Over The Pylon

OverThePylon is a fansite. Clearly, that brings with it an interesting dynamic and tone to try and manage. Here’s the basic information you need to know…

DISCLAIMER
OverThePylon is in no way affiliated with Ball State University, the Mid American Conference, the NCAA or any of its member institutions. OverThePylon is an unofficial fan site and its commentary and opinion are not reflective of the schools it covers. Additionally, comments and reader posts are that of the poster and do not neccesarily represent the thoughts or opinions of OverThePylon or its editorial staff.

BLOG ETHICS
Journalists vs. Bloggers
We’ve heard for a while now, especially from one journalist in particular that we are tempering what we say and shilling for the administration so we don’t lose our “newly minted press credentials”. While being able to hear a post-game press conference or see the field and receive the statistics in the press box is a nice ancillary benefit, those sorts of things will never color what we do or how we do it here at OTP. When the proverbial rubber hits the proverbial road, we’re bloggers, not mainstream media, and as long as a sort of metaphorical line in the sand exists between those two communities, we’ll be on this side. With off color humor. And killer content.

What We Report
OTP will make every effort to get across to our readers our level of comfort with information we receive. For the most part, we’ll simply be reporting on games, practices, etc. with first-hand accounts, commentary, or discussion that many were privy to. There are a few examples where we will be the people responsible for breaking a story or at least giving a story a more national sort of voice. This happened with Coach Hoke leaving in 2008 or Coach Lembo being hired in 2010. Whenever we report anything that is unconfirmed by the administration or several reputable sort of places, we will let you know that. Rarely, if ever, will something get reported on our end that is strictly wild rumor-mill or totally baseless.

Editing and Deletion of Posts/Comments
Things that are posted on the blog will stay on the blog. There are virtually no exceptions for posts from the OTP editorial staff, with the rare case of simple grammatical errors or the like edited without notice or alert. If we should ever misreport something or completely swing and miss on something factual, then we will offer retractions when neccessary and a mea culpa worthy of the offense. The same is also true for reader comments, though with a much higher propensity for editing and/or outright censorship. Attacking the staff, players, administration, or this site’s management without cause or provocation is a great way to get your comment deleted. “Man… Nate Davis played awfully poor in the Buffalo game. Too many mistakes!!” is fine. “Man… Nate Davis sucks”. Not so fine. For our rivals that visit, your leash is significantly shorter than our everyday folks. You’ve been warned.