First and foremost, a word of gratitude to all those regulars out there who have made this community what it is. The only real challenge we face when moderating comes from outside sources. You guys are great.

With that said, everyone and especially new people should have a look at the subreddit rules.

Just a few other things to go over:

/u/bepeacock runs our subreddit's slack channel. If you wish to join, have a look at our sidebar for instructions. He is also planning to purge the group of inactive members, so you might want to jump on there pretty soon if you don't want to be sent to the gulag. If your account is deactivated, just message /u/bepeacock to get back in.

This season we're going to have what we're calling a "weekly hype thread". This post will be made once a week on Rangers days off, or if they don't have a day off they'll be made either on Mondays or Thursdays. Once a week only, even if we happen upon a rare week with two off days.

The purpose of these threads is for people to share stuff that isn't team news. Examples are ballpark questions, memes, memorabilia, discussion of other sports, or whatever. All of those things are welcome in the comments of any post, but a weekly thread will be there, too.

/r/TxRangersExperience isn't going anywhere, but not many people have ever used it. That, of course, could change if...people start using it. If you do it will get a CSS facelift and all that.

Also a reminder that the subreddit has a Ballpark Visitor's Guide, which I've been told has been a pretty valuable resource to some people. This thing can be edited by anybody, and we urge you guys to have a look and keep it up to date, improve its readability, and just add your own thoughts and opinions. Add a whole new section if you like. We'll make another post about this in a few weeks, but feel free to get started now.

By default, karma scores will not be hidden. At their discretion moderators may choose to engage that feature on a temporary basis if people complain about mass downvoting. Mass downvoting is a form of trolling. The people who do it want to see you complain about it, so ignore it instead of giving them the feedback they want.

Lastly I'd like to highlight a couple of subreddit rules. One, NO POLITICS. It's just a divisive topic that we do not need here. Reddit is full of places dedicated to discussing it, and we even have a politics channel on Slack. But not in the subreddit...not ever. Not in any shape or form. You will not be banned for bringing up political stuff unless you do it all the time or something, but these comments will be removed.

Treat each other as decent human beings. Baseball is a great talking sport and it lends itself to arguments. That's fun and encouraged, but don't let those arguments go over the line by calling people names and stuff like that. The season is long and has plenty of ups and downs as it is...we don't need personal drama added to it.

Please exercise extreme discretion if you choose to visit another team's subreddit. Trolling our rivals may result in a ban here. If you stir a bunch of people up in their own house, at least one or two of them are going to come over here and make trouble. We will do our best to avoid that nonsense.

We encourage you to report trolls and other rule violations. Reports are anonymous, and they help us out (especially when we're getting 1000 comments on a game thread). If you're not sure if something is spam or violates another rule, report it anyway and we'll sort it out.

I think that's about it. Have fun this season and GO RANGERS!