Welcome to Royals Review

Hello.

As you are most likely aware, the Kansas City Royals are a hot topic right now. After capturing the attention of the baseball romantic last October on route to an American League Championship, the Royals have zoomed ahead to a brilliant start. All this is attracting quite a bit of attention, justifiably so.

You, dear reader, are reading this because of your interest, fan or otherwise, in the Royals.  As the beginning of the baseball year continues to blossom, we thought to write a welcome letter to those of you unfamiliar with this site.

Welcome to Royals Review!

But...what exactly is Royals Review?

I intend to elaborate upon this question.  Whether you're brand new, a longtime lurker, or a seasoned veteran of argument salvos in the comments, I hope you'll find something useful or interesting at Royals Review.  Because I'm a sucker for bullet points and organization, we'll line up information in a series of questions. Without further ado: questions.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen sparrow?

No, not those questions. Moving on.

What is this place?

Royals Review is a blog.  It is also a website.  You could also call it a blogsite, or the best place to be on the internet, or merely a momentary escape from the existential trappings of time and space.  The simplest answer is that Royals Review is the largest unofficial site about the Royals that currently exists.

Royals Review (RR for short) falls under the SB Nation banner of blogs and websites.  Any other site under the SB Nation group, such as Beyond the Boxscore, Arrowhead Pride, or Blue Testament, all have the same commenting and layout and are under a single happy umbrella. Each site operates independently--you choose which sites to join, for instance, and don't have to join any unwanted sites. Still, the SB Nation family is a great place to get all of your sporting news.

Content at RR is varied. We have daily link roundups, game discussion threads, recaps, series previews, analytical pieces, satire, and other miscellaneous content. There are multiple pieces that go up every weekday, so we're sure you won't get too bored.

Who are we?

A team of your friendly neighborhood Royals fans creates all the content here. We aren't affiliated with the Royals, and that does allow us to speak our mind. Nobody has to approve what we say, so all our analysis is clean from official influences (though perhaps not always immune from our own fandom, but such is life).

Max Rieper is the Ned Yost of Royals Review; he is managing editor and the glue that holds this bizarre ship together.  Josh Duggan and I are assistant editors.  Our writing staff includes Shaun Newkirk, Kevin Ruprecht, Minda Haas, Tyler Drennon, Ryan Landreth, Connor Moylan, Jeff Zimmerman, JKWard, NHZ, BHWwick, and im_not_that_bright.

Any contact information we have made available can be found at the masthead section at the bottom of this page.  So, you know, the next time I get the score wrong in a game recap you can berate me for getting such an obvious thing incorrect (what, the Royals don't always win 110-4?).

The community here is wonderful and a big part of the site's value.  There are numerous personalities here, some of whom have been here longer than the solar system has existed.  Such a great history has yielded many memes and in-jokes, and site has a long history of flippant humor.

Where can I find Royals Review content?

Here!

And elsewhere.  You can find Royals Review stuff at:

• Our website, royalsreview.com
• Our Twitter, https://twitter.com/royalsreview
• Our Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RoyalsReview
• Our podcast, https://soundcloud.com/royalsreview
• Our respective Twitters, found under our names http://www.royalsreview.com/masthead

How should we behave?

We're a pretty loose group here at Royals Review.  As you can probably tell from the tone of this article, seriousness is not a top priority here. As Gandalf once said, 'Fun is the only reason to ever do anything.'

Still, we want to draw a few lines here. Back in October, Max wrote an extremely helpful community guide to which we should adhere under His Greatness Max's rule. Here's the article, but I'll go ahead and quote the most salient part:

What will get you bounced from our community is persistent abusive harassment towards a user or users. Specifically, this means any more harassment of writers at MLB Daily Dish will get you banned immediately. The definition of "harassment" can be difficult to spell out, but I think we all know trolling when we see it, and I will generally give one warning to steer you in the right direction, but after that I cannot accept that kind of behavior and I personally will ban you.

What will get you banned without any warning:

• Racial/ethnic/homophobic/misogynistic slurs (this includes the word that rhymes with bunt)
  
• Posting of pornographic images
• Revealing personal details about another user
• Obvious trolling with no positive contribution of any kind

We're a statistically-minded community; I think it is so because the Royals were so bad for so long that we had to do something baseball related and getting involved in that area was an option.  We are also unafraid to unleash criticism upon the Royals.

Some people are not statistically minded. Some people are almost always positive. But that doesn't mean that any of these types of fan is better or worse than any other. I guarantee you will read differing opinions than your own here. But try to understand where these ideas are coming from, and try to present your own thoughts in a format that doesn't come across as condescending if they do differ from others. The last I checked, we are all Royals fans, and that should count for something.

Can I get involved in the community?

Yes! Yes yes yes.

It's very easy. In the top right corner, click 'sign up' and follow the steps. You can use Facebook, Twitter, or Yahoo! for ease of access or create an account unlinked to any of these services.

Here's a link to the RR user's guide, containing a number of super helpful articles that explain how to comment, write fanposts/fanshots, and grow dragon wings. Fanshots are if you find a link to an article, a funny picture, a Tweet, a video that you want to share. Fanposts are for articles that readers - you, yes YOU! - can write and publish for a whole community to read. Well-written or notable fanposts or fanshots frequently get published at the top, so you are encouraged to dust off the laptop and write that treatise comparing Ned Yost's leadership style to that of Alexander the Great!

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So there you have it, folks. Welcome to this place of hilarity and passion. Where many corners are turned, and where $11 worth of Taco Bell is a standard menu item.

Go Royals!