Redskins Patent Thread

[display name]

Moderators:

I appreciate all of your efforts to help keep the forums safe and civilized. However I am struggling to understand the reason for the closing of the US Patent Office Cancels Redskins Trademark thread. I had never actually posted in it, but have looked it over and did not see any harmful or offensive material.

I respect the boards' guidelines about discussing contentious situations (religion and politics) but do not see a valid reason for the closing of the thread. Immediately after it was started Mod2 posted a note asking the members to keep political discussions out of the thread. I respect this note and it seems to be as though it was obeyed. There was some discussion over whether or not the name should be changed, but I think that we have a right to engage in that. As long as there are no personal attacks, what is wrong with discussing the topic?

I saw no one get offended in the thread. Mod3 says that we are here to "unite fans," and I understand this reasoning. However what is the point of uniting a fan base that is too immature to discuss an issue such as the Redskins name change? And as far as I could see we were not too immature, because I saw no violent dispute in the thread.

I also understand the need for forum moderation, but not to the point where it gets in the way of a useful discussion. I am asking if the rules could be relaxed a bit to allow such discussion so long as it does not involve personal attacks. Mod3 if you still believe you had a valid reason for closing the thread (and I know you meant well), please let us know so that we can understand it.

Thank you for your work in keeping the boards orderly.

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[Moderator 3]

I will try to keep this brief. You can't see everything that was posted or the complaints that came in.

The truth is that different people are offended by different things. None of us will agree with everyone on everything. In order to be as unifying as possible, we do our best to keep non-football discussions to a minimum.

[Moderator 2]

There was a post that came through in the middle of the night that sealed it. There have been other posts that were so hate filled, I hope the person was joking. We don't delete the posts, so it will not affect post count, but hide them for easy reference.