I have been, in the past, EXTREMELY harsh on newcomers to this board. I blame that partly on myself being such an a-hole, but mostly I blame the newcomers for being stupid. This is not always their fault. Sometimes they are just misguided. Sometimes they are just new to the online community experience, and don't know how to integrate themselves with the membership. So being that I am one of those most outspoken condemners of n00b toolbaggery, I thought it would be gracious of me, and a noble public service, if I were to write out a simple guide for new posters to follow during their early stay at SECTalk.

I thought for ease, I'd break it down into some easy Do's and Don'ts.

DO:

Introduce yourself. You don't have to tell us what you do for a living or how much you make (lets face it, your life probably sucks anyway, and the ridiculous garbage you're going to make up to make yourself sound cooler is going to get busted by experienced BS detectors around here anyway) but just saying "Hey, whats up guys? New to the board, I'm a huge ____ fan, looking forward to being involved here" is always appreciated.

Read many discussions before posting. Get an idea for the format. See whats being discussed and the manner in which topics are being responded to. Take note of the guys that are getting reamed for being assclowns. See their pain. Observe their misery. Keep that in your mind while typing up your next response.

Offer your own opinion in a well thought out way, being respectful to others and try to sound objective, at least somewhat. If you want to be a homer (like me) then just know that you will be called out for it, you will have to defend yourself, and unless your skin is as thick as the armor on an Abrams battle tank, you will find yourself in a name calling spat that will end up with you getting a nasty note in your private messages from an administrator.

Befriend your fellow fans quickly. If you become well-liked by fans of your team, who are already respected members of the forum, they will come to your aid, should you find yourself under a barrage of attacks from the clowns from other schools. Think of it like being in prison, except you don't have to do us any of those "favors" to buy our protection. Just be a cool cat. You'll come to appreciate this when you are feeling overwhelmed by the argument you are in, and the big guns come in to bail you out. We've been here awhile, we know how to shut these people up.

DON'T:

Attack an entire fan base. This is the quickest way to ensure that you will never be able to post again without being mercilessly flamed. When you attack a fan base indiscriminately, you light a giant metaphorical neon sign above your head that says "I'M LOOKING FOR A FIGHT." And you will get it. The entire fan base on the board will declare war on you and make sure that you can never have a nice discussion on the board again without being tormented. Furthermore, often if you insult a fan base, you will not only vilify yourself to them, but possibly another teams fan base, that may hate the team you insulted less than they hate your team. (for instance, a Bama fan insulting Georgia fans, thus drawing the ire of Georgia fans, but also Tennessee fans looking for a reason to hate you as well). You may force an alliance of board members against you, and then you might as well wave the white flag, because they're going to neg rep you into oblivion. What is rep? I'm glad you asked....

Attack a poster with 80 bajillion green bars under his name. This is called "rep." Or, reputation (duh, n00b). Reputation is earned when other posters think highly of your post, and give you rep points. The more positive rep you receive, the more green bars you will get, as well as rep power (the weight that your rep giving power carries in the point system). The flip side to this is if they think your post really sucks, they can hit you with negative rep, and send you backwards, and if you've got more negative rep than positive, you're bars will display as red. This is bad. Because if everyone see's you have red bars, everyone will know you are an ass, and avoid taking you seriously. SO, how do you avoid getting neg rep? Take note of who you are about to call "idiot," "butthead," "stupid leg-humper," "gayturd," "dumb bammer," etc... and look at the rep power under his username. If he has way more rep than you, DO NOT F*** with him. He will neg rep you, and send you into the red. And guess what else? He has friends. They will neg rep you too. By the end of the day it will be a merciless melee of neg repping fury, and you will be yet another poor casualty in the war on douchebaggery.

Make up false stories about receiving threats. Namely, stories about Bama fans threatening to beat you up unless you bought them Nachos. (Inside joke, stick around and you will come to know it and love it). Just remember, don't lie. Somebody will call you out. You will be in the proverbial stocks while everyone stands around and laughs at you, throwing cabbage, radishes and rudabegas (metaphorically speaking). This will result in neg rep (see previous paragraph).

Make your own fan base look bad, because the established members of that fan base WILL throw you under the bus and abandon you in your hour of need. In order to save face, sacrifices will be made, and you will be offered up as fresh meat to the (gators, cocks, tide, whoever you pissed off) and it will be open season on your n00b ass. If you have already become liked by your fellow fans though (see DO's) they will instead likely take you under their wing and guide you so that you do not make the same mistakes again.

Don't get started by linking to some other website or blog. Example: "Hey everyone, I'm _______. I love the _______. Check out my blog at www.Imadumbazz.com." We're the "hardcorest" fans out here, so if it's worth a dang, we've probably already heard about it or read it anyway.

Say anything good about the PAC-10 or Big-10 other than that they have nice weather (and a really hot chick known as "pole vault girl") in California. While homerism is generally looked down on here, the rules go out the window when it comes to talking about the SEC as a whole. You will find that we would gladly go to war (literally, in our army surplus camo and hunting rifles) with the rest of the country if it meant getting one of our teams into the National Title game over an overrated Ohio State. Oh how we hate Ohio State. Except this one guy named KillerNut, he's cool. Don't be a dick to him.

The same goes for Notre Dame.


I'm D^3, and I approved this message.