Here at The Sonic Stadium, we frequently invite you – our readers – to contribute your thoughts when news of any variety comes to light. We love seeing the enthusiasm and excitement of this fanbase whenever a new trailer drops, or when new gameplay comes to light, or even when just a single new piece of concept art appears. Community is an extremely important aspect of not only the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, but also of TSS. It should extend a welcoming, friendly and respectful atmosphere to both veterans and newcomers alike. We believe this should be reflected in our comment section. Sadly however, this has not been the case recently.
Since the Summer, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the comment section of new articles, and we’ve noticed some increasingly poor behaviour. Disrespectful attitudes, aggressive/abusive language and personal attacks have been on the rise as of late, and not only are they completely clogging up the comment section, they often end up discussing topics completely unrelated to the articles they’re commenting on. We’ve also seen cases of people spamming the comments box, having full blown conversations with themselves, and in some cases, people going into articles which are days if not weeks old to continue arguments. The Staff firmly believes this kind of behaviour is unacceptable here, and simply contributes to an uninviting (and quite frankly, embarrassing) reflection of the community, despite it being a minority of users.
In response, we’ve decided that we’re going to collectively crack down on the comment section of articles, and make it a nicer place for everyone to be a part of. This will include the following;
- The removal of comments that partake in the behaviour listed above.
- Emailed warnings to those who continue to act in this way will likely follow this.
- An eventual IP block, which will ban repeat offenders from making further comments on the site.
This will become effective immediately, and we will be emailing warnings/IP blocking those who have, in recent weeks, been encouraging the unacceptable behaviour which has brought this announcement on.
And remember – you can help us out too. Instead of responding and indirectly encouraging those who create this poor environment for us all, instead simply report them to us at the contact@sonicstadium.org email. Give us the link to the article in question and the name of the offender in your email so that the Staff can deal with the issue quickly and efficiently. Help us to make this a community and discussion platform we all feel welcome in.
Thank you!