You’ll find a vibrant and growing community of smart, enthusiastic people at PBRML. Our goal is to foster conversations that are helpful, informative, and fun. I very much would like you to help us do just that, so here are some guidelines for how to participate — either on our site or off-site on other platforms that PBRML manages.
THE SHORT VERSION
I’m so glad you’re here! I hope you will help create great conversations in our community.
Do politely ask us questions and let us know what you like and don’t like about a specific article or video, or the ideas I talk about in it.
Don’t be a jerk, call people jerks, or react to jerks.
Respect and help the moderators. I’m just one human working hard to make things better.
RULES OF THE ROAD
Here are things that will get your comment or post removed and possibly get you banned. Note that this is not a comprehensive list. Moderators reserve the right to remove anything they deem inappropriate.
- Respect: Don’t be a jerk, or you will be removed.
- Personal attacks: Don’t attack or insult another user. It’s not helpful and it doesn’t make PBRML a friendly place.
- Spam: Do not spam. if you aren’t sure if it’s spam, it’s spam. Don’t post links to your store, field, big game, video, tournament, sale, website, etc. You will be removed without warning.
- Sales: No sales of any kind. Do not list items for sale. No “Want to buy” or “In search of” posts.
- Advertising: This is not the place to sell your stuff. Do not post links advertising a paintball store, paintball fields, sales, etc. Do post about paintball events like big games, tournaments, scenarios, etc.
- Doxxing: Don’t reveal someone else’s personal information.
- Illegal activities: Posting links to illegal downloads, ways to steal service, or other nefarious activity is not OK.
- NSFW material: Nope. Even images or links that could be considered borderline are not acceptable. A good rule of thumb is that anything beyond PG-13 will get you in trouble, but I reserve the right to remove any post I deem offensive. This goes for pornographic material, vile language, gore, and generally gross stuff.
- Racism, sexism, and other discrimination: Attacking entire classes of people is just like attacking a single person: I’ll ban you for it.
- Trolling: ”Trolling” is a big, messy term, but I know what trolls are and I won’t tolerate it. If you’re abusing the good conversations here at PBRML, I will take your comments and posts down. This includes taking a thread off-topic, by the way.
- Multiple accounts and throwaway emails: I don’t allow multiple accounts per user. Using a disposable email address signals to us that you might not be here for the right reasons. You also may not create accounts designed to impersonate another person.
Above all, our team of moderators works to keep the conversation here friendly, engaging, helpful, and productive. If I feel a comment or forum post is harming that endeavor, I’ll take action.
See any of the above? You can help us out by flagging (more on that below). Any comments that are a reply to spammy/inappropriate/trolling comments will also be deleted with the original comment, so don’t reply — just flag!
ISN’T THIS CENSORSHIP?
No and yes. I’m trying to foster great conversation and I will remove comments that harm that endeavor. You’re free to say whatever you like other places, but not here. At PBRML I have a different standard than the rest of the internet, working very hard to keep the conversation informative and fun. The bottom line is that the editors and moderators have the final say on whether it fits within our community guidelines.
MODERATION
I’m happy to have a discussion with you about it — in private. I’ve found from long and hard experience that public complaints about moderation just leads to people trying to “game” the system. If you have a question about moderation, hit me on the contact form and we’ll have a talk. If there’s a big policy change or something I would like to say publicly about moderation, I’ll post it in the main PBRML facebook group and update this document.
Helping out our moderators: Moderators work very, very hard with your best interests at heart. Please help them out by flagging inappropriate comments and take heed when they ask you to change your behavior. Note that all moderators are volunteers freely dedicating their time to help make things better. They don’t speak for PBRML but deserve your gratitude.
Moderators can do anything they like.
Brad can do anything they like.