With the regular season fast approaching -- or at least, I'm still wondering where February went -- we've been working hard behind the scenes to get DRaysBay up to full steam by Opening Day. After an off-season that saw us lose four fantastic writers -- Jones, Brad, Collette, and Gengler -- we'll be introducing a number of new faces to the site over the coming weeks. If you missed him yesterday, Robbie Knopf made his DRB debut with Sunday's Tank, so stay tuned for new faces.
In other news, I've additionally made a few changes to the moderation policy here. Please read through the whole thing, but I've basically re-arranged the moderation guidelines to better represent our site enforcement priorities. As you can see, the main five guidelines have remained basically unchanged:
1. No personal attacks.
2. No slurs or offensive statements of any kind.
3. All images should be "Safe for Work".
4. Stay on topic, and no politics.
5. Keep an open mind.
The largest change is that we're enacting a "Three Strike" policy. Here are the details:
If you post something that goes against our five Guidelines, or you consistently fail to adhere to our Best Practices recommendations despite prompting, you will be issued a "Warning" by one of our site moderators. After three warnings, a user will be banned from DRaysBay, and these bans are permanent and not negotiable.
If a user is issued a Warning that they feel is unfair, they can appeal to the site manager for a ruling. This appeal should be made off-site via email, and if there is any grousing or complaining on-site about the validity of the Warning, that appeal will not be considered and the Warning will stand.
Additionally, users may lose "Strikes" through subsequent good behavior. If a user is issued one Warning, that Warning can be rescinded after four months of good behavior. If a user has been issued two Warnings, the second Warning can be rescinded after six months of good behavior. Once a user reaches three Warnings, though, they will be banned from DRaysBay.
This is obviously not a retrospective policy, and will only take into consideration Warnings given from here on out. I don't envision this being a big deal, as the comments have been particularly clean of late, but we had been lacking a more specific enforcement plan. Hopefully this will provide some clarity going forward.
And now, on to baseball:
- Jon Heyman is claiming that the Rays are looking around for another catcher or outfielder. I hate the thought of trading Niemann or another starter for a backup player, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what they end up doing.
- The World Baseball Classic kicked off this weekend, and we already have our first big upset: the Netherlands beat Korea on Saturday (although they then lost to Chinese Taipei on Sunday). Cuba also rather easily won their opener against Brazil.
- The city of San Jose could sue the San Francisco Giants, and they're threatening to at the moment. The idea is that the Giants (and MLB by extension) are standing in the way of San Jose making money off the A's, so San Jose is ready to stand up for itself and make MLB come to a decision one way or the other. I'm no lawyer, so who knows how feasible this is, but this could be interesting.
- This is a really heartbreaking story about how New York Mets catcher Landon Powell lost his daughter to a rare disease over the off-season. It's a sad story, but he's hoping that by bringing attention to their story, he can encourage more people to become organ donors.