, frivolous ones will be removed as always. I realize some people would prefer a hard stop, but this is a community and we’ll consider things that might be of note to the community, even during the “non-OT” months. Such threads should be an EXCEPTION, and the onus is on the blogger to justify it.

A few things of note:

1)      The Snowflake Rule will apply after games, but we will weigh threads individually and those which provide, for example, detailed analysis of a single series or play or video analysis will probably stay. Those threads which are mere hot takes that could easily fit into a snowflake thread will likely go. I understand why the Snowflake threads are not popular in many segments of the MGoPopulation, but there has to be a way to mitigate hot takes and make sure they don’t bury more worthwhile content.

2)      Having seen #1, please take care in general to consider carefully what you want to say if you’re going to create a thread. Search the first three pages of threads or so for similar threads – that’s typically what I use as a measuring stick for “redundant”. Most weekends in the season, three pages covers about 2 days of threads, or after a loss, about 30 minutes of threads.

3)      DO NOT attack players or fellow MGoBloggers personally. Ad hominems are essentially your ticket to Bolivia or worse depending on the severity of the statement. Criticizing play and strategy is fine, but basically bringing someone’s mom into it, if you will, is your way of telling the mods you no longer wish to be here. As you may have seen in the Mod Sticky as well, there will be a doubling down on efforts to promote a more welcoming environment around here too, so PLEASE check your choice of words and photos against those rules set forth in the sticky before posting.

4)      Report potential infractions or questionable posts in the Mod Sticky with a link to the comment or thread. We will review them as soon as possible and dole out point deductions and so forth accordingly. If there is a delay in getting to an issue, remember that the mods have lives too, but if it is something that really should go, say, right now, tweet me at @LorneEC3 and I’ll address it right then or make a note to do it ASAP.

5)      Sunday (also Thursday and Monday) NFL threads will be allowed as usual. Pro sports events which are significant are fine as well (World Series, NBA or NHL coverage, etc…) – just not every bit of news like we get during the draft and free agency periods sometimes.

6)      Threads covering other college games should typically be OK, but do try to keep the tradition of “Saturday Noon Games Thread”, for example, on the weekends (and on Thursdays and Fridays when sometimes there is a significant slate too). The tradition of MACtion is absolutely fine. If something noteworthy is happening in a particular game, a separate thread should be fine but detail the reason for breaking out of the open thread coverage. 

ADDENDUMS (see Diary for full explanation):

Drinking threads - we will try to limit this to Friday and Saturday

"Where Can I Watch The Game In ________?" - the first thread posted on this each week is going to be repurposed as a catch-all thread for such inquiries.

"How Do I Watch The Game When _______?" - same thing basically. Multiple threads on alternative viewing methodologies will be discouraged

In reply to by Carl Spackler

UMAmaizinBlue

August 25th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^

It's a sports blog, but the offseason is long. Being grumpy over a car thread in the middle of June is unecessary, and won't help your stress levels. I find that the best solution for a slow day on the blogs is to take a walk or get some work done, maybe go tubing down the Huron if it's nice. Lots of fun stuff to do outside of football season.

UM Fan from Sydney

August 25th, 2016 at 2:43 PM ^

The last two bullet points are necessary. Although, we all know there will be threads like that every single game week..

mgobleu

August 25th, 2016 at 2:53 PM ^

Prepare yourselves. 11:58 on Friday, its going to be all dicks out for Harambe, Freep links, Buckeye/Sparty trolls, Ace Williams, Trump vs Hillary talk- 

 

/Hold me, WD

itsbigcat

August 25th, 2016 at 5:39 PM ^

LSA: I'd like to ask permission to continue the admittedly new tradition of the Sunday Funday thread. If necessary, it can simply be part of the football thread. But for me and plenty of us around here (as evidenced by the multitude of comments from last week's thread) do a hefty amount of socialization and drinking on Sunday's, some even more so than Friday or Saturday. If it's a hard no, I'll be a team player. I understand the need to not have an alcoholic drinking thread every night, but with the NFL and Nascar traditions, I think Sunday could and should be easily added to the Friday/Saturday cut. I'll even faithfully handle it. Thanks for hearing me out....




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uncle leo

August 26th, 2016 at 10:17 AM ^

How many threads can we dedicate to a 75-3 victory over Hawaii? OT's fun stuff to read, regardless of whether it's the dregs of summer or in the midst of a thrilling football season. 

As long as it's within reason and not stuff like your favorite food and cars, and maybe more relevant stuff like other NFL teams, baseball playoffs, and especially with the election coming up, not seeing the big issue. It's a message board at the end of the day, and no matter how laser-focused, every board has a thread or two that's off the main track and still entertaining.

Anonymosity

August 26th, 2016 at 12:53 PM ^

I've always found mgoblog odd in that it's the only blog or community I'm aware of that frequently asks its participants to contribute less.  Serious question- why not have a separate off-topic board?  More discussion, more page clicks, more $$$.

Magnus

August 26th, 2016 at 1:24 PM ^

It's because it's a niche blog. Reddit or 4chan aren't about a particular thing, so you can talk about whatever you want. This is a Michigan sports blog. Other Michigan football sites try to limit OT stuff, too - The Wolverine, Wolverine247, etc. People go to those sites wanting to talk football/sports, not about cars, beer, etc.

I mostly avoid The Fort for that reason. It gets cluttered with stupid crap that I don't care about. One reason I spend so much time on the MGoBoard is because so much of it is about Michigan football, basketball, our opponents, etc. A flood of OT threads makes this a very boring place, IMO.