Lakers Ball Member Rules

We want everyone to be able to come to this website and have a great time talking Lakers Basketball and whatever else they want to discuss. To that end we have some rules in place to help promote healthy discussion and a welcoming atmosphere for all of our members:

1. Do Not Bypass The Swear Filter- Cursing on this site is not prohibited because we have filters in place to curb cursing. You may not however, try to bypass these filters by intentionally misspelling curse words or using symbols in place of letters. Just let the swear filter do it’s work.

2. Excessive Baiting Is Prohibited- Members may not attempt to goad other members by making posts in an attempt to make fun of, ridicule, or incite the anger of another member.

3. Trolling Is Prohibited- Trolling here is defined by a post or topic being all three of the following:
A. Inflammatory
B. Off Topic and or Extraneous
C. Likely to provoke readers into further emotional and off topic responses.

4. Excessive Passive Aggressiveness- Passive Aggressive posts aimed at a member are a form of baiting. If you have something to say to someone, please just say it directly or don’t say it at all.

5. Personal Attacks- Members may not make personal attacks against another member. A personal attack consists of talking about another member rather than that member’s post or an idea they presented, in an attempt to ridicule them personally.

6. Excessive Group Attack- Derisively accusing a member of being a part of a group that they have not claimed to be a part of is prohibited. For example “Kobe jocker”, “Kobe fan”, “Liberal”, or “Conservative”, etc…

7. No Nudity, or Sexual Content- We want this site to be open to anyone to view and inviting for all. Members may not post sexually explicit, posts, videos, images or content of any kind.

8. Spamming- Spamming does nothing but clutter up a forum and make people angry. Members may never spam the website with posts about other websites or forums, web-stores, or even excessively repeated posts. Only approved Lakers Ball affiliates may share a link in their signature to their web-page or store.

9. Disagreement Resolution- Resolve all Member and Staff Problems Via the Conversations feature in the inbox. Members come here for discussions, not to read other people’s arguments.

10. Images and Video Content- Videos with cursing may be posted, but MUST have a warning above regarding the language, and if it has cursing in the title of the video, or still image on the screen, the Image, or video MUST have a warning about the Language and be placed in a Spoiler Tag as well.

11. No illegal file sharing- Lakersball.com does not condone or promote illegal file sharing. Do not post links to illegally downloadable files on this website.

12. Religious and Political Posts- This is a Lakers fan forum. The topics of religion and politics can be a passionately inflammatory topic and aren’t the main thrust of the forum. Due to all of the moderation requirements of politics and religion discussions, we no longer support these discussions on LB. If you'd like to discuss politics or religion with another member, feel free to message them individually.

13. Once a member has been banned, you may not join the site again.

14. Inflammatory language that is determined to be detrimental to the Lakersball.com community is prohibited. NOTE: As fans we understand that our emotions sometimes get the better of us, but this rule includes excessive language wishing death or harm to a member, a player, a team, or any other person, posted in the Game Time section or anywhere else on Lakersball.com.

15. The Highlander rule- There Can Be Only One!: Each member can never have more than one account on Lakersball.com.

16. Gametime Chat Rules Addendum: The game chat is for the overall enjoyment of ALL members. This rule is not meant to stop calling out issues with our team or players. Saying things like Kuz needs to hit that open shot or I don’t like Vogel’s lineup are fine and encouraged. Saying things like Vogel is an idiot, Kuz sucks or clank, clank, clank are not. Please keep in mind the repetitive nature of your comments. Say what you need to say but but don’t repeat it every 5 minutes. The game chat should have the atmosphere of a night out with other Laker fans, looking for a good time. If you were at a nice sports bar/pizza place whatever showing the game, and one fan was saying every 2 minutes that Vogel sucks, KCP is pure trash, we can’t shoot, we deserve to lose this game, we’re gonna lose to the Nets anyway, LeBron is washed, AD isn’t a leader and is soft, well, the crowd would probably eventually tell that person to STFU and go and whine about it at home. Keep that feeling in mind before putting our team on blast and ruining the experience for others.

If a member can’t watch the game, they should be able to tell the general score of the game just by reading the thread, so think of how the game is going and post your comments accordingly. Basically, don’t pull a Donald Sterling and “boo” your own team. It is not productive and ruins the game chat vibe. Again I want to stress, this DOES NOT mean you can’t complain about individual plays. It’s the repetitive nature, the “booing” and the timing of the comments. We know being negative is a somewhat grey area and we have tried our best to define it. If you have a question, please reach out to a Mod for guidance. Any Mod can temporarily or permanently ban any poster from the chat if they feel they are in violation of these rules.

Consequences and Repercussions:
Violations of the rules above will garner either an Unofficial Warning or Official Warning depending on the severity. Unofficial Warnings are a friendly reminder to stay within the rules that do not move a member closer to being banned, however they do mean STOP whatever activity garnered the Unofficial Warning or further action will be enacted. An Official Warning is an indication of the severity of the offense and will move a member closer to being banned. If a member gets 3 Official Warnings within a year’s time of one another they will be banned. Warning s older than a year (365 days) are not counted.

Alternatively if a member violates the rules, to what the staff feels is an extreme violation, staff may decide a ban is an appropriate action before 3 Official Warnings have been handed to the member.

-Barnstable