How this place works

House Rules

Eight, and seven of them are things you would do anyway. The first three end the account. The rest get the post removed with a reason attached, then a break from posting if it keeps happening. Everything else is etiquette, and etiquette is not a moderator's problem.

1. Bring your name. Park your pitch in your profile. Big-name capper, brand-new account, forty thousand followers or none, come hang out. You are welcome here. Your site, your handle, your record, your paid group, put all of it in your profile and nobody will touch a word of it. That is what a profile is for. What closes the account is pushing it at people who did not ask: threads that are really ads, the same link pasted into every board, or a DM pitching a stranger. A message asking a member for money gets no benefit of the doubt. Hang out first. The room finds the people who are actually good on their own.
2. Say what you are getting paid. Referral codes, affiliate links, promo deals, a book that comped you. Put it in the post or leave it out. And a link in your profile does not cover a thread: if there is money behind something you posted, the post has to say so. Nobody here objects to you making money. We object to finding out later. Staff included.
3. No slurs. No doxxing. No pile-ons. Posting somebody's personal details, or organizing a group to go at one member, closes the account. No warning and no appeal. Nothing else on this list is close.
4. Say why you like it. One line is enough. The number, the book, an injury, the schedule spot, or an honest gut read. "Lakers -4" on its own is a screenshot. "Lakers -4, they are rested and Denver played last night" is a conversation, and the conversation is the whole reason to post it here. Nobody is asking for a spreadsheet.
5. Argue with the read, not the person. "Your model is not accounting for the back to back" is a contribution. "You are an idiot" is not. Take the shot at the reasoning and leave the person alone. This board only works because people are willing to be wrong in public, and nobody does that twice after getting called an idiot for it.
6. No locks. No guarantees. Nobody knows what happens tonight, and anyone selling certainty is selling something. Same goes for a model output you have not read yourself. If you cannot defend the number, do not post it.
7. Do not feed a bad post. Do not answer it, do not correct it, do not dunk on it. A reply keeps it alive and gets removed along with it. Report it and move on. This is the rule that keeps threads readable, and the one most people have to learn twice.
8. One thread per game. Check the board before you start another. One busy thread beats four dead ones, and it is where line movement actually gets tracked. Title it so people can find it.

Your account

# How do I join?

Register with a username, an email and a password. Email is never shown publicly and is only used for password resets and the notifications you opt into.

# What does the site store about me?

A session cookie so you stay logged in, a preferences cookie for read/unread state, and your IP address on each post (visible to moderators only, used for ban evasion). Nothing is sold, and there are no ad trackers.

# I forgot my password.

Use password recovery. A reset link goes to the address on your account. If you no longer control that address, a moderator cannot help you. That is the point of it.

# Avatars and signatures

Both live in your profile. Signatures are plain text and short BBCode. A signature that is a sales pitch is rule 01.

# What are ranks?

Ranks are automatic, based on post count. They measure how much you have said, not whether you were right. The only number that measures that is the line on your posts.

Posting

# How do I post?

New post from any community's page starts a thread. Reply or the quick box at the top of a thread adds a comment. There is one composer and it previews exactly what will be published, because the preview calls the same renderer the thread does.

Flood control: 5 seconds between posts.

# What makes a good slip post?

• The number and the book. “PHO -3.5 (-110), DK” not “took Phoenix”.
• When you got it. A line at open and the same line at tip are different bets.
• The reasoning, in one paragraph. If it takes five, it is a thread of its own.
• The screenshot. Drag it onto the composer.

The community will check your math. That is not hostility, it is the entire product.

# Formatting

Type the tags, or use the toolbar. Ctrl+B and friends work.

There is no [img] tag on purpose: it would make every reader fetch a file from a stranger's server. Screenshots go through the attachment system.

# Emoji

Type the code, or hit the emoji button in the composer. The classics still work (:), :D, ;)) and there is a set for this board:

Codes inside a code block, and inside a link, are left alone. Pasting a box score URL that happens to contain PHO:DEN will not turn it into a grinning face.

# Attachments

Up to 10 files per post, 0.2 MB each. Drag a screenshot onto the composer's drop zone, or click it. PNG, JPEG, GIF and WebP. Anything else downloads rather than displays.

# Editing and deleting

You can edit your own posts. Deleting a post that has replies leaves the thread incoherent, so it is a moderator action. Use Report and say why. Deleting a post does not delete the votes on it.

The Line

# What is the +/- number on a post?

It is the post's line: upvotes minus downvotes, written the way a betting line is written. +7 means seven more people think the read is right than think it is wrong. -3 means the opposite. 0 means the room is split, or nobody has voted.

# How do I vote?

• Chevron up or down on any post or comment.
• Press the same one twice to take your vote back.
• Press the other one to switch. One vote per person, per thing.
• It works with JavaScript off. It just costs you a page load.

# What is a downvote for?

“This is wrong and here is why”, ideally with the “here is why” in a reply. It is not a disagree button, and it is definitely not a you lost button. Everybody loses. The line is about the process.

# Hot, New, Top

• Hot. What the room is arguing about right now.
• New. Most recent activity first.
• Top. The highest lines, all time.

Messages

# How does messaging work here?

Private mail between members, in Messages. Folders, drafts, an ignore list, and an address book for the people you talk to most. Your mailbox holds 500 messages across all folders.

# Why can’t I message anyone yet?

An account that can DM the whole member list on day one is the most effective touting tool there is, and rule 01 exists to keep that off the board. The wait is the only thing standing between your inbox and a pitch, and it is short.

You can always reply to anyone who messages you first. An unsolicited reply is a contradiction in terms, so answering your own inbox is never spam and is never blocked.

Everyone below staff is also capped at 10 messages per hour. Three posts and half a day, or twenty posts and you are straight through. Hours, not days.

# Someone is bothering me.

Add them to your ignore list and their messages stop arriving. If it is a tout, report the post instead. An ignore protects you, a report protects everyone.

Moderation

# My first post is “waiting on a moderator” (quarantine)

Normal, though this board currently has quarantine switched off. Every new account's first post goes into quarantine and is read by a moderator before it appears. It is usually minutes. Nothing you wrote is lost, and once one post clears you never see this again.

Quarantine is also why a brand-new account cannot start a conversation in Messages: an unvouched account and a tout look identical to the software.

# How do I report a post?

Report under any post. Say what rule it breaks. Reports go to the moderators of that community, not to a public thread.

# My post was removed.

You will see why. Removals are posted in the thread with the rule number and the moderator's name on them, because a rule nobody watches get enforced is not a rule. Nothing is deleted quietly.

If you think the call was wrong, message the moderator who made it. Do not argue it in the thread. That is not us protecting the decision, it is us keeping the thread about the game.

# Why did my reply get removed with someone else’s post?

Rule 07. Answering a bad post keeps it at the top of the thread, and a correction underneath a tout is still forty people reading the tout. The post and everything hanging off it go together.

You are not in trouble. Report it next time and let it disappear.

# Can I become a moderator?

Moderators are asked, not applied for, and they are picked from people whose posts already do the job: correcting a number, sourcing a line, telling someone their model is overfit. Do that for a while and you will get a message.

# What gets you banned?

• Spamming promo, or cold-pitching members in DMs. Rule 01. Your profile can say anything it likes. A stranger’s inbox cannot. A message asking a member for money is permanent on the first offence, no appeal.
• Hiding what you are getting paid. Rule 02. Referral codes and affiliate links you did not declare.
• Slurs, doxxing, pile-ons. Rule 03.
• Fabricating a slip. Posting a bet you never placed.
• Ban evasion with a second account.

Being wrong about a game is not on that list and never will be.

Still stuck

Ask in the Lobby. Someone will know, and the answer helps the next person. For anything private, message a moderator.

If you hit an error page with a reference code on it, send us that code. It maps to exactly one line in the server log and turns “the site broke” into a fixable bug.