Tidbit of the Week

[Boone]

When my brother was a young Marine Lt. stationed in Beirut, he was summoned to a big Battalion Ops meeting where they were issuing orders on some operation they were about to embark on. As the grizzled Battalion Commander wrapped up the mission orders, he asked if anyone had any questions. My brother chose this moment to raise his hand and say 'excuse me sir, wouldn't it be better if we *insert inexperienced alternative plan here*'. The Colonel let my brother finish his suggestion. Then loudly announced 'Well thank you Lt. Jeffries, you are one helpful mother****er'!

Brutal.

Anyway, I want to be one helpful Mother****er, so I'll be issuing one little tidbit here every week to make your BGO experience easier and/or more enjoyable.

This week, I want to point out to you the little lightning bolt in the upper right hand corner of every page. That's the 'New Posts' button. If you want to see every new post in a nice condensed list regardless of what forum it was posted in and without having to open up individual forums, the lightning bolt is your friend.

 

[Boone]

Our BGO 'Moods' feature is a fun way to express your personality in your 'Post Bit' - the box that shows up on the left with every post you make. In this post, my 'mood' is 'Ambassador of Quan'. You can change your mood from hundreds available as many times as you want, whenever you want. The 'moods' feature is only available to premium members. You can activate premium membership by joining the Joe Gibbs Club from our 'Donate' page.

Have a 'mood' you'd like added to our library? You can ask us to add it in the Moods Feature thread here.

 

[Boone]

This week's 'Tidbit' is to let you know about our 'BGO App' which allows you to install an icon on your phone and receive push notifications like you do with other social media applications. Even if you do not desire to receive push notifications about new posts, messages, or news, the BGO App gives you the optimum viewing experience for BGO on your portable devices. I highly recommend you install it and give it a try. Instructions are located in the thread below:


Welcome to the BGO App!

 

[Boone]

Ever notice some threads and posts have a

burning flame next to them? That is a quick way of letting you know it's one of our busiest/hottest current threads or posts - and that members are giving it a lot of attention.

 

[Boone]

This week's tidbit is on the Ignore Feature.

Does another member get on your nerves, or do you struggle to play nicely with someone else here on a consistent basis? You have the ability to 'ignore' them. First, go to your own preferences page by clicking on your name at the top of the screen and select 'Ignoring'. You have two options that will apply to anyone you choose to 'ignore'.

Remove ignored Content - if you click this option, the ignored member's content will not show up at all for you. If you have this unchecked, you will see that the member has posted but there will be a link you can click should you just want to see that one post.

Enable 2-way ignore - with this option checked, not only will you not see the ignored member or their content on the site, they will not be able to see you and your content on the site.

The ignore feature also works in the chatrooms.

Of course, our strong preference is that everyone calm the eff down and try and get along. We have a long history here of all of our members being respectful to each other. If someone is creating problems with multiple members, they may not make it here. But the ignore feature is a good option if it's just one member who you have a problem with or who pushes your buttons. You can place someone on 'ignore' by clicking on their user name and selecting 'Ignore'. Taking someone off ignore works the same way.

 

[Boone]

Have I mentioned we have an ‘Ignore’ feature?

I just used it and it’s fabulous.

 

[CrimsonHide1970]

Have I mentioned we have an ‘Ignore’ feature?

I just used it and it’s fabulous.

Was it me you ignored?

 

[Boone]

If I had I’d never see your post

 

[Chris]

In 15 years I have only used the ignore feature twice. Once a long time ago, once recently. I think that’s a pretty good indicator of the overall quality of the discourse here.

 

[Boone]

And your tolerance level, lol…

We have had few problems over the years compared to most internet communities. Part of that is the quality of member we attract, part of it is where the bar is set (play nice and be respectful or don’t play).

But the ‘ignore’ feature is a great option when folks just can’t play in the same sandbox.

 

[Chris]

Credit goes to the sites strength and conditioning.

 

[skinsmarydu]

I hope I'm not pissing anyone off. Age has a way of mellowing people out. I only get excited about the team.

 

[Boone]

You’re a dream 🤛🏻

 

[Boone]

For our next 'tidbit', let's look at the 'Post-Bit'. Every member has a post-pit, the rectangle that shows up every time you post. First thing I will point out is the gold quill pen in the right hand corner. You'll see that icon at the start of every thread and it identifies YOU as the thread starter. Even if you reply later in a thread, the quill pen icon will appear letting everyone know this is your thread. Note that you can pic an avatar of your choosing (either one of our Washington football related ones, or one of your own choosing). You can change it anytime and as often as you like by clicking on it and clicking 'edit'. If you don't choose an avatar, we auto-assign a generic 'BGO' avatar. Note that if you see a green circle icon at the bottom of a member's avatar, that means they are online now. You may have noticed that you have a 'user title' under your name ('The Starter', 'The UDFA', etc...). Those are based on your post count. Post more and you'll earn promotion to the next rank. You can identify founders, staff, owners, donators, etc... by the burgundy and gold tags you may see under usernames.

If you are wondering about 'Reaction Score' ... when other members 'react' to your posts, by selecting one of our 'reaction' emoji's (such as 'Like', 'Love', 'Disagree', etc...) some of those reactions will give you positive points, some of them are neutral, and some are negative. So your 'Reaction' score is the sum total of how people are responding to your posts. You also get 'Points' for starting posts and threads.

For our 'Joe Gibbs Club' members (members who make the minimum site donation), you will be bumped up to 'Premium Membership' with some extra bells and whistles. One of those bells and whistles is access to our 'Moods' feature where you can pick from hundreds of options to let BGO know where you are at the moment, spiritually speaking. Finally, if you desire, you can show your pride in your Alma Mater or your Military Service - those options if you elected not to identify them on registration, are available in your account preferences. If you don't see your college or university as an option, let me know and I'll add it for you.

The rest of the 'Post-Bit' is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have questions, let them fly!

 

[Chris]

I never noticed the quill. Maybe with more time here. 🤣 Is the ‘Post-Bit’ the reply box?

 

[Boone]

the Post-bit is the rectangle section to the left of all posts that IDs who made the post. I have no idea why they call it the 'post-bit'.

 

[Boone]

This week's BGO 'Tidbit of the Week' is a homegrown feature, our BGO Pod Finder. There are tons of Washington football-related podcasts, but we've made finding the best of them super easy.

Just locate the Pod Finder widget in the right hand sidebar column on BGO, click the dropdown arrow, and you will find your favorite Commanders podcasts (including our own official podcast, 'BGO Blind Pig') just a click away.

Can't get enough Commanders news and talk? Use our pod finder to quickly connect with the best Washington Football podcasts out there.

 

[Boone]

In this week's 'Tidbit', I would simply point out that all members have the ability to anonymously 'Report' a Post'. There might be several reasons for reporting a post. Obviously, one of the most common reasons would be if someone is directing personal attacks on another member. That could be a direct insult, ongoing 'harassment', posting political content, or other reasons.

We do not believe in heavy-handed moderation here. Some other places featured extremely aggressive public moderation, and honestly, who benefits from that? We want members to post, we don't want members to 'fear' making posts or starting new threads, and we don't have a list of 'rules' beyond the golden one. If an occasional member joins that clearly either doesn't get where the bar here is, or knows but just refuses to rise to the expectations set by all of us, we will deal with that.

This is a very busy board and even though we have a number of staff members (none of who we call 'moderators' btw), we cannot possibly read every post. That's why we have the 'Report a Post' feature (and btw, you can report multiple posts all at once if you choose). We may act on a reported post, or we may simply consider it a reason to 'watch' a member. That will be up to our discretion. But we sincerely appreciate your using the 'Report a Post' feature to help keep us informed of conversations that may be going sideways, or of members who we need to have a talk with.

 

[skinsmarydu]

In this week's 'Tidbit', I would simply point out that all members have the ability to anonymously 'Report' a Post'. There might be several reasons for reporting a post. Obviously, one of the most common reasons would be if someone is directing personal attacks on another member. That could be a direct insult, ongoing 'harassment', posting political content, or other reasons.

We do not believe in heavy-handed moderation here. Some other places featured extremely aggressive public moderation, and honestly, who benefits from that? We want members to post, we don't want members to 'fear' making posts or starting new threads, and we don't have a list of 'rules' beyond the golden one. If an occasional member joins that clearly either doesn't get where the bar here is, or knows but just refuses to rise to the expectations set by all of us, we will deal with that.

This is a very busy board and even though we have a number of staff members (none of who we call 'moderators' btw), we cannot possibly read every post. That's why we have the 'Report a Post' feature (and btw, you can report multiple posts all at once if you choose). We may act on a reported post, or we may simply consider it a reason to 'watch' a member. That will be up to our discretion. But we sincerely appreciate your using the 'Report a Post' feature to help keep us informed of conversations that may be going sideways, or of members who we need to have a talk with.

WTH?
This shouldn't need to be posted. We're all about the team here, and leaving politics out of errythang should keep us focused. We've got everything rolling well, don't rock the boat.
I spent almost an hour on the phone with LadySkinsFan yesterday, just chatting about our families and the team. (She's awesome.)


We have no need to attack each other. We finally have what we've wanted since '91-92. Wore my gear proudly yesterday. Let's just be happy for once in 25 years.

 

[Boone]

This week's 'Tidbit' is about our BGO 'Media' add-on. As you've probably already figured out, you can post the share url of just about any social media or media source and our software will automatically embed a viewable/playable version of it on our site. But we like to keep a repository of media that is special to our members. These could include big time plays like the 'Hail Noah' game-winning pass against Chicago last year, or historical clips, a favorite music video, just about anything special you want to share.

The most recent 6 media items added are featured on our home page.

Also accessible from our Media page is the BGO Media Guide Library where you can view classic media guides from the 1930's on... And our Media page is also home to the Bang! Cartoon Library.

There is a lot of entertainment to be had on our BGO Media page - and we hope you will add to it in the coming years.