There’s never a single solution that is going to make everyone happy. Every member of the UWDP community is different and there are a wide variety of views on what makes the perfect comment section. No one is necessarily right (although a few people are probably wrong). Different opinions are valid.
Obviously the COVID-19 pandemic would be vastly different if we were still able to have spring football practices. But even in a version of 2020 where we still had Husky sports happening as a distraction there would still be plenty of things going on in the world evoking strong opinions. And some members of the UWDP community would like to discuss it with other members. Meanwhile, some would like to use this space as a sanctuary when that other stuff is so prevalent everywhere else in the world.
In general our site policy has been that if you wanted to discuss non-sports related content that it should happen in the comments of a Dots article (and preferably one that has had a chance to run its course of sports discussion). When we’re in the middle of football and/or basketball season and there are at least 2 non-Dots articles being released most days that leaves plenty of other comments content for those not interested in other topics to consume. Right now we’re not able to hit those daily marks for content.
That means dots are going to be the primary way most members of the community engage with one another until we get to a point where football practice are happening again. Even in a scenario where fall sports happen as scheduled that gives us another 4 months. We’ll continue to put out non-Dots content but if every other Dots thread quickly becomes a political shouting match that’s untenable for a lot of people.
That’s been compounded by the fact that all of our primary moderators work in jobs that have become busier with the COVID-19 pandemic. I personally haven’t had the time to regularly moderate every single thread and considered it unfair to take much of a heavy handed mod approach if I can’t do it on a consistent basis. Enforcing the rules for only half of the commenters leads to very justified questions about motivations even if the simple answer is almost always I saw one comment right away but not another.
For the most part the Friday dots articles have become the forum for off topic discussions over the last 3 weeks. That’s not a problem as long as that precedent is officially set and everyone knows the ground rules. So let’s set some ground rules.
We will be creating a weekly out of bounds thread on a trial basis. If you want to have a discussion about the current administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, that forum is for you. However, that does not exempt you from general SB Nation community guidelines. There are still no personal attacks allowed. You can not be racist, sexist, or display other forms of discrimination. This is not Youtube comments. If we have to delete every other comment because people are not able to help themselves then it will lead to warnings, bannings, and a blanket policy deleting any kind of out of bounds topics from the site. That’s not what anyone wants...well, maybe a few people. But not what most want.
On normal content I recognize that it’s impossible to avoid all talk of COVID-19. The #1 question on almost all of our minds are when will we be able to have sports come back and that is entirely dependent upon the COVID-19 response. That’s been part of the difficulty of determining what constitutes an acceptable comment.
Unfortunately it’s impossible to provide a perfectly clear level of detail in laying out what is and isn’t allowed. There’s going to have to be some degree of the I know pornography when I see it definition at work.
If you post an official CDC or Public Health COVID-19 article or link in a dots post with the intention of providing information that helps keep the UWDP community safe then that will be okay. If you plan on responding to that with anything other than Thanks there’s a good chance your reply is going to get deleted. I do work in healthcare. If you post a link about COVID-19 that is definitively not true or intentionally misleading I’m considering it a safety risk and it’s going to axed no matter what thread it is on.
If a comment thread is addressing the question of “when will we have sports back?” and your response is going to call out political individuals by name then it probably isn’t going to remain for very long. Obviously the answer to that question is entirely dependent on how the country and the world continues to react over the next several months but if your reply in no way ties things back to the original sports-centric premise then it’s in choppy waters.
Everyone is adjusting to the new reality in all walks of life. This site is no different. If this compromise is completely ineffective then we’ll try something else. But we want to try to keep as many members of our community engaged as possible and right now this seems like the best way to do that.
If you have feedback you’re welcome to share it below or reach out to me directly at maxvroom_uwdp@yahoo.com. Thanks.