The Rules
- Be civil and considerate of other comment posters.
- Disruptive, offensive or abusive behavior is outlawed.
- Comments that are adjudged to have the intent of deliberately provoking an extreme or negative reaction, may be removed at our discretion.
- Harassment, defamatory remarks, abuse, threatening behaviour, harmful, obscene, sexually oriented, homophobic, racially offensive or any objectionable material, will not be tolerated.
- All spam will be removed. That includes repeat posting of comments.
- “Some” off topic comments will be removed at our discretion. See guidelines.
- Do not knowingly post false information eg: lineups, goal shouts, tweets etc.
- Do not use comments to appeal for votes or followers.
- Do not seek to start discussions about other users, particularly with regards to their identities, accounts or status on the site.
- Do no post in ALL CAPS or use TXT SPK or L33T SP33K – It is hard to read and is annoying for others.
- Do not overuse or spam emoticons.
- Do not attempt to post ascii art.
- Do not contest moderation in public. “Why was my thread deleted?” comments will, guess what, be deleted. See the guidelines for details on how to raise an issue.
- No advertising, promoting or research for commercial purposes without permission.
- No posting of protected members content.
- Comments must not interfere with the intellectual property rights or confidential information of others. This includes live football streams.
- URL’s posted in comments must be relevant. Posting more than two URLs in a comment will find you marked as potential spam – avoid it.
- Comments must be posted in English.
- No impersonation or multiple accounts without permission.
- No inappropriate display names or profile biographies.
- No inappropriate Gravatars. We reserve the right to request a change of Gravatar should this be the case.
The Guidelines
Do Not Feed the Trolls
If someone posts a comment designed to provoke a reaction or “wind up” our community, we may delete it and all the replies to it. This will mean that all your hard work arguing against the troll will be in vain. Just report it if it’s particularly offensive, and let us do the rest. We’ll often either remove the comment or lock the conversation to kill it dead.
Use your vote wisely
Please use the comment voting sensibly. A typical up vote would be for a post you feel makes a valuable contribution to the community. Up voting good posts also helps the community and our volunteers find interesting posts more easily through the ‘discussion rating’ search filter in posts. Any abuse of voting may lead to voting and commenting rights being removed, especially during busy periods such as matchdays.
Be interesting
A high level of up votes for your comments will boost your reputation score and make your comments more visible. They will also attract the eyes of our moderation team who can ‘sticky’ comments to boost them up a page, or make them ‘hot topics’ where they will be flagged up in a separate index box.
Be Patient
Please be patient. Fantasy Football Scout attracts visitors of all ages, with varying degree of experience and knowledge. Please do not presume knowledge or react aggressively to those less knowledgeable.
Be Respectful
Discrimination against whole groups will be treated in the same way as we deal with bullies. We will remove any posts that discriminate about sex, race, religion, sexuality, disability or political persuasion. We can’t prove that someone is racist. That is almost impossible. But we can prove that someone is using words that are racially discriminatory and those words will be removed.
Be Vigilant
If you see a comment that seriously breaches our community rules then you should alert an admin or moderator. Use the “Report” function to bring such comments to our attention – specifying the reason for your report.
Bullying will not be tolerated
Bullying is wrong at school, at work and Fantasy Football Scout’s community. Anyone deliberately targeting another user through their comment posts may be placed under moderation.
Don’t Stray Too Far Off Topic
Sometimes discussions on popular culture – music, films, TV etc can help build personalities and relationships on the site. More often than not, although off topic, we’ll let those discussions develop to a certain extent. However, topics such as politics, religion and current affairs that may well develop into potentially heated debates will be viewed dimly and often locked and/or removed. Similarly, bizarre or flippant off topic discussions may well be removed. This may be objective, but what we say goes.
Don’t discuss other users
It’s very rare that discussion of another user is anything but dull or uninteresting for anyone but a very small minority. Such discussions can also lead to negativity, claims of bullying and generally upset the atmosphere. Think of new users coming to the site viewing long discussions about another poster – it’s hardly welcoming and suggests that Fantasy Football Scout is an unfriendly place. We won’t allow this so, if we see comments of this nature, more often or not, they will be removed.
Be yourself
Multiple accounts and impersonating other users with fake accounts are not allowed. Under exceptional circumstances, we will allow some users to run more than one account and post comments – these users will have gained permission to do so. All accounts must be registered with a valid personal email address that you access regularly. Accounts registered with someone else’s email address, or with temporary email addresses may be closed without notice.
Do not argue with us
We make the rules and we’ll impose them accordingly. You may not always agree with decisions made but admins and moderators won’t be drawn into discussions or disputes on the site. We will remove such comments and even moderate your account if you continue to argue your point. If you’ve got an issue with the treatment of your comments, then drop us a line at community@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk and we’ll take it from there.
Hey, isn’t this censorship? What happened to freedom of speech?
If you search hard enough, you’ll find plenty of places on the internet where you can express yourself freely without rules. At Fantasy Football Scout, we try to keep the discussion on the site informative, free flowing and fun for visitors new and old. We will remove or moderate any comment or post that we feel is harmful to that endeavor. Sometimes, your comment may be removed because it is connected to another comment which is being removed – we hope you can appreciate the motive behind such a decision. In a nutshell the admins and moderators have the final say on what’s permitted according to the rules above.
But Mr X posted the same kind of comment two weeks ago?
While we will do all we can to show consistency, the fact is, we’re a team of admins and moderators and we’re only human. One moderator may have a different view on the nature of comment to another – what one will find amusing, another may find particularly unfunny, perhaps even offensive.
While we’ll try to be consistent, they’ll be times when our decisions may not seem fair. In addition, while some users may be given the benefit of the doubt when they first overstep the mark, repeat offenders who continue to break the rules or push the boundaries may have to be treated differently due to the reaction that their comments creates. If you’ve built a particularly negative reputation in the community, your comments will likely draw a stronger reaction and therefore be treated more harshly by admins and moderators. We will only manage such a situation and tolerate the disruption it may cause for a limited period. Such users who continue to post content that we consider is designed to draw a negative reaction or down voting from the community will face moderation of their account.
As we’ve mentioned, if you think you have a case for complaint, by all means drop us a line at community@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk and we’ll take a look at things, revising our rules and policies if need be.
How come I’m being moderated?
Users that contravene the site posting guidelines will find their posts removed and perhaps even their account put under full moderation and even deleted. Fantasy Football Scout reserves the right to remove posting privileges from any account at any time – we may also edit reputation levels, freeze reputation and edit or remove your ability to vote or comment. In general, we will endeavour to issue warnings via email before a user account is moderated, however, in the instance of severe transgressions, actions may be taken without any prior warning.