Hello, fellow Brew Hoopers! If you’ve been following the site for a while, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed a few changes around the place, especially as we’ve welcomed new members of our staff. This announcement serves as a collection of more changes we’re planning on making, as well as an open forum for you to request any changes you would like to see. Without further ado, here’s what what’s going on:
New Addition to the Brew Hoop Staff!
Say hello to Gabe Stoltz, everybody! If you don’t already know him, Gabe has been covering the Bucks as an editor at the UWM Post (big ups to the Panthers!), and is also active covering the Milwaukee Brewers at Disciples of Uecker. Give Gabe a follow on Twitter at @Stoltzy3, and welcome him to the team!
Separating Previews and Game Threads
As our community has grown, game threads have become increasingly popular hangout spots. Which is fantastic. I’m incredibly proud of the relationships that have developed here #online, and only want them to continue. However, from a practical standpoint, joining a thread that’s designed to take place during the game is daunting when the thread is at 200+ comments already. This also presents some challenges when moderating, since many posters use game threads in a different way than they do game previews, and sometimes miscommunications have a way of escalating.
That being said, the easiest solution is to simply publish the existing Preview earlier, and the actual Game Thread roughly 20 minutes before the scheduled tip-off. SBNation has improved our editorial tools enough that this should be relatively easy to pull off, and we believe it will be a better experience for the community overall.
Requiring Community Policing, aka Use the Flag Tool!
With growth comes growing pains, and sometimes those pains means that something needs to change. Our staff has done their best to be responsive to community members that need a nudge in the right direction (or towards the exit), but combing through a constantly growing comment thread is sometimes a tall order.
We are going to continue to do our best to nip problem posters in the bud, but we are putting the onus on you, the community, to use the tools that are available to you. Especially if you are a member of the community that is getting treated in a way that doesn’t meet the SB Nation Community Guidelines, let us do what we’re here to do!
“But I want to just handle this myself!” some of you might proclaim. And that’s exactly the type of dynamic we want to prevent, namely because nobody wants to read a 20-post bicker-fest where it’s just two (or three) posters going at each other. The key to having the mods leave you alone is this simple rule: Focus on the post, not the poster. If you’re using the word “you” a lot, that might be a bad sign.
To that end, we’re going to be more willing to work with the tools we have available. This means that warnings will decrease, and short-term bans will increase. We want this community to be cultivated, which means that if stuff gets stirred up too much, we’ll need to take action. As always, any questions, concerns, or appeals to a ban can be sent to brewhoop AT gmail DOT com.
Off-Topic Posts: Coming Soon!
In our “Meet the Staff” roundtable, the conversations in the comment section were wide-ranging and more in-depth than I may have expected. This is a good thing, and a thing we want to maintain. The plan is for this post to be bimonthly and allow everyone a place to discuss things other than basketball (while falling within the existing Community Guidelines), and we are looking for any suggestions you may have here. The working title for these threads is “Brew Hoop, Etc.” but we’re taking suggestions for that, too.
New: “____ Of The Week” Series
Life moves fast in the NBA, and if you’re not looking, you might miss something. So whether it’s a specific play, a photo, a tweet, or something else entirely, we want to catch it. We’ll take suggestions for what the focus should be on any given week, and hope to keep everyone that much more informed as a result.
Facebook Live: Stay Tuned!
This is more of a teaser than anything; we’ve been working on making some things happen and are excited to share them with you! Be sure to follow us on Facebook if you don’t already!
Anything else?
As always, we want your feedback. Leave a comment, drop us a message on Twitter or via email, and let’s work together to improve this community!