When we started BSG, I had a very strong opinion that there would be no political talk on the board. Because politics is such a deeply personal subject for so many people, I believe political discussions are the source of a lot of animosity and overall bad behavior between posters. When I looked at the board we came from, I decided that one thing I really didn't want to replicate was the way that individual's political positions and opinions about other people's opinions colored everything, from baseball talk to entertainment talk to everything else. This is my opinion and a preference, not a moral judgement.

I willingly changed my mind about the existence of political threads and overall it's been okay. Still more flare ups and poster on poster animosity then I believe would have existed without them, and I still think there is a stench that comes from political threads that can be smelled everywhere. As I said, politics are deeply personal to most people who have any interest in politics in the first place. Deeply personal subjects lead to deeply personal reactions.

The purpose of BSG isn't to be all things to all people - it's primarily a place to talk about the Phillies and baseball. I get that we're all "friends" and want to share and talk about other interests with the same people we like talking baseball with - and I agree. Most of these subjects are benign - music, movies, books, gadgets, stupid stuff - but politics stands alone as unique and different from the others.

Once you make exceptions for commercial, porn, and sports sites - political stuff must be the next largest subject matter covered on the internet. There are other, more appropriate, places to talk politics if you need to every day, multiple times a day.

To the point:

I'm not banning political threads and I'm not doing a TOS thing - I'm haven't even really discussed this idea with the other mods. I'm requesting a temporary moratorium on politics threads. Lets see what happens without them for a month or two. Maybe they only need to exist around election cycles or during important events.

Thanks,

The Management