META: End Of OT Season - IT HAS ARRIVED

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

EDIT - bumped to keep pushing this point - LSA

NOTE: I got a few questions about this overnight - Friday is indeed the last day, so at 12 AM on 8-26, your fabulous OT thread....well, you may need to keep it to yourself or try to cleverly dress it as a sports thread.

I know a few people will be thrilled, and for others, apologies for the short notice...

The OT Season officially comes to an end at midnight on the 26th  of August (the very first tick of Saturday, because there will be football on and you now have better things to do), 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.

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.

As usual, there are usually narrow exceptions made for major breaking news of regional or national importance and a few other things and that’s what we mean here. Those are just a few examples of “allowable OT”. 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 (non-comprehensive, of course – we reserve the right to throw other stuff out there too):

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. The whole point is to make sure the better user-generated content remains – we have some excellent football minds on the board and I really don’t want their contributions to be buried by your two paragraphs which amount to “that was awesome” or “that sucked” or what-have-you.

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. As for breaking news, 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). Normal rules on sourcing apply as well, so for example, be judicious with Bleacher Report, no Chatsports, and don’t post a whole Freep article out of spite – post a quote, link it, and give people the opportunity to avoid reading it.

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. 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 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. Yes, I can’t stand the threads with “IBD” or “Moms please delete” in 40 different forms and posts either, so let’s try to mitigate that, eh?

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. 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 Thursdays and Fridays when sometimes there is a significant slate too). The tradition of MACtion is absolutely OK even though ESPN has apparently all but killed it. 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 there is anything that is unclear or anything I have missed, let's talk. 

crg

August 24th, 2017 at 4:38 AM ^

Ad hominems are a no-go and you specifically point out that we should not attack other people's moms... but what if said moms attack us first (say, from some guy named Scott F.)? There should be a right of MGoSelfDefense (Blog your ground?).

Sam1863

August 25th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^

My favorite beer is Heizenkugelkoffenweisenschmektbrau, made from a recipe first brought to the Black Forest by invading Mongol hordes, and aged in barrels of Bavarian oak hewn by Teutonic vergins.

So I think I'm OK.

Bigku22

August 23rd, 2017 at 9:51 PM ^

Less than two weeks before those stupid ass threads taking up space on the main page are gone.  

Really looking forward to next March when they start up again......................

TIMMMAAY

August 23rd, 2017 at 9:56 PM ^

LSA, man, we need to be able to have our final weekly GOT thread. You should make an exception here, since they pushed this season back on us, but somehow UofM didn't do the same... do us a solid. 

LSAClassOf2000

August 23rd, 2017 at 9:58 PM ^

I thought about this, and I am willing to make a "George R. R. Martin" exception because, for fuck sakes, the man needs to write a little faster. As it is, I won't buy anything less than the revelation that he started "Game Of Thrones" as a joke in third grade in the mid-1950s at the rate he seems to put out actual books. 

ST3

August 23rd, 2017 at 10:57 PM ^

It has "OT" in the title. That has to count for something.

Here's my GoT-related OT comment that I've been waiting for the right time to share. As all GoT fans know, the spark that ignited all the action was Jon Arryn's discovery that the children of the king were actually bastards. How did he deduce this? He noted that all of the Baratheon children - Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella, all had blond hair. Interestingly enough, the queen and her brother had blond hair while the king had dark hair. All of the king's bastard children had dark hair. Following this logic, I must conclude that Donald Trump, Jr. is a bastard.

ST3

August 24th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^

Wow, I gues you and I are in the minority in appreciating that joke. For the record, I don't consider it a political joke. I think of it more as a "Donald Trump, Jr. is a bastard" joke. Yes, he's the son of the president, but he's not a minor, he's a public figure who made his name as a reality TV show second banana. BTW, I'm not against hunting for conservation reasons (deer hunting for population management is fine) but big game, African safari-style trophy hunters are enormous douchebags in my opinion. How is DTJ any different than that noted douchebag, Cecil the Lion hunter guy?

P.S. It's a "clearance sale," not all jokes are going to be winners.

Image result for donald trump jr hunting

Image result for cecil the lion

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

August 23rd, 2017 at 10:06 PM ^

Are the snowflake threads actually unpopular with anyone?  Because Christ on a bucket, I hated it when every swinging dick in the world just had to start their own My Thoughts thread and the only way to post an opinion was to either also start a My Special Thoughts thread or to dig through them all for a similar (or contradictory) opinion you could reply to.

Bigku22

August 23rd, 2017 at 11:01 PM ^

I think the legitimate postgame snowflake threads are fine, and usually contain pretty fun/interesting banter, and of course some hot takes (what better time to dish the takes than when you're still irrationally emotional about the game).

It's the threads the next day or during the week, that people want to post the same thing we have been talking about for 48 hours (or more), but want their take front and center to "look at me, my take is so important and original" (it's not 99% of the time), in their own post.  

Think officiating for the Ohio State game, 3 weeks later people were still posting "original takes" and it got so bad Brian had to ban it. 

StephenRKass

August 23rd, 2017 at 10:17 PM ^

So, in 2), you state, " Search the first three pages of threads or so for similar threads – that’s typically what I use as a measuring stick for “redundant”.

I'd like to know if and when the page down function and search function will actually function again. I know in a separate thread, Seth et al explained that the roll out of the new and improved version of mgoblog is being delayed. I'm wondering if they have any kind of sense when this will actually be functional again. Because it is a pain having to open separate windows just to try to page down to see whether or not something has already been posted or not.