REMINDER: OT Season Ends This Friday At 11:59:59 PM (Non-Comprehensive Guide Contained Herein)

As you might have noticed, the 2023 Michigan football season is close at hand, which means that in just a few short days, another OT Season will be in the books.

What does that mean for you?

First and foremost, a semantics thing – when I say “the end of OT season”, it really means that the bar for you to post something OT is now oppressively high. That is to say, we will not have “OT: Does This Look Infected? (Photos Included)”, but if there is something which is of overarching importance to the blog or some national story which transcends what normally goes on here, that would be fine. If you are unsure, you know how to find me certainly.

As for the sorts of things you can expect, here are some of the highlights. The veterans can probably stop reading about here, but if you’re a new or infrequent user, keep reading because I am a bigger asshole than you might realize and I need you to know how big.

1. “The Snowflake Rule”, which some of you hate, but as I am an ardent believer in working smart and not hard, it will be here yet again. For anyone who wonders why we do this, it is to mitigate the potential mess of threads devoted to hot takes and feelings that people have in the moment. Like last year, there will be a set cadence for these threads – offense, defense, special teams, coaching. Additional ones will be allowed, of course, including the old favorite, which is a sarcastic one regarding the referees. I will be responsible for the “regular four”, if you will.

2. Breaking news items -  there are a few things I want to say about these as they do come up throughout the season. First, make sure that you check the publish dates on articles – you can almost be assured that anything over an hour old has made it to the board barring a huge oversight (and sometimes, something does get overlooked). Second, normal rules on sourcing apply as well, so for example, be judicious with Bleacher Report, no Chatsports, no Valenti, no Yoder, etc…and don’t post a whole Freep article out of spite – post a quote which conveys the gist, link it, and give people the chance to skip it anyway. Fair is fair.

3. Check yourself, please, in heated moments. Use your frontal cortex and executive functions because the beauty of human evolution is that, over the course of many millions of years, our hominid forebearers evolved these incredible cognitive abilities just so you could throw them into the bin on gameday. Actually, that’s not quite the beauty, but you get the point – ad hominems or other sorts of attacks put you in the crosshairs of Bolivia or even removal.

4. Related to #3, the Mod Sticky is there for your use in the event that something needs some attention. We don’t read every thread, or at least I don’t, and we do have lives outside of the blog, of course. If there is a delay that you find unacceptable, again, ring one of us in the virtual world and we’ll get to it. After all, sometimes, we’re at the games too and you can’t exactly do this on the phone, this mod thing. I can’t anyway, as my eyes are old and suck.

5. NFL threads will be allowed. 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. As a note, because there has been a complaint or two lodged about this before, I know people gripe about the amount of Lions coverage during the NFL season, but try to remember that a sizeable number of the active users on this site also live in Michigan or did at one point in their lives, at least long enough to be a fan of Detroit teams.

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 OK. 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. If a particular non-Michigan game somehow gets its own thread, just detail the perceived significance of it. Chances are a fair number of us are watching it anyway so long as it isn’t being played simultaneously with ours.

Other mods can add to this, if they would like. You may also suggest things to improve the experience.