Community Rules
The Softball Forum is a place for players, parents and guardians, coaches, officials, volunteers, teams, organizations and fans to discuss softball openly and respectfully.
Discussion, disagreement and criticism are welcome. Personal attacks, harassment, threats, knowingly false statements, and reckless serious allegations are not.
1. Be Respectful
Disagree with ideas, decisions and actions without attacking the person.
Harassment, threats, bullying, discriminatory attacks, intimidation, or content whose primary purpose is to humiliate or abuse another person is not permitted.
Strong disagreement or criticism is not automatically a personal attack.
2. Criticism Is Allowed
Members may criticize softball organizations, governing bodies, associations, leagues, teams, tournaments, coaches, officials, policies, rules and decisions.
Content will not be removed simply because it is negative, critical, controversial, embarrassing, unpopular, or disputed by the person or organization being discussed.
No softball organization, team, association, coach, official, administrator, or other individual is exempt from reasonable criticism on The Softball Forum.
3. Separate Facts From Opinions
Members are responsible for what they post.
If something is your opinion, present it as your opinion. If you are making a factual claim, particularly a serious allegation about an identifiable person or organization, have a reasonable factual basis for making it.
Do not knowingly or recklessly present false information, rumours, speculation, or something you heard from another person as established fact.
4. Serious Allegations Require Care
Accusations involving criminal conduct, fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment, discrimination, cheating, or other serious misconduct can significantly affect people's reputations.
Do not make serious allegations recklessly or without a reasonable factual basis. Where appropriate, forum staff may ask you for information supporting a serious factual claim.
If you do not know whether something is true, say that clearly rather than presenting it as a confirmed fact.
5. First-Hand Experiences Are Welcome
You may discuss your own experiences with teams, associations, governing bodies, tournaments, coaches, officials and other parts of the softball community.
When describing a dispute, try to distinguish between:
- what you personally observed;
- what another person told you;
- what documents or records show; and
- your own conclusions or opinions.
6. Support Important Claims When Possible
When discussing controversial decisions or significant factual allegations, members are encouraged to provide reliable supporting information where reasonably possible.
This could include publicly available rules, policies, official decisions, correspondence, meeting records, statistics, schedules, or other relevant documentation that you are permitted to share.
Do not alter, crop, quote, or selectively present material in a way that creates a materially misleading impression.
7. Protect Personal Information
Do not publish private personal information that could create an unreasonable privacy or safety risk.
This includes private home addresses, personal telephone numbers, private email addresses, financial information, medical information, private schedules, or other sensitive identifying information that is not reasonably necessary to the discussion.
8. Extra Care With Youth Athletes
Many softball players discussed on this forum are minors. Treat them accordingly.
Do not bully, ridicule, sexualize, threaten, harass, humiliate, or deliberately target a youth athlete.
Legitimate discussion of player performance, statistics, recruiting, competition, awards and publicly available softball information may be permitted when done appropriately and respectfully.
Remember that the athlete, their teammates and their family may read what you post.
9. Right of Reply and Corrections
People and organizations discussed on The Softball Forum are welcome to participate, respond, provide additional context, and correct information they believe is inaccurate.
A disagreement about facts does not automatically require removal of the original discussion.
Depending on the circumstances, forum staff may encourage a correction, clarification, response, supporting information, or other reasonable way of ensuring readers have appropriate context.
10. Report Problems — Don't Escalate Them
If you believe content violates these rules, use the forum's Report function rather than turning the thread into a personal fight.
When reporting potentially false or defamatory material, identify the specific statement you are challenging and explain why you believe it is inaccurate.
A report does not guarantee that content will be removed. Content is reviewed based on its context, the available information, and the forum's Terms and Rules.
11. Don't Abuse the Report System
Do not repeatedly report posts simply because you disagree with someone's opinion, dislike criticism of yourself or your organization, or want an uncomfortable discussion removed.
Good-faith reports are always welcome, even when moderators ultimately determine that no rule was violated.
12. No Threats, Doxxing, Impersonation or Manipulation
Threats of violence or harm, doxxing, deceptive impersonation, scams, spam, and coordinated manipulation of discussions are prohibited.
Do not create or use multiple accounts to manufacture support for your position, evade moderation, or mislead members about who is participating in a discussion.
13. Moderator Decisions
Moderators consider context when applying these rules. Depending on the circumstances, action may include a reminder, warning, editing or removing specific content, closing a discussion, restricting an account, or other appropriate moderation.
Where a smaller intervention adequately addresses a problem, moderators may choose to address the offending portion rather than remove an entire legitimate discussion.
14. Think Before You Post
You are responsible for what you publish.
Being critical does not violate these rules. Being knowingly or recklessly inaccurate, threatening, harassing, abusive, or invasive of another person's privacy may.
Our goal is not to protect people or organizations from criticism. Our goal is to provide a place where the softball community can have open, useful and responsible discussions.
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