GatorBait Community

Product identity

Public name: GatorBait Message Board.

The board is a core GatorBait property, not a third-party social destination and not a clever renamed imitation of another Gator site.

Canonical site entry point: /message-board.

Architecture

• GatorBait site owns the entry point, branding, acquisition and membership relationship.
• Discourse is the intended long-form discussion engine because it provides mature threads, moderation, search, trust levels, APIs and automation hooks.
• GatorBot is the automation/community assistant layer. It must identify itself as automated when posting.
• Do not use the retired Wix Forum product. Wix discontinued Wix Forum on March 1, 2026.
• Wix Groups may be used for lightweight member groups, but it is not a replacement for the classic message-board experience requested here.

Initial rooms

1. Gator Football
2. Recruiting
3. Hoops & Other Sports
4. The GatorBait Pub

Keep the initial taxonomy small. Add rooms only when traffic justifies them.

GatorBot responsibilities

GatorBot may:

• create a discussion thread when a new approved GatorBait story publishes;
• post canonical story links and short verified summaries;
• create game-day and postgame threads from verified schedules/results;
• surface unanswered high-quality questions to staff;
• summarize active threads without inventing consensus;
• flag obvious spam, duplicate threads and abuse for moderation review;
• produce daily/weekly community intelligence for Juice and Agency.

GatorBot must not:

• impersonate Buddy, Franz, Eddie, Loren, Brenden or another human;
• fabricate quotes, recruiting information, injuries, insider information or consensus;
• silently delete legitimate disagreement;
• publish sensitive legal/personal allegations without human review;
• make billing/member changes.

Business integration

The community should feed the GatorBait flywheel:

Story → Discuss this story → Message Board thread → GatorBot/community insights → Juice/Agency → next story/show

Eventually support:

• open/public rooms for discovery;
• members-only rooms or benefits when audience demand supports them;
• article-level Discuss this story links;
• front-page trending threads;
• newsletter/community highlights;
• clear GatorBait membership upsell without degrading free discussion.

Launch boundary

The live /message-board route may exist before the Discourse backend is provisioned, but it must clearly state build status. Never present placeholder topic cards as functioning discussion threads.

Provisioning a paid hosted Discourse service or any other recurring-cost service requires owner approval. A self-hosted deployment must have backups, updates, spam controls, email delivery and rollback documented before public launch.

Quality bar

The board must feel like part of GatorBait on desktop and mobile:

• same navigation and branding;
• fast, readable threads;
• clear account state;
• accessible tap targets and contrast;
• no fake activity counters;
• no manufactured urgency;
• moderation rules visible before scale.