About / FAQ
This site originated as a convenient place for regular members of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Steelers fan site (the now defunct PG+) to place their predictions for the upcoming NFL season, just for fun. The name Steel Balls is a play on the idea of looking into your Steelers crystal ball to make predictions, and also the steel-like nature of the football-topped Lombardi Trophy that has so frequently adorned Steelers headquarters. Any other meaning comes from your dirty little mind.
When the PG announced they would be killing PG+ and erecting a universal paywall on their main site at triple the price, a “Sound Off” chat was added here in order to accommodate our cheap natures. It was generally felt that Sound Off was one of the few valuable assets PG+ had to offer other than the periodic original material posted by staff writers and Steeler gurus Ed Bouchette, Gerry Dulac, and Ray Fittipaldo.
The rules here are simple: Anyone with an interest in the Steelers can join. There is no fee. The site is intended for adults and is generally self policed accordingly. Dbags are frowned upon and may be expelled by the admin at his sole dictatorial discretion.
Any regular member is permitted to post and edit articles, photos, predictions, gripes, and so forth. The site is not intended to be seriously analytical, a function already performed admirably by other sites such as Steelers Depot. Rather, the intent here is for more casual and fun fan interaction. Please do not post material protected by copyright outside the bounds of “fair use”. Provide links and credit to original sources. No spamming or commercial self promotion is allowed.
Please do not post material that amounts to a personal attack on a private individual, and do not post pornography. If you aren’t sure about the content, post it only as PRIVATE and not PUBLIC. This will make it visible to members with author permissions but invisible to ordinary subscribers and non-subscribers.
Any questions or requests should be directed to: steelballs@thenetmail.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What’s with the math test at login? We are regularly hit by spambots. This method limits the attacks, although interestingly it doesn’t eliminate it as we get actual humanbots creating 1 to 5 new registrations each day. They never seem to learn that it’s a waste of time because we will never allow their spam posts to see the light of day.
- Are there any restrictions on content? Not too many. Please do not post anything pornographic and bear in mind that we have readers of all ages and genders. If it’s something you wouldn’t want your 10 year old daughter or 80 year old grandmother to see, please think twice before posting it. If you have the burning need to share a NSFW image, there are ways to do it without blasting it all over the home page. For example, insert a “More…” link in your post before the image, or leave the image in the media library where it is accessible only by full members. Also, for anything marginal, please change the visibility to PRIVATE. This designation keeps the content invisible to the general public.We also ask that you avoid telling us all about your political agenda or proselytizing about your religion. Steelers fans cut across the political and religious spectrum. Turning Steelers fans against one another for non-football reasons is pretty much in direct opposition to the purpose of this site. I suggest if you want to get into fisticuffs online on these subjects, you remove Steelers symbolism from your avatar and go at it on one of the billion sites that revel in divisive mudslinging.
- Is this site moderated? Yes and no. What we like to say is that it is administered rather than moderated. Your initial post comment as a registered user will go into moderation. This is to give us the chance to determine if you are a douchebag spammer or not. If you are legitimate (e.g., your content is on-topic and does not contain hidden links to whatever crap your company is trying to sell), your post will be approved and subsequent posts will not fall into moderation. In principle, a truly offensive jerk might get banned, but such things are thankfully rare. Frankly, your administrator has better things to do than to babysit your posts, so you’d have to be pretty relentlessly obnoxious to work your way to a banishment.
- Can I submit my own posts? Yes. If you have already been given “author” status, your dashboard will look like this:
Click on Add New to create your post. You can enter text and images as you wish. Please also identify the topic of the post by choosing one or more categories, then click the Publish button. Only you can edit and update your own posts.
- Can I send a private message to another user? Yes. See the picture below:
On the dashboard, go to Messages to view your inbox and outbox or to send a message to another registered user.
copa is the site down or has my account been hacked? I can no longer login. Tried to reset my password multiple times but I never receive the reset email