Your Yearly MGoReminder: The End Of OT Season Is Near

EDIT - Moved to board so it is well-seen.

OTHER EDIT - Bumped once to catch others on the rebound from the weekend.

ANOTHER EDIT - Bumped one more time to catch people who take the weekends off here.

So you are aware, the OT Season officially comes to an end at midnight on the 27th of August, or one week before the first game as per tradition. There will be some cleanup of a preliminary nature starting before then, but it will be mainly background items and removing recent threads with, for example, numerous downvotes – basically subtle strategies to attempt to maximize the amount of football content before the actual deadline comes.

What does that mean for you? Veterans will know the answer, but for newer folks or infrequent visitors, here is your yearly reminder.

At midnight on Thursday, you may no longer post threads about your favorite shows, movies, books, music and so forth.  There are usually narrow exceptions made for major breaking news of regional or national importance and a few other things. Ultimately, it is case by case, but the thread will be reviewed and, if found to be OT, will disappear as soon as one of us cares to leave the bar and find a computer.

A few things of note (non-comprehensive, of course – we reserve the right to throw other stuff out there too):

1)      The Snowflake Rule will apply after games, however based on some feedback, I would like to experiment with something this time around. Those threads will get created, but we can ease off on the “clamp down” sooner theoretically. What I would expect then is for people creating threads about specific moments in a game to attach to their content a reason that you believe it is important that this observation stand apart from the established threads for general observations – video analysis or some detailed notes and observations would be immensely helpful, for example. I understand why the Snowflake threads are not popular, 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. I know people get emotional after games, but do try to run your initial reaction by your frontal cortex first for proper review. 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.

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 it is raining in La Paz, we will provide appropriate gear assuming we did not spend the money on beer first. 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 NFL threads will be allowed as usual. Pro sports events which are significant are fine as well – just not every bit of news like we get during the draft and free agency periods sometimes. 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. Do feel free to throw in some coverage of your own teams, if you so choose, but be selective due to OT restrictions.

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 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.

I will let JustinGoBlue add whatever he feels is appropriate in the comments, and remember to check the MGoBoard FAQ for a high-level version of some of the parameters as well.

Mod edit (lol): It seems like we're constantly bickering about the on/off topic split; this is about as simple as I can make it:

If it involves

• (U of) Michigan topics, the institution or its people
• Any Big Ten team or school
• Any future opponent in any sport
• A topic of high interest in Ann Arbor
• A topic of high interest in college sports at large

it is NOT off topic.

Pro sports are off topic but allowable at moderator discretion. The working assumption is that Detroit teams are more interesting to the board than San Diego or Seattle teams. Sorry, San Diego and Seattle.

JGB