Our BtB community is different from any team-specific community you might already be a part of.  Our goal, instead of supporting a favorite team, is to support the intelligent discussion of baseball.

Different communities develop different cultures.  The best way to learn our culture is to hang around and observe.  Do not assume we understand the jokes, tone, and assumptions you carry over from other blogs.  We suggest missing on the safe side with comments until you know us and we know you.

Here are some rules of thumb to make the BtB community the best it can be, for everybody:

Keep an open mind.  You are going to be wrong sometimes.  Instead of defending your point of view incessantly, just move on, and maybe even admit you're wrong.  That's a great way to earn the respect of other users, by the way.

You can disagree with everything and everyone, as long as you don't make it personal and you back up your arguments with logic.  Logic does not include excessive capitals, ad hominem attacks, cliches, or quotes from ESPN "experts".

We like numbers.  Love 'em, in fact.  If you are not familiar with sabermetrics, we encourage you to stick around and learn something.  If you disagree with an argument made using statistics, make sure you understand the methodology before disagreeing with the results.  Asking questions is a great way to advance both the discussion and your understanding of sabermetrics.  We also realize that numbers aren't perfect and are always looking to improve them.

Keep the language and photos PG.  Sure, we've heard and seen it all, but most comments that rely on colorful language aren't worth posting anyway.  We are especially intolerant of ignorance -- racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.

We love user-generated content.  We welcome links to any and all articles you think are worth discussing, including your own, via FanShots.  Use FanPosts for any in-depth content that doesn't make sense as a comment in someone else's article.

Use proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization.  We don't police this one much, but using them will give your comments more credibility.  Paragraphs are your friend.

Keep the pictures small.  Simply add the code <img src="imagesource" height="Ypx" width="Xpx"> to make sure they don't get too big (change X and Y).  Preview your comments and always use a post title so that people can hide them if they choose.

No political or religious discussions.  We actually think politics and religion should be discussed more often in the U.S., but those topics always tends to degenerate into mindless drivel, and people actually get more worked up about them than baseball.  We've got enough on our hands with America's past time.

Use the reply button.  Nested comments are awesome and keep the discussion organized.

Get an avatar.  They make the site look pretty.

We love sarcasm.  But if you use it, don't blame others when they don't pick up on it.

These ground rules are meant as guidelines only.  Although we tend to be fairly hands-off as moderators, decisions about conduct and banning are entirely at our discretion, and the ground rules above may or may not apply to those decisions. We may suspend a user's account any time we find that, in our judgment, it will make the site more enjoyable, more successful, and more fan-friendly overall.  Usually, although not always, we will explain to a user why their contributions aren't meshing with the site's philosophy before taking any official measures.

If you have ANY questions about the items on this list, please e-mail one of the authors.