Good Morning Guys, James here. This is going to be a long one but I would advise you all to read it from top to bottom…. First off, thank you for your patience and for those of you who reached out offering concern and appreciation we want to say thank you. Unfortunately, those who have just rolled their eyes during this hiatus are going to have to roll a little longer because on behalf of ILB, Wick and C3 some things are going to get addressed before we move on to the fun stuff. This should have been done a while ago but some of us are blind optimists. There are two regular posters that haven’t been welcomed here in a while and a lot has been made of it at various times. While most of you do not care about this stuff there are enough people who do and have had the wrong idea so it’s getting addressed once and for all. One poster who joined us mostly at night was asked on several occassions not to talk politics here. Not only did he persist but he became resistant and persisted under various screen names and added vulgarity and profanity to his efforts and so after I brought it to everyone’s attention he was blocked. The other poster had several run ins with myself, with ILB and with Wicky. He had been in and out of participation for a while and approached ILB and I in March/April of 2020 demanding we allow politcal and world event coverage discussion on the blog. We simply weren’t willing to do it and he made his own decision to leave for a while. Upon coming back he was posting what we as a group felt were inflamatory remarks trying to get a rise out of some of us. He was posting the same comments word for word at the Athletic and after considering his history here and persistence in contributing little other than fires that had to be put out, it was agreed upon that we would block him. Since then someone (or more than one someone) has been coming onto the blog with various IP addresses and usernames posting questionable comments at times. They or someone else have been posting at the Athletic under Wicky’s username and it’s been going on for weeks now. People who attempt to cause chaos and want to make this blog about more than hockey are just not welcomed here. So he’s going to stay blocked.
Speaking as someone who has been here since the Same Weinman blog days, I can tell you I think it sucks any time it comes to having to prevent someone from participating. Despite what you may think none of us want to prevent people from contributing or make this community any smaller after years of seeing good knowledgable fans leave. To address one more concern that someone had- Yes, there are four of us for a small blog community but that’s because while we post often, none of us have the ability to maintain, moderate, update etc on a regular basis or around the clock and this is the type of garbage we deal with behind the scenes. No one is looking to rule with an iron fist. But this is the stuff that goes on and there are only so many efficient ways to deal with it other than not giving a damn. And unless you live under a rock, you know by now that ILB had open heart surgery several weeks back and needs time and support before he’s 100% again. While he’s asked that I don’t make this all about him (Doctor Modesty as usual)I will just say that none of you have any idea how important this place is to him (or us) or the things he does to keep it going for all of us. The rest of us are here to reduce his stress while discussing the team we love. So even if you aren’t our biggest fans, you should consider giving him the respect of accepting our roles.
From now on there are going to be a couple of changes. There isn’t going to be any more public issues made of things. If there is a problem or someone wants to discuss something that they’re unhappy about, they can email us or ask to be emailed and it will be sorted out one on one or with all of us at once. We will not have outbursts or comments that “poke” at people taking place for everyone to see or deal with anymore- especially in the midst of days that should spark great conversation. Politics, profanity (written or linked from social media), personal attacks- it’s not getting tolerated nor will we partake in any of it ourselves. If you take that as some kind of freakish control thing or authoritarian effort then it’s unfortunate and I would suggest focusing on hockey talk to move on from your disgust. But I promise you, if you bring it to the comment section you’re going to get blocked until it’s worked out the right way. There’s a time and a place for some of that stuff but it’s not here and certainly not now. Finally, we decided that the comment section will be closed overnight to prevent a lot of the drivel and from any of us having to play catch up from the night before. Still ironing out the time but assume for now that it’ll close up around midnight and re-open around 6am. Speaking as someone that loves this place, I hope you are all willing to help us keep it alive by preventing this type of thing from happening again.
Now…Ryan Reaves is a Ranger, Chytil is making 2.3 million per and Smith-Deangelo is a defensive pair in Carolina. Plus Drury’s offer to Buffalo for Eichel is weak. Let the chaos ensue…
