Over the past few weeks, with your Houston Texans playing (and losing in heartbreaking fashion to) the Colts and Titans, BRB has gotten a bit intense at times, generally in the form of regular users interacting with fans of the aforementioned two teams. Although the chief byproduct of that mix has been insightful football discussion and debate, there have been a few instances where things have been written in the Comments that members and/or visitors have found offensive. Some offended individuals have expressed incredulity that the editors and authors here have not censored, removed, deleted, and/or disciplined the authors of the offensive comments.
The policy on BRB has always been that this is a site where Texans fans (and fans of other teams) can exchange thoughts, directly, tangentially, or otherwise, related to the Texans. Sometimes, the thoughts expressed here are inflammatory, in poor taste, unfunny, ignorant, cruel, etc. Speaking from personal experience, sometimes I'll read a comment and cringe. Sometimes, I just flat out disagree with something that's written. That's going to happen, and I understand that. In my opinion, that's not grounds for censorship.
Unfortunately, I think we're getting dangerously close to the tipping point in all of this. Leading up to and in the heat of last night's loss, comments were posted that left "poor taste" in the dust. I'm not going to link to them, and I'm not going to discuss them outside the context of this post. The people who wrote them know what they wrote. For example...when people are threatening physical harm to one another, I have to step in and ask everyone to take a step back. This is a blog about a football team, for crying out loud. It's not life and death, no matter how angry or passionate we get about the subject matter or the result of a game.
Speaking of anger...while this site is by and for fans of the Houston Texans, fans of other teams are always welcome. That necessarily means that we're going to attract the occasional trash-talking fan from an opposing team. Please don't let it get to you. It's par for the course, and we're going to be consistent in how we handle everyone. In other words, I'm not going to be a hypocrite; if regular users enjoy being able to speak our minds, we have to respect the ability of visitors to speak their minds, even if we don't like what they have to say. Don't dish it out if you can't take it. The one thing that's guaranteed to draw scrutiny from me is personal attacks; I've always asked that disagreements focus on taking issue with what was said instead of the person saying it. Name-calling doesn't add anything to the discussion.
I really, really hate that I had to spend time writing this post, but I felt like something had to be said before things got completely out of hand. Thanks to all in advance for their consideration.