A Quick Message to the FTRS Community

We disagree here. We disagree here all the time. We disagree on what constitutes acceptable in the football world, from a recruiting standpoint, from a season results standpoint, from a uniforms standpoint, from an Atlanta beer rankings standpoint, from an Atlanta barbecue standpoint, and just about everything else.

We're a very large community including a very large amount of people from a very large amount of backgrounds and walks of life. That's OK. You know what? That's not OK. That's incredible. That's an unquestionable necessity to have a community such as ours that enjoys a good discussion.

That's really what it's all about -- discussions. We share different ideas, we defend our points against others who disagree, and we respect the opinions of those others who think differently than we do. It's the kind of thing we pride ourselves on when compared to other sites on the internet -- we have mature, intellectual discussions without getting emotional or insulting others.

Lately, though, that hasn't been the case, and it's getting to the point where it's downright unacceptable. Saturday was a tough day, with the game not going how most of us thought it would or hoped it would. Fine. That departure from expectations created different interpretations of what Game 1 told us. Great. Those different interpretations led to heated comments, cursing at one another, calling each other names and insulting one another. Not OK.

All this to say, keep it civil. This isn't the place for profanity-laced insults directed at other people that don't agree with you. We have intellectual discussions here. That's not an intellectual discussion, that's a pissing contest. Take that to the comments of some other publication.

Oh, and another thing. There's a particular user here who pretty notoriously thinks differently than a lot of other users on a lot of topics. Is that OK? Absolutely it is. He's just as welcome as anyone else here -- him thinking differently from you is by no means grounds to single him out by saying things like "pulling a [username]". He's not a troll. He just thinks differently than you do and presents facts to back up his opinions. Frankly, he's a good friend of mine outside of this blog, and it really irritates me when some folks here single him out like anything he says is just nonsense. You may not like or agree with what he's saying, and a lot of times I don't agree either, but it's not OK to be outwardly dismissive or insulting towards him like he's some sort of moron from a college we make fun of. (It's not OK when he's outwardly dismissive or insulting either, but it's a lot easier to address that with an individual than with a group of people getting too big for me to remember.)

I like all of you guys here. We're Georgia Tech fans. We're on the same side. A lot of us share an alma mater, and all of us share a common wish for a 222-0 outcome each Saturday, with Tech on the winning side. I just ask that we all stay mindful of that. If someone disagrees with you, it's totally OK to just say, "It's apparent that you and I disagree,", walk away, and leave it at that. The only reason any of this is debatable is because none of it is 100% factual. If it were, we'd go look it up on Wikipedia or The Onion or some other online informational outlet and settle it once and for all. That there's a level of opinion (as well as a certain amount of difference in opinion) involved is the entire reason we can debate it in the first place.

Please, keep it civil. That's what this site is about -- civil, intellectual discussions. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, and nobody should be attacked for their opinion. It's college football. Yes, it's monumentally important to all of us, but let's just try to keep our discussions in perspective.

Thanks.