Six days until the Arsenal blog takeover!

I meant to get this out yesterday, but well, time just slipped away from me. As you know, as the result of us meeting our fundraising goal for Thomas Wachtel, we are set to take over The Short Fuse on Thursday, October 15. That's a measly SIX DAYS AWAY!

And oh boy, do we have stuff planned! Are you excited? We're pretty excited.

There were lots of great suggestions in the brainstorming thread, and by the looks of things a lot of you are going to be participating in your own way as well. To which we say: Great! The more the merrier!  But let's set a few ground rules first.

1.  Be sure to join The Short Fuse at least one day BEFORE the blog takeover!

But only if you want to comment! Like us, TSF has a one-day Anti-Troll System that makes you wait 24 hours after joining the blog before you can comment. This is a good thing, as it will prevent the hordes of people joining SBN and the blog and that don't understand the joke or what's going on from polluting the comments with crap. But that's not YOU guys, right? So be sure and head over to TSF and join up BEFORE the big day if you want to post or comment on the articles.

2.  Don't be mean.

I said this in the brainstorming thread, but I'll repeat it here: the Arsenal guys are expecting light banter, and who are we to discourage it? But let's not go overboard. We'll be monitoring things, as will the TSF guys, and anything that crosses lines of decency, decorum, or libel will be nuked. This is supposed to be fun, and we actually like the guys who run TSF so we'd prefer to stay on their good sides.

3.  Fanpost and Fanshot to your heart's content.

You're not masthead writers, but most of you know how to make a Fanpost and a Fanshot (for quick hit tweets and images). If you wish to contribute, use them. We'll monitor the best ones and will add them to a section pinned just below the cover for max visibility. We have a lot planned and we don't want to scroll the site too quickly, so we may not front lots of commentariat-driven stuff, but we also don't want the fruits of your labor, if they're good, to be lost.

4.  Please don't just make stuff up.

This is also mentioned in the brainstorming thread, but please don't post fake transfer rumors or anything like that. We won't be publicizing them if you do. Our sites are connected to a number of news aggregators that could get seriously cranky if we're distributing misinformation or outright falsehoods.

5.  Have fun!

This is going to be a super fun day, and we can't tell you how excited we are to be able to do it. We couldn't have done it without your help, and we want to make sure that you are able to participate as well. This is as much your day as it is ours.