• Talking about yourself
  BFC boasts a wealth of threads for talking about yourself. Have a basic personal finance question? The newbie thread is what you're looking for. More specific questions? Check out the long-term investing thread, the credit card thread, the house-buying thread, the...you get the picture. Want to brag on yourself for a financial achievement? Tell us all about it in the Goons Getting Ahead thread, or challenge yourself to track your financial goals over the course of the year. Just have something small or cool or interesting to share that doesn't fit into another category? Pop in to the general discussion thread. And if none of these threads work for you, I love love love seeing new threads in BFC! You might even get a sticky out of it if your OP is interesting
  
  With so many places to tell us about how good or bad you are with money, there's no need to clutter up this thread with it. We all want to hear about your incredibly opulent/exceedingly frugal wedding, I swear, but not in this thread please! This also goes for asking for advice. Stories about family, friends, and coworkers where you play a bit role are fine, but stories about you belong elsewhere. Of the ~25 people who responded to my call for feedback, ~20 suggested a rule like this. Let's see which one of the 20 breaks it first
  
  
• Getting the last word
  Disagreements are a natural part of this thread. The boundaries of BWM/GWM make for some pretty interesting discussion! There are many ways a disagreement can end, but one of everyone's least favorite is when someone tries to unilaterally end the discussion while also claiming the last word. For example, "I'm done with this derail, but [three more reasons why my opponent sucks and is dumb]" is lame as hell. Don't be that person! If you're done with a line of discussion, just drop it. We're all adults here.
  
  
• Getting mean
  Similarly, there is ample room to disagree without personally insulting your sparring partner. When disagreements turn to insults, the thread turns into an unpleasant mess for everyone else. If you feel like spitting some venom at someone, take a couple deep breaths first.
  
  
• Complaining about derails without adding content
  Derails thrive in a vacuum. Sometimes the thread gets stuck in a derail that most of the posters don't care about. If you see a derail that you don't like, don't just yell at people to shut up. Try steering the conversation in a new direction by posting a new BWM example or responding to a different, more on-topic comment from upthread. If you post new content, you are totally justified in asking people to knock it off and pay attention to your shiny new post.
  
  The one exception to this is our thread mascot and forum hero, the derail bird. Please always feel welcome to post the derail bird at people who are badly derailing the thread. See the end of this OP for your derail bird starter kit. As for those (hopefully rare) situations where people are posting the derail bird at you? That means it's time to drop it or move the conversation elsewhere.
  

• I received some interesting comments about derails. Generally, it seems like people agree that derails are often good or interesting, or at least drive the thread forward when things are slow. However, derails become a problem when they (a) become too long and/or (b) turn rancorous. If the former occurs, the conversation should definitely keep going! But at that point the BWM thread is not the best home for it. Take it to another established thread, or better yet, start your own new thread here in BFC!
  
  
• On a related note, I received a few comments on both sides of the "take it to D&D" issue. Some posters feel that deep discussions about the politics and social norms surrounding money are better left in D&D. Others disagree; as one poster wrote to me, there's value in "admit[ting] that money is political." I tend to share the view of this latter group. Even as satisfying and unifying a hate-read as "If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You're Doing Something Wrong" implicates larger societal and political issues. HOWEVA: as noted above, discussions of this type should move to a different thread (if they get too long) or take a break (if people have moved from discussing to yelling).
  
  Another way of putting this one is that business, finance, and career related D&D stuff is absolutely welcome in BFC (famous last words ), but the proper home for it usually won't be this thread.
  
  
• If you're sharing some of that purestrain Reddit BWM, please try to both copy/paste the Reddit OP and include a link. This helps other posters engage more with your thread, as we can go pull followup comments from the Reddit link and don't have to worry about the OP deleting their post in a fit of shame.
  
  
• Please no internet detective stuff.
  
  
• Sometimes the BWM comes from elsewhere on SA. You can definitely share those posts here in the BWM thread. Don't go poo poo up other threads, though, and if it gets too helldumpy I'll put the kibosh on it.
  
  
• Remember that this thread is most enjoyable when it's punching up. It's frequently enjoyable when it's punching sideways or down too! It's depressing when it's punching the mentally ill and addicted. Let's leave this last category alone.
  
  
• Please feel free to report things! Before I became a mod, I thought reports were only for stuff that deserved a probation. Perhaps this is the case in other forums with heavier report loads, but BFC is a pretty easy forum to mod. It is totally OK to report a post for any number of reasons, e.g. "funny possible thread title", "potential for this derail to get out of hand", etc. Just make sure you include a note about why you're reporting it.
  

Moneyball fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Sep 2, 2019

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Moneyball fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 18, 2019