Hello. You may know me from such blogs as Sox Machine and the comments section of South Side Sox.
Now I'm the new managing editor of South Side Sox, receiving the torch from The Cheat, and you'll be pleased to know that I have no interest in turning SSS into the next BCB.
What I do have an interest in is making South Side Sox authoritative, starting at the top. I work for a newspaper, and so I adhere to almost all the same standards, save the staunchest ones that conflict with a blog's purpose. It's all in a goal to make South Side Sox the definitive destination for White Sox information, analysis and discussion.
Alas, that will come at a cost for some people here, so I may as well get the bad stuff out of the way first, taking cues from my favorite detergent.
I am disrespectful to dirt!! Can you see that I am serious?
I don't expect the community to be nearly as stringent as I will be in my writing, because that wouldn't be fun. But as Larry has suggested, we will be ushering in new standards. Many changes are due to SBNation's requirements, and some are mine. For instance, I'm the one that asked for Orlando Cabrera to say goodbye, due to my job. I don't think it'd do me much good to condone making fun of the families of my peers. These are the types of things one has to consider when their name is on the site.
I also have an interest in increasing the amount of regulars, and from what I and others have heard over the years, that includes making it more safe for work and less clubby. South Side Sox is known for having an extremely smart and discriminating forum, but it comes with qualifiers -- "once you get to know everybody," or "they don't mean most of what they say," or "as long as your boss can't see your monitor."
(As somebody whose work desk has no walls, I have plenty of experience with that last one.)
I'd like the only qualifier to be, "You better be able to back up your arguments."
This is no place for loafers.
It will be a transition in every sense of the word. In fact, I'll be providing content to both South Side Sox and Sox Machine on an alternate-day schedule through mid-January to tie up my own loose ends (and I have established a schedule for other contributors to fill in those gaps). But I'm joining the fray now in hopes that I'll clarify the direction of the site, let you know who the new management is, and where I am coming from.
And when my transition is complete, I hope whatever sacrifices you're making on your end will be made up by the writing and organization I'll provide. Basically, my philosophy in running Sox Machine -- and now South Side Sox -- is making reliability a priority. That means giving you something new to read every day, giving you more information than mainstream outlets supply, and providing people a forum that they can visit and participate in at any time. I want to give the new South Side Sox that backbone while keeping the same quality of Sox debate and expanding the community.
Join me or die. Can you do any less?
That means importing most of the same standards I use at Sox Machine. I never spelled them out because I never had to, but I have to here, so I will.
Here are the new standards. Read the whole thing, but among the key things to take away from it:
- We'll be directing the completely off-topic conversation to general-interest posts on the right rail.
- No sexy lady pictures.
- No slurs.
Obviously, it'll take time for people to get used to these changes, and so moderation will be directly stated reminders in place of stern warnings or banhammers in the early going. Unless somebody is unabashedly breaking rules out of protest.
Hopefully this helps explain some of the rules that Larry and the other moderators (WU, Tdogg, e-gus) have been referring to over the past couple weeks. And if you have any other questions/concerns, I'll do my best to address them. Better to get the formal stuff out of the way now so we can get on to the fun-having.