Community Guidelines

Welcome to Japers’ Rink, a community of and for Washington Capitals fans. We don’t have many rules around here, but those that we do have, we enforce – we’re all for hard-hitting discussion, but let’s keep the elbows down and have some fun, shall we?

Free Speech at Japers’ Rink

Japers’ Rink believes strongly in having a vibrant community that respectfully discusses ideas, opinions and events no matter the viewpoint. Users are, in general, free to express their opinions without fear of retribution. The diversity of personalities, beliefs, and styles is appreciated as being part of what makes The Rink strong.

However, Japers’ Rink is a community, and free speech does not mean “the right to say what you want, when you want, how you want,” without being sensitive to, and respectful towards, the community as a whole. In a community, speech is not “free” – it comes with responsibility.

The following are simply not acceptable on Japers’ Rink (excepting, in some cases, for obvious humor between people with an existing rapport); they violate Japers’ Rink’s Community Guidelines, and are subject to sanction as outlined below:

  1. Personal attacks on community members.
  2. Comments that are intolerant or prejudiced (sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.) in nature.
  3. Harassing/baiting of users.
  4. Relentless negativity. What constitutes “relentless negativity”? Constantly complaining without reasoning or proposing solutions. We’re all fans and we all get frustrated when the team doesn’t perform or has bad luck, but regurgitating the same venom over and over again doesn’t help anything or anyone – it just fouls the air, and we’re all better than that. If you continue to do nothing but post negativity, you may lose posting privileges without warning. There’s a difference between someone who aims to point out flaws and be constructive and someone who is destructive. That said, we understand the reality of emotional responses in real-time during a game, for example, and are likely to be a bit more lenient in such cases. Bottom line: the goal is to make this community fun for everyone.
  5. Excessive profanity.
  6. Comments that bring highly inflammatory, non-hockey related topics, onto Japers’ Rink. 
  7. Creating multiple user names for the purpose of trolling or disrupting the community.
  8. Libelous, slanderous or otherwise defamatory statements.
  9. Baseless or unsourced assertions presented as fact.

In addition to those specific types of offenses enumerated above, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that Japers’ Rink is a community designed to encourage the sharing of thoughts, opinions, questions and, above all, meaningful discussion. 

What this means is that readers should ask themselves prior to posting a comment, “Is this going to add something to the specific discussion at hand?” If the answer is no, the comment shouldn’t be posted – comments which may deter from these discussions (or commenting for commenting’s sake) can potentially discourage those who read the site for the analysis and opinion from participating, and so on. 

We do have off-topic posts to recognize and promote the more social aspects of this community and reasonable digressions, and encourage community members to make use of these. While posting off-topic comments may not seem to be as problematic as the ten types of unacceptable comments detailed above, they can actually do more systemic harm to the community and will not be tolerated.

Finally, it’s a requirement that every member have a current email address in his or her SBNation member profile (the email address does not need to be public) and that members respond to emails from moderators and editors. We try to resolve as many disputes as possible informally, but we can only do that if we can communicate with our members. We are far less likely to give the benefit of the doubt to a member has a fake email address in a profile or fails to respond to our emails.

Consequences for Violating the Japers’ Rink Community Guidelines

Violations of Japers’ Rink Community Guidelines will be handled on a case-by-case basis, but, in general, violators can expect one warning followed by a banning for any subsequent violations. Banned users can apply for reinstatement at any point, but the onus will be on the user to explain why s/he should be allowed back into the community.

Disclaimer: These guidelines are intended to help you understand the policies, procedures, and processes generally used by Japers’ Rink. It is entirely at our discretion as to how to interpret and implement these guidelines, which are subject to change at any time without notice.

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