Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct

Welcome to the Extra Point, the Official Fan Forum of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. This Forum is hosted by the Winnipeg Football Club for its fans.

The goal of this Fan Forum is to be held in an enjoyable and productive manner. In order to uphold and maintain the expectations of the Football Club (Staff and Moderators), we have outlined and defined a code of conduct for the benefit of the members. In return of your free membership privileges, we request that you familiarize yourselves with the policies and accept them with good intention.

Please keep in mind that different message boards have different sets of rules. Compliance with these rules and guidelines is not optional. Ignorance of the rules will not be considered a viable excuse for a violation of the code of conduct. Your first responsibility of membership is to read, understand and abide by the code of conduct.

There are three fan forums within The Extra Point. The Blue Bomber Discussion Forum is exclusively for discussions directly related to the Winnipeg Blue Bomber football organization. Discussions not related directly to the Blue Bombers will be moved to the appropriate forum.

The CFL forum contains topics related to the CFL in general and other teams in the CFL.

The Offside Forum is for all other discussion topics.

Communication across message boards is different from face-to-face interaction, in which only the words are seen, not your facial expressions or tone of voice. Please be aware of how you use (type) your words.

Remember that the words you enter in a burst of passion or indignant anger will be there for you and other members to see, often long after those intense feelings have subsided. While we are not discouraging spontaneity and emotion, we do ask you to recognize the long-term affects of the content that you post.

While debating and discussing is acceptable, we will not tolerate abusive speech, harassment, personal attacks, purposeless or inflammatory postings, or posting misinformation in the title of a thread. There will be no flexibility in our policy.

You may find that you do not always agree with someone else's opinion. At those times, please remember that it's safer and more polite to take issue with the comments than with the person. While free debate within the outlined parameters is encouraged, and diversity of opinion is what fuels a good debate, each member is entitled to his own opinion, so long as it is expressed in a civil manner and does not violate the code of conduct. Please recognize the difference between attacking an opinion and attacking another member personally.

Due to the number of members participating and the high volume of traffic, it is impossible for us to view every posted message. Therefore, our staff has empowered the general membership with the ability to assist our staff by calling potential violations to our attention.

By becoming a member of the Extra Point, you agree to abide by the code of conduct as follows:

Please be respectful of your fellow members. Every registered member agrees upon registration not to use these forums to post material or topics which are knowingly false, defamatory, deceptive, inaccurate, racist, insulting, abusive, inflammatory, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually graphic or lewd, physically threatening, invasive of another's privacy or otherwise in violation of any law, including stalking or otherwise harassing individual members. If you respond to abusive speech (see above) with abusive speech, you lose your right to seek moderator intervention.

Criticism of the Blue Bombers is allowed; personal attacks are not. While we expect some members may post criticism of the Blue Bombers, and The Winnipeg Football Club we will not tolerate personal attacks towards these individuals. While you may attack the football-related actions or decisions of an individual, you may not attack the individual themselves. The Ownership, Coaches, Player and Staff should be accorded the same respect that the members are accorded. The privacy and private lives of players, coaches and management will be protected at all times. Refrain from posting unfounded or unofficial information about Blue Bomber players, management or coaches including unsupported rumors about players being deleted from the roster through cuts and/or trades. Such posts will be removed from the forum.

Please do not attempt to avoid the profanity filters. Veiled profanity is unacceptable. Please do not type around the filter by using dollar signs for an S or any similar method. The use of terms like 'F-in', 'OMFG', 'F this', or other abbreviations is considered just another form of avoiding the filters.

Please avoid political and religious discussions. In order to avoid argument, if it is not directly related to the Blue Bombers, do not discuss political, religious or off-topic issues. This forum is dedicated to the Blue Bombers and related issues. While we support the right of free speech, our forums are not here to support political parties or their initiatives, individual politicians, or any religious affiliation. We reserve the right to remove all posts that violate this policy without notice.

Please refrain from posting meaningless threads. Very short (one-word) or nonsense posts do not add value to the topic. For example, only the words, 'I dunno,' or 'lol cool,' is considered spam. Please put some thought into your contribution to the discussion.

Please delete double posts. A double post constitutes back-to-back posts by the same member. If you inadvertently submit an extra posting, or realize that you have made a mistake or would like to elaborate further, please delete the extra post or edit the original post, rather than creating a new one.

Do not "hijack" discussions, that is, do not post comments that change or alter the Subject of the thread. Such posts are subject to removal.

Private Messages (PM) are private and intended only for the person or persons to who the message is directed. Theses messages must not be reproduced on the forums or shared with others.

Spamming and advertising is strictly prohibited. Any and all advertising, chain letters, pyramid schemes, solicitation, spamming and trolling is inappropriate and unacceptable on any of our forums. Do no post messages that are inflammatory and serve solely to incite other members. Do not post messages soliciting prayers, donations, or participation in foundations, charities or other organizations. Threads with the intention to 'call out' another member on personal matters and/or private vendettas are not allowed.

Please post your message in the appropriate forum. As a member, you should familiarize yourself with each forum description before making a post. Please be considerate and respectful to the members who frequent particular forums to gain knowledge on particular topics. Resist the temptation to post irrelevant topics on a forum to achieve a wider audience. Moderators reserve the right to move your post if it is more relevant in another forum. Postings that impede communication or disrupt discussions will be removed.

When posting media articles, an appropriate topic subject should be inserted in the Subject line (where a new thread is created) and in the body of the post the poster can copy the first 2 or 3 lines of the article followed by the on line link. Please avoid posting an entire article as it takes up considerable space on the forum.

Please do not discuss illegal activities on our forums. Any material or posting that advocates or discusses illegal activities, with or without the intent to commit them, is prohibited. This includes activities such as software and music piracy, and other intellectual property violations. All postings should obey copyright laws. If a member cites articles or information from other sources or areas of the internet, a URL should be posted with no more than a small portion of the article's text. Such a practice provides credibility and attribution to the source of the information. Legally, the article copied from a website belongs to that particular website and pasting the full text in a posting is an infringement of copyright laws.

Post politely. REFRAIN FROM POSTING IN ALL CAPS. On the internet, posting in all capital letters is considered shouting, and therefore deemed rude and offensive. Overuse of capital letters also creates a strain on the eyesight, and makes it difficult to read text. Excessive shouting will be deleted and repeat offenders will lose their membership privileges.

Explicit picture in posts and/or signatures is strictly forbidden. Neither explicit nor implicit content will be tolerated and will be grounds for an immediate loss of your membership privileges. This includes hardcore/softcore pornography, animated pictures, written language, etc. content. Please recognize that these message boards are designed to be enjoyed by Bomber Fans from all walks of life. Use discretion and plan on erring on the side of caution in instances where material you are considering posting might be considered a violation of the code of conduct. Political and/or religious messages should also not be included in your signature. Remember that respect for your fellow members is the first rule of the code of conduct and that the majority of our traffic occurs during work, in public environments, and could be made by individuals under 18 years old. This rule is strictly enforced.

Please respect image size limitations and only post images that are appropriate and of interest. Maintaining the size limitations of every image that is posted not only helps the load time of each page of the site, but also reduces the amount of scrolling necessary for members to read and respond to various threads on a page. Acceptable image extensions are: gif, jpeg, jpg, swf, and png. Avatar uploads should not exceed 100px x 100px and 15kb. Signatures should not exceed 550px x 200px, or 200kb. These dimensions are not suggestions; the system will reject all images that are over the size limitations. Once again, please consider that images slow down the site and should not be posted unless absolutely appropriate and necessary.

Each member is allowed one registered account. Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed and all duplicate accounts will be immediately closed. Do not attempt to create additional registered accounts to bypass an issued ban; else all related accounts will be permanently closed as well.

Use discretion in selecting an appropriate username. Lying about your identity, either by denying that you are an existing member under a different name or by impersonating a member of the Blue Bombers organization, a member or official of any other Canadian Football League organization or another forum member is prohibited. Registration of user names of actual Blue Bomber or other CFL front office, coaches, players, staff or media is not allowed. If you are not Mike Kelly you may not register that as your user name or any other name that implies you may be that person, such as Mkelly09, MiltS85, or Reid32. Please also refrain from registering inappropriate user names, including, but not limited to, racial slurs, profanity and explicit or implicit vulgarity, else your membership will be revoked.

Adhere to the advice and recommendation made to you by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Official Forums Staff and Moderators. Moderators are appointed because they exemplify the characteristics, attitude and values consistent with the standards set for the site. They have been instructed to enforce the code of conduct and prevent the forums from clutter, while encouraging free expression, debate and discussion. While the Blue Bombers do allow for a wide range of discussion, please refrain from unfounded charges of censorship or other moderator actions against a member on the grounds that the content was not of his opinion. Content will never be removed based on our own personal views of the validity of the opinion. As a member, you are entitled to form an opinion in opposition of those at the Blue Bombers; however, it must not violate the code of conduct. We reserve the right to remove posts in violation without notice.

We also reserve the right to take action, up to and including permanent closure of the account, against any member who does not abide by the code of conduct. While the code of conduct covers most common situations, we reserve the right to take any action we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused and continue to facilitate discussion amongst members.

We reserve the right to amend the code of conduct at any time, without notice. Any and all changes to the rules will be posted, and all members are expected to read posted announcements and abide by the changes. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse for breaking them.

The code of conduct has been implemented with the best interest of the community in mind. We thank you for your attention and cooperation in learning and respecting the rules, and we look forward to your participation on the boards.