Pinstripe Alley’s Community Guidelines

Hello, Pinstripe Alley readers! The staff and I wanted to thank you for spending another successful season with us. In many ways, it’s you, the commenters, that make the site. I couldn’t imagine PSA without our vigorous discussions, debates, and game threads.

With the season in the rearview, however, I find it a good time to introduce the PSA Community Guidelines. Longtime readers and commenters know we’ve been hard at work crafting these. We sought feedback from our community, and we thank everyone who provided input. These are for you, after all.

First, please direct your attention to the SB Nation Community Guidelines. This page represents the baseline of the site’s moderation policy. These rules also apply network-wide, not just at PSA. I like to keep it bookmarked for handy reference, and I recommend you do the same.

With the general policies in place, we now introduce site-specific rules.

• Pinstripe Alley is a community for all varieties of Yankees fans. We welcome both the old-school and analytically driven fans. There is no wrong way to be a Yankees fan, so therefore we do not expect anyone to dismiss another’s fandom. Please do not make comments such as “You must not be a baseball fan” or “Then you’re not a real Yankees fan” in your discussions.
• Please no politics or political discussions or references of any sort.
• One-word replies are fine in moderation. Occasionally a comment or story merits a single-word reply. Use these sparingly, however, as we encourage more robust conversations. We also will be on the lookout for one-word replies that are dismissive in nature.
• On a related note, the PSA staff spends a lot of time producing free content for our readers. There’s no need to dismiss the author’s hard work. “Fake news”, “boring”, and “pointless story” are among the unnecessary comments. If you didn’t enjoy a story or if it didn’t interest you, just move along.
• The same goes for comments along the lines of “I didn’t read the post, but...”.
• It’s okay to speak poorly of the Yankees. There will be times when the team deserves it. Even when things are going well, the contrary opinion is fine. We just ask that you keep things in perspective, though. Going overboard on the negativity, especially when the bigger picture shows a good team, is whiney.
• On the other hand, there’s no need to constantly point out others’ negativity. Self-righteous comments don’t add any more to the conversation as the complaining comments do. This all goes back to there not being one way to fan.
• Try to back up your posts with facts. A player’s statistics are just a click away at FanGraphs. Your arguments will carry more weight when they’re grounded in cold, hard facts. Just yelling “Austin Romine is a better catcher because Gary Sanchez is lazy” without substantiating it leads to some unproductive conversations.
• Always cite your sources. Sometimes when leaving a comment or writing a FanPost, you will want to draw upon another author’s work. In that case, make sure you are properly attributing credit. Use quotes and always link back to the original story. It’s helpful to also indicate the author’s name and publication.
• Alternate or burner accounts are not allowed. Our moderators can tell, and they will be banned on the spot.
• Leave the moderating to the moderators. If you see something that violates the guidelines, flag it. There’s no need to jump in and say that a person will be banned or that it’s against the rules. Flag the post, avoid engaging, and carry on.

The PSA staff reserves the right to update these guidelines. In the event we do, we will make announcements in the game/open thread. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section below or by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks everyone!