Stampede Blue’s Community Guidelines: A New Emphasis in 2018

In an effort to continue making positive changes to Stampede Blue, the writing team will be placing a greater emphasis on enforcing community guidelines in 2018. It is important to acknowledge that the Colts fan community is highly diverse and that it has members from every age group, gender affiliation, and from countries all over the world.

We recognize that some members of the fan community enjoy an in-your-face dialogue, while others find vulgarity and swearing offensive. It is our belief that the best version of the Stampede Blue community will welcome the greatest number of people to actively comment and participate as possible. We also feel that the current “wild west” commenting style turns away a considerably large group of potentially active community members who do not participate out of fear that someone is going to call them stupid, or start a flame war, or demean them in numerous other ways.

It is with this is mind that we wanted to draw attention to SB Nation’s Community Guidelines. We want to give active members of the community an opportunity to see what will be expected and to not be surprised when comments or fan posts are deleted, warnings or issued, or actions are taken to clean up the community.

1. Comments, FanPosts or usernames that are intolerant or prejudiced (sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-religion, etc.) in nature.

It is important to emphasize that this rule will apply to all manner of prejudice. If members of the community believe a post is prejudiced and in violation of this community guideline, the post should be flagged so it can be brought to the attention of community managers and moderators. When posts or stories are flagged, it provides notification to the appropriate members of the moderating community and gives us a chance to rectify the behavior.

It is also important to emphasize that these areas are not fair game for jokes or labels. Labeling members of the community in a manner that violates this guideline will not be tolerated.

2. Personal attacks or threats on community members.

Direct personal attacks will not be tolerated. The constant insults hurled between members of this community creates a hostile environment that tends to reduce participation. Disagreeing on issues and on football is expected. Showing respect for one another is also expected.

3. Gendered insults of any kind in comments, FanPosts or usernames.

Frankly, sexism and homophobia will not be tolerated. Inappropriate comments with sexual themes, disrespectful language or substance relating to someone’s gender or sexual orientation will be removed.

4. Posting or creating FanPosts for the sole purpose of trolling or disrupting the community is not permitted. Posts made for such purposes are subject to deletion without notice. Creating multiple user names for this purpose is not permitted. Persons creating such user names will have those names banned and/or deleted without notice.

Community managers and moderators will determine when posts or community members are trolling. At their discretion, posts or comments will be deleted, and members of the community will be warned or banned.

5. Offensive imagery of any kind is not allowed, including violent, explicit and demeaning imagery.

Frankly, the community at Stampede Blue is not a place for “locker room talk” or any of the accompanying media associated with it. This should go hand-in-hand with gender, sexual, racial, or religious themed posts. No matter how witty or ironic a member of the community might find a GIF or image, if it violates the community guidelines it will not be tolerated.

6. Comments, FanPosts or usernames that make light of serious crime of any kind; specifically domestic violence, DUI, sexual assault.

Self-explanatory.

7. Comments, FanPosts or usernames that make light of any physical, mental, behavioral or psychological disorder.

Attempts to shame or put down others, particularly ones that try to tear down someone due to physical, mental, or psychological conditions will not be tolerated.

8. Excessive profanity is not permitted. Different SB Nation sites have different guidelines regarding profanity -- i.e., some do not allow it at all -- but across all of our communities, please keep use of profanity within reason.

While the use of profanity will be tolerated in moderation, repetitive and unnecessary use of profanity will not. This includes those members of the community who demonstrate an inability to utilize a broader subset of the English language on a regular basis and those members of the community who go on profanity laced rants. If you would feel uncomfortable saying or hearing the substance of a discussion when you are out for dinner, you should probably not have that discussion on Stampede Blue.

9. Posts created for the sole purpose of advertising or other commercial purposes will be deleted without notice.

Self-explanatory.

10. The sharing of illegal game streams is not allowed. Legal streams (via NBC Sports, WatchESPN, etc.) can be shared freely, but links to or requests for illegal, pirated streams are not allowed.

I realize that not all members of the community have access to watching games due to location or other factors. All I ask is that any illegal game stream sharing go on via channels other than the comments on Stampede Blue. I suspect there is an entire subset of Reddit devoted to sharing this kind of information.

11. The “first post” rule: if you break any of the above guidelines in your first post at the site, it likely means that you are creating an account just to disrupt the community, and that won’t be tolerated. We will ban your account, and you can reach out to us via email if you believe there was a misunderstanding.

This really shouldn’t be an issue. Anyone who creates an account and immediately violates the community guidelines is likely not going to be a fit for Stampede Blue.

I want to be very clear that the intent of bringing up the community guidelines and our expectations is not to make any of our current members feel that they are no longer welcome. We don’t want to turn the site into a place where fun, joking, and reasonable jabs are not allowed. We do want to make it clear that there will be a new expectation and we will do our best to reasonably communicate it to those who are walking on the wrong side of the line.

If you have any questions about this policy, please feel free to reach out to me and I would be very happy to answer any questions.

*** Regarding issues that walk a line between politics and football, we suggest that you err on the side of keeping the discussion about football policies, procedures, and practices. Turning a football discussion into a purely political one and having it out with one another regarding politics — or any other topic contained in guideline one above — will not be tolerated.

There are plenty of places where politically motivated discussions are welcome and appropriate. Stampede Blue is devoted to football, specifically Indianapolis Colts football, and that is where we intend to keep the focus. Those who are unable to keep that focus, will not be welcome here for long. ***