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BroncosBoard Rules and Guidelines

The main purpose of BroncosBoard is to provide a place for Broncos fans to discuss all things Denver Broncos. First and foremost, it is meant to be a friendly, safe place. For most of us, for most of the time, those two sentences are sufficient in helping us set expectations regarding behavior. But, we’re human. As such, we can be complicated.

For those complicated times, the following is a general list of rules and guidelines required for maintaining posting privileges here.

  1. Be civil: Most of us don’t need to be told to be civil. And most of us don’t need to be told how to be civil. But, let’s face it, civility can be subjective – especially when it’s protected behind the assumed anonymity of the Internet. Yet, in spite of the diversity of our backgrounds, most of us recognize when we are being uncivil.

  2. As it pertains to this forum, there are two things to remember regarding civility. First, posting here is a privilege, not a right; second, our moderators shouldn’t have to spell out the definition of civility.

    Govern yourselves, so our moderators don’t have to be placed in the position to do it for you. Isolated incidents are always going to occur. There may be repercussions for them; but they are unlikely to be severe. Willful and frequent incivility will result in harsher consequences. Those consequences might include permanently losing posting privileges on the board.

  3. Use your head: This is sort of an extension of the first rule. As mentioned, most of us know when our actions have crossed lines. Wherever possible, moderators will use specific guidelines in keeping the community friendly and safe. They will try to avoid decisions that might be considered arbitrary. But moderating can be a complicated, thankless job. At some point, moderators will have to carefully and subjectively consider the circumstances behind an infraction. One of the questions moderators should never have to ask you is, “Really – you thought that would be a good idea?”

  4. Avoid personal attacks: Argue and debate your position as much as you would like. Just do so without personally attacking the person with whom you are arguing. Do not call them names. Do not “cleverly” adjust their name or board moniker to something intended to insult them. Do not bring their family into any argument or insult – ever! “Family smack” is something that will quickly and consistently inspire repercussions. This concept is an extension of the two listed above (“Be civil,” and “use your head).

  5. In regards to this, one of the most effective tools at your disposal is the Ignore feature. With this tool, you can take any other poster, and effectively silence them. If someone bothers you to the point that you aren’t able to interact with them without breaking board rules, you can simply place them on ignore. This prevents them from directly communicating with you. If you need instructions regarding how this can be accomplished, talk with a moderator.

  6. Inappropriate content: Avoid vulgarity, and posting anything that could be considered pornographic. This forum intends to be a “safe for work” environment. It also intends to be, within reason, a “safe for family” environment. Use your best judgement as to what those things might entail. A good standard to follow is, “Would this be allowed by the FCC on primetime, network television?” Generally, if the answer is no, it won’t be allowed here.

  7. Violent, hateful, racist, and bigoted content: Violence or threats of violence, hate speech, racism, and bigotry are not permitted anywhere on this site. We don’t need to explain what these terms entail. Posters will be given an extremely short leash with any infractions that fall into this category.

  8. Doxing: Do not disclose any information about another person that that person has not voluntarily disclosed about themselves. At this stage in the evolution of the Internet, this rule should be one about which we are all familiar. This is also a zero‐tolerance policy – posters will not get a chance to violate it twice. Just don’t do it, ever.

  9. Fans of opposing teams: Our goal is to be a friendly environment for fans of all teams. We welcome lively discussion regarding your favorite team, and look forward to illustrating how said team is inferior to the Denver Broncos. That said, you are asked to follow the same rules as our regular posters. As is the case with them, your participation here is a privilege, rather than a right. Please don’t proverbially come into our home, and immediately put your feet on our decorative pillows.

  10. Editing and deleting content: In the event that any of the aforementioned rules are broken, moderators may choose to edit your posts, as an alternative to disciplining you with a subforum or sitewide ban. This decision is at the moderator’s discretion. Understand that we are sensitive about editing posts, and have no desire to edit a post to materially alter the intent of the post - unless the intent of the post so violates the site's Terms of Service, editing it simply becomes impossible. In that case, a post may be edited down to basically nothing, with a brief message from the moderator who edited it.

  11. Posts may be edited for serious reasons such as the deliberate or inadvertent sharing of a poster’s private information or identity, offensive language intended to incite conflict (especially when such language involves race, sexual orientation, religious preference, etc), and name calling. Or it can be edited for more trivial reasons, such as correcting a grammatical or spelling error in a topic title.

  12. One account per poster: Do not create duplicate accounts for purposes such as circumventing moderator action, or posting content you aren’t comfortable posting from your main account. Verified duplicate accounts will be deactivated, at the moderators’ discretion. If you are caught posting content from an alternate account, it had better be clever and entertaining.

  13. Spam: This forum is not the place to sell your stuff, unless it has been authorized by the board administrator or moderators. Accounts made for the purpose of spamming will be immediately and permanently deleted.

  14. Fake news: Purposefully starting threads with false or misleading headlines is not allowed in this forum.

  15. Deleting content: As a general rule, once you have posted something on BroncosBoard, you should assume that it will permanently remain on BroncosBoard. One of the phrases with which we’ve all become familiar is, “The Internet is forever.” It is no different here.

  16. That is not to say that posts can never be deleted. In many cases, you’ll find that you are able to delete regrettable posts you might have made in the past. You will, however, never be able to delete another poster’s content. That includes situations in which another poster has quoted one of your posts; or replied to a thread, in which your post is the first post in the thread. The best advice is to post wisely.

  17. Original content: When referencing content or material created by someone other than yourself, make certain proper credit is provided (including a link, where appropriate, to the source of the content or material).

  18. Respect our moderators: Moderators are volunteers who devote their time and resources to making this an enjoyable environment. Treat them with appropriate respect. Among other things, this means abiding by their actions and directives. It also means approaching them privately, through private messaging, when questioning or criticizing said actions and directives. Keep in mind that first and foremost, they are posters at BroncosBoard. As such, they will express opinions that are completely independent of their responsibilities as moderators. So, you should feel comfortable treating them as any other poster 90% of the time. It will usually be abundantly clear when they are required to “shift into moderator mode” and provide directives or feedback. “Use your head” is applicable advice, as it pertains to this.

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