College Football Die Hard Gray Ghost recently published an article which offers advice for garnering recognition within Bleacher Report’s College Football Community.

Upon reading the piece, it’s clear these tips apply to the Bleacher Report Community as a whole, not just College Football.  To all of you aspiring Bleacher Creatures who want to know how to earn their stripes, trust me when I say that this is a must read.

I wrote a post a while back—which was followed up by an even better one by resident Creature Robert Spain—about the Bleacher Report Community’s internal methods of dealing with bashers.

Since the content on Bleacher Report tends to be opinionated and provocative by nature, sometimes you’ll find profane comments and personal attacks courtesy of insecure, anonymous users at the bottom of the articles. The best defense we had until now from the bashers were the attitudes adapted by our community of sports freaks and aspiring writers, who bonded together in the threads over the principles of competitive camaraderie, fan-journalism, and good ol’ freedom of the press.

However the Bleacher Report community now has another tool at its disposal which it can use to fight the flamers: comment flagging.

Yes, comment flagging has finally arrived on Bleacher Report, courtesy of Axel Molina, one our superstar web developers. Now members of the community have an actionable way of reporting an inappropriate comment within seconds—and will no longer have to resort to sending an email to the admins when comments run afoul of good taste.

Instead, they can click “flag” next to the comment and immediately go back to doing what they do best: debating sports with like-minded people.

Moving forward, feel free to flag wherever you deem appropriate—or rather, inappropriate—over the next few weeks. With your help, we can set the precedent for what will and won’t fly in the Bleacher Report comment threads.

On our end, we’ll make sure that the flagging system gets rid of the truly obscene, profane, and distasteful, while also making sure not to censor comments that get flagged for the wrong reasons (ie, because the flagger disagrees with the flaggee’s opinion).

Thanks as always to the Bleacher Creatures for fending off the flamers with the tools at their disposal, and finding ways to turn negative comments into positive community building experiences.

And most of all, thank you to the anonymous bashers. (Yes, I’m serious).

Through all of your unwarranted criticism, immature personal attacks, gratuitous profanity, and inability to grasp the English language, you have helped take our community to new heights.

When the expert fan-journalists at Bleacher Report encounter attacks of this nature, they grow closer as a community and develop a thick skin. Even the worst of the worst flaming hasn’t stopped our members from planting the roots for the greatest sports network the world has ever seen.

Now flamers will become even more of a non-issue on the Open Source Sports Network. Flamers, if you’re reading: maybe it’s time to take your business to another site…or here’s a better idea: find a craft you love and work at it, rather than wasting your time criticizing those who do.

Game on flamers.

Bleacher Creature Robert H. Spain offers some advice for writers in coping with personal attacks in response to their articles.

If you’re going to publish anything (online, magazine print, or newspaper), it’s inevitable (Team America reference anyone?) that there are going to be people who are going disagree with you, and that’s fine. But, it’s those “bashers” that really seem to get on everyone’s nerves—the people who leave comments that are intended to attack rather than debate or discuss the issue at hand.

Lately, I’ve come across some emails and comments that were intended to attack me and my articles. Ahh, yes, the bashers have struck again.

Anyways, in light of the recent situation, here are some tips to avoid these bashings as best as possible:

1. Remember that your Bleacher Report articles will show up on GoogleNews searches alongside articles from New York Times, ESPN.com, Chicago Tribune, etc. If you are writing with this thought in mind, you will probably be less likely to offend certain people, and more likely to be more professional and unbiased.
2. It’s not unlikely that links to your articles will be posted (without you even knowing) on forums and message boards. That was the case with my recent bashers who each ran across my article on a popular online forum. So, needless to say, keep in mind that entire communities (other than Bleacher Report’s) might be discussing your article’s topic without you even being there to represent your thoughts and ideas. Keeping this in mind will help you to fully get your point(s) across as clearly as possible in your article. Because, after all, those might be the only words that you get to explain your view on the topic at hand.
3. Try not to give potential bashers ammo. It’s one thing to offer your opinion, but throwing the first punch is a good way to attract a wave of bashers who want to throw punches right back at you. Unfortunately, this is a fight you will not win—regardless of how many responses and punches you are willing to throw back.
4. Research research research. I try to pride myself on doing extensive research for my articles. A misspelled name, school, arena, etc will be a surefire way to make certain fans upset. Sometimes, though, there is no research to be found on specific issues. Which leads us to tips on dealing with bashers…

In one of my articles, I mentioned Clemson as an example of a terrible time of “storming the field” after their non-upset win over Florida State. Since the whole premise of the article was to look at this fad of rushing onto the field regardless of upsets, I felt that using the Clemson example was legitimate. Needless to say, after about two hours of being published, there were already 10-15 comments claiming that Clemson is proud to call that a tradition of theirs—storming the field after every home football game, that is. There was no way for me to research this, and I had never heard of this Clemson tradition (and according to several emails I received, ESPN’s College GameDay made the same mistake I did). So, here are some tips to take from my Clemson fiasco and how I dealt with the situation:

1. In cases where you clearly were wrong (misspelled name, or my Clemson scenario), write a retraction. Often times you will earn respect for admitting your mistake.
2. Think about rewording the article. While I did make some changes to the Clemson article, that was an exception. Just because someone is sending attacking comments or emails doesn’t mean you automatically need to rephrase yourself. Each situation is different, so make sure you aren’t just giving in to the pressure. If you feel that your article is correct as is—keep it that way.
3. I try not to respond to bashers (it wasn’t always that way—it’s something I adopted). If bashers leave comments under my article, I will allow my article to explain my views. Engaging in arguments will only give bashers what they want—attention and a fight. Like I said earlier, this is one fight you can’t win. If someone wants to debate the issue, that’s one thing…but name calling and verbal attacks are another. If someone sends a calm email explaining themselves and why they took offense to the article, I will probably respond. But I certainly will not reward bashers/hate mail with my time and effort responding.

So, in closing, remember that the best of the best will have bashers. Even Peter Gammons has people who disagree with him and want to get into shouting matches. If you make an effort to try and avoid these situations, you’ll probably be better off in the longrun. And, when those bashers do come knocking, remember to always try to take the high road.

Feel free to send me hate mail and bashings regarding this blog post.

-R.H.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to discuss the issue of profanity and flaming on Bleacher Report.

When people get the opportunity to broadcast their opinions freely on an open platform, there are inevitably going to be some folks who abuse the system. While many will use an open source sports network to further their aspirations as a blogger, aspiring journalist, or die-hard fan, there are always a few jerks out there that will instead use it as a means of dealing with their emotional problems.

Everyone’s got to have an outlet for their anger, after all—and I guess for some, coming onto a site where a community of opinionated sports fans is engaging in stimulating conversation seems like a ripe opportunity to unleash their inner demons. The mindset of the flamer is as follows: by ruining everyone’s good time, I can get one step closer to feeling good inside.

At some point in time, all websites of Bleacher Report’s nature come to a crossroads where a decision must be reached regarding how to deal with such people.

On the most basic level, there are two options to choose from: let the conversation progress as is, or intervene.

Option one sounds nice in theory. It would work perfectly fine if our members weren’t hyper sensitive about their work, and could remember the “sticks and stones” adage when a poster said something cruel.

But that’s simply not the case. We have a lot of aspiring writers at Bleacher Report that need to be encouraged and praised, and they like to see positive comments on their articles—not a bunch of flamers telling them to look into another career (and obviously not in those words).

Thus, we can’t just “let the conversation progress as is.” Intervention is necessary.

However within the umbrella of “intervention” itself, there are a few different roads you can go down.

Back in the days of our concept site, we simply deleted comments we personally felt were inappropriate. This seemed to be an adequate solution at the time—as in addition to being easily doable on our end, it essentially deprived the flamers of what they wanted the most.

What flamers are looking for more than anything is attention—and if people can’t see their comments, they can’t respond to them either.

However there’s an enormous fundamental problem with this kind of intervention. What the policy requires in actuality is for Bleacher Report’s internal staff to be the gatekeepers of what stays and what goes. And that doesn’t really fall into line with the whole “open source network” thing very well.

No matter which way you cut it, the “gatekeepers” approach is censorship—and censorship amounts to nothing more than one individual or collection of individuals judging someone else’s work and imposing restrictions on it. If you read the Bleacher Report Manifesto, I think you’ll see our view on avoiding policies that establish a “party line” that members are expected to follow.

As the network has expanded, we’ve had to change our policies in this regard to more accurately reflect the principles the site was founded upon . Now, comments are only deleted upon the outspoken request of a member of the site—or in instances where racism, sexism, or other forms of blatant discrimination or profanity rear their ugly head.

But something I’ve started to notice recently is that an “unofficial” policy towards flamers has begun to develop within our community. And that unofficial policy has, in my estimation, ended up being one of our most effective community building tools to date.

So now, when people ask me: “how do you handle profanity?” I’m starting to answer with our unofficial community policy rather than with our more formal company policy of deleting comments upon request.

When you’re a sports fanatic who wants nothing more than to talk about last night’s game, flamers are your enemy. Even if you totally disagree with what a writer said in a given article, seeing someone come in and try to bring down the overall value of the discussion is highly counterproductive to your ultimate goal.

What we’re seeing more and more at Bleacher Report is members of the network allying themselves as genuine sports fans—against obnoxious, immature flamers.

The Bleacher Creatures ally themselves by sticking up for one another—even if they disagree with each other’s opinions on a given issue. Furthermore, network members have found clever ways to make flamers feel unwanted, embarrassed, and ultimately more insecure than they were when they entered the discussion in the first place. This only brings the members of the site closer together, as they see the flamers cowering away from their failed mission with their tail between their legs.

Victory belongs to the Bleacher Report, and the debate goes on.

For example:

by Anonymous from about 6 hours ago

DJ

Here’s another good one:

by Anonymous from 1 day ago

1) I question whether or not you actually read the article above. Did you understand that I was making the same point that you just did in your “hate letter” towards me? USC lost ONE game! I’m with you on that one. So how about reading the actual article before you go off on how “hollow” my work is.
2) If you decide that you want to continue judging other people’s writing style even though you clearly haven’t learned how to use punctuation - sign up for an account for yourself. You can learn a little about grammar and english, as well as put your name with all of your bashings. That would be a joy, wouldn’t it?
3) Again, you make absolutely no sense. I understand *what* you’re trying to say, but I still find it quite ironic that you claim my “articles are hollow and not even that smart” when your type of writing doesn’t exactly fit the bill for greatness itself. Seriously, read up on a book or two before you decide to walk to your local library and pay 10 cents to access the internet just to write two poorly strung together sentences directed towards me, or anyone else.

In addition to defending his work, Robert H is essentially sticking up for the integrity of the site as a whole here. He’s a great example of someone who cares about the user experience and feels passionately about fostering an atmosphere where talented writers feel free to speak their mind. Check out what he wrote on fellow member Ben Bussard’s bulletin board:

by Robert H.
22 days ago

Hey Ben, I liked your recent UF Swamp Alert article. Also noticed the one article that had 100,000 comments, or shall I say ignorant hate mail. Just wanted to let you know even without being able to read the article that I’ve got your back (even though youre a gators fan). Almost all of those comments were uncalled for. I would love the chance to read the article for myself, merely out of interest, now that I have seen all of the comments. Keep up the good writing man, and don’t get too happy about UF’s win over my Vols - basketball season is just around the corner, hah.

Gotta love that Robert H. You’ll be hearing more about him in a future post when I (finally!) begin revealing our next generation of Bleacher Creatures.

Going forward, we’re going to be implementing a flagging system for inappropriate comments. We feel this is the most effective way to deal with the problem, as essentially users are making the decisions as to which comments stay and which ones go, while administrators are carrying out their orders.

And that’s the way it ought to be on an open source sports network.

In the meantime though, I trust in the Bleacher Creatures to stick together and keep the flamers in their place.