So I hope everybody is enjoying themselves here at the new home of Blogging the Blue & Silver Boys Report. Eh, that title is a little unwieldy, no? We're just staying with Blogging The Boys but I want everybody coming over from the Blue & Silver Report to feel at home and get to mingling with some of the regulars here. I'm very excited about what this merger of blogs can bring to Cowboys fans, hopefully it will coincide with a renewed product on the football field and we can all celebrate a championship at the end of the season. Hey, you gotta believe, right?
As some of you have already noted, BTB and BSR had different styles in approaching the blogging game. Rafael and I believe that mixing the two together will produce one super blog and will freshen up both blogs with new views and perspectives, as well as bringing together two great groups of Cowboys fans.
For anybody who hasn't read this blog before, or just occasionally, I think you'll find we got a lot of good content with Brandon and Tuna Helper helping me out. Now, with Rafael and Raul adding in some more, there should be something here for everybody's tastes.
Here comes the part when Grizz preaches and the regulars groan but I got to do it.
Let me go over a few basic guidelines that we operate under here at BTB and from what Rafael has told me they shouldn't be that different. There are a few items that we don't do at BTB, and that's politics or religion. One; they're not about football, two; they usually lead to outrageous flame-wars and three; there are thousands of places on the Net for discussion of those things, so we take a pass here. Another thing is profanity; even though in real-life I can curse with the best of them - ask Rafael, or Shango, or DCFanatic - on the blog I like to keep it civil. So please limit yourself to the occasional damn or hell, but please refrain from dropping f-bombs and s-bombs and a lot of the other choice profanities.
The regulars know I can be a stick-in-the-mud about these issues, but I just really want a blog where we talk Cowboys football, and the NFL in general, and we try to do it in a - shall we say - grown-up manner. No two people agree on everything and some people never agree on anything but all of that disagreeing can be done while not showing blatant disrespect. This is something I believe strongly in, that discussion and argument over sports is a great past-time, but there's no reason to it can be done in a friendly way. I like to say question the message but not the messenger. Personal insults and attacks are not a good way to get that done. Don't feel personally insulted if a comment of yours is deleted - I will delete comments that go over the line - I'm just trying to keep our little neighborhood from becoming something like the old Fort-Worth Star Telegram board became, what a train wreck that turned into. If you find yourself typing things like "You're an idiot" or "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard" try to re-think your post. Disagreeing with the idea is cool; calling people dumb, stupid, clueless or similar stuff gets boring pretty quick and usually becomes a long thread of two guys fighting while the rest of us are wondering why they're wasting our time.
Here is the end of my sermon and not a moment too soon. Back to the features of the blog.
You'll notice on the right-hand side we got things called Fan Posts and FanShots. That's where everybody can start their own discussion. FanPosts are generally used for breaking news or a substantive write-up on a Cowboys subject. If you check some of them out you'll get the idea. You can also recommend any of them you really like and they get elevated to the top and stay on the page longer. FanShots are more for off-topic stuff, quick links to a video or an article, posting a quote or other quick-hit topics.
Below a lot of the posts you'll see icons for Yahoo Buzz, Digg and Facebook. If you read something you like, you can recommend it to readers of those networks just by clicking the icons. We'd love for good content to get linked up at other places so click them if you like something you read. Some other quick notes, on the left-hand side you can subscribe to the RSS feed, there's also a blogroll for all SB Nation sites, and there's an icon to get the narrow or wide display of the blog. Also, there is a platform for mobile BTB at mobile.bloggingtheboys.com. You'll also see links for schedules, stats, rosters and other stuff at the top. The comments auto-refresh is you leave the thread open so on game day threads you don't have to re-load the browser.
OK, I rambled on for long enough but I just wanted to welcome all the new members and try to help you settle in. If you have any questions, just ask and someone will help you out.
Again, I want to say how excited I am about having Rafael and Raul on board and how great it is to see all the new members who are already joining in the conversation.
One final thing - can we get a win over the Deadskins this week? We really need it. Go Cowboys.
- Grizz