Thread Departed

Today I hid a fanpost regarding prayer, 9/11, and religious tolerance.  There was nothing wrong with the intent or content of that fanpost per se and much of the conversation surrounding it was interesting and well-meant.  Some of the conversation was drifting into areas that made people uncomfortable, some of the conversation had made people uncomfortable since its inception, and some stuff was just over the line and had to be deleted as the conversation progressed.   This phenomenon put the mods and I in an uncomfortable position ourselves, having to decide whose comments stayed and whose went on a topic that is intimate, heartfelt, passionate, and wholly personal to each of us.  When the topic is basketball we can handle that, as it's pretty clear what's on-topic and what's over the line.  When the topic is God, religion, prayer it's an impossible task, especially for folks who signed up to talk about the NBA.  Who are we to decide that one person's comment/story is great and another person's is offensive?  Yet there will always be comments and discussions that force us to make just those kinds of decisions in those threads.  Balanced with the number of people concerned about the tenor of the conversation, the whole thing just fell outside of the scope of what the site is meant to do and what we are prepared to handle.  Instead of modding the thread and trying to figure out what's right, we're going to let it be what it was and move on...appreciating the chance we had to converse thus but leaving it there.

While we do talk about non-basketball things here, even officially from time to time, I would ask that the topics of politics and religion--even the best conversations--be kept on the low burner instead of the high and that direct conversation regarding such be kept to sites more suitable for those topics, of which there are many.  This comes from a person who fully supports participation in both political and religious realms.  But Blazersedge works best when basketball is the main focus and other topics (occasionally including religion and politics) feed into it, not vice versa.

--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)