As Bleacher Report’s resident Community Coordinator, I deal with comment threads on a daily basis. I felt like it was time to share some of my thoughts on how to be an effective commenter, as well as an upstanding B/R member.

When most people join B/R, they quickly appreciate the camaraderie in the comment threads where everyone loves the same team…and players…and like-minded fans agree…and everything is peachy.

Then a rival fan, a troll, or someone who just wants to cause trouble shows up—and the conversation shifts away from sports and onto who is the bigger d-bag.

Proper commenting is beneficial because name-calling and flaming weaken credibility and can hold our community back. 

If everyone is making personal attacks in a comment thread, no one is going to want to join that community.

So we can all get on the same page, I wanted to lay out some information for our fan-experts on what is and what is not acceptable commenting etiquette.

People are allowed to not like your team

This is probably the biggest misunderstanding on Bleacher Report. Writers who are new to the community are put off when an opposing fan jumps on their article and says something to the effect of “your team sucks because blah blah blah blah.” They flag this comment as offensive because in their eyes, any insult to their team is offensive.

However, on the Open Source Sports Network you are allowed to express your dislike or even your passionate hate of a team as long as you do so with out using profanity or personally attacking the writer.

You might hate the Yankees, but remember: the writer (probably) doesn’t play for the Yankees. So no need to personally attack them. Which brings me to my next point…

Personal Attacks versus Debating

Despite popular belief, there is a difference. First, let me explain what constitutes a personal attack.

A personal attack involves insulting the member you’re debating with in some derogatory way. As soon as you drop a “moron,” “idiot,” or “dumbass,” you have personally attacked someone.

Now I know we all feel very passionately about our respective teams and players, but if you drop an insult on another user, you open yourself up to having your entire comment deleted.

Name-calling and talking about someone’s mom is not only immature, but it also detracts from the credibility of your argument.

Now I’m not saying you can’t disagree—quite the opposite. Intelligent debate

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?