The "Line"

Dear fellow Jeremy Lin fans and interested readers,

It's been over four years since we started jeremylin.net and, for the most part, the interaction on this site has been nothing but positive.  

Now that doesn't mean that all of us have to agree on everything.  In fact, even within "the JL.n team" we have different views on how good/great of an NBA player Jeremy will be.  Some are more optimistic than others.  At the end of the day, however, all of us respect Jeremy's game and wish him success.

And it is in that spirit that we created this website and forum.

Lately, however, we've noticed that some of the back and forth has "crossed the line."  Which, of course, begs the question, "Where's the line?" So that's what this post is about:  the Line.

Here's our view:

1.  JL.n exists to shine a light on Jeremy Lin.  That does not mean that we will filter out all negative comments. In fact, Jeremy Lin would probably be the first to admit when things aren't going well.

But we do want you to know where we're coming from.

As a general rule, most of our posts are upbeat, focusing on JLin's basketball career, his faith, and issues related to the challenges he's faced whether because of his race/ethnicity or other factors. That's just who we are.  It doesn't mean that you have to be that way.  But don't criticize us, or other posters, for holding those views.  After all, it's why we created the site back in 2009.

2.  JL.n is a "family" website, or at least a PG website.  Each of us has kids.  And they read this blog and the comments on it!  Keep this in mind when you post.  As we have said repeatedly, we frown upon profanity, ad hominem attacks, and the like.  In the past, we have not had the capability of reviewing each and every post for the above.  After moving to Disqus for comments, we hope we do and it is our intention to block posts that use profanity or personally attack other commentators.  The bottom line:  we're asking you to be respectful of each other.

3.  Our general approach is to be "hands off."  In other words, we'd strongly prefer not to review and/or delete comments.  That's the goal.  In fact, we think the website is better when people get together and interact even when they disagree.  So here's what we're going to do:  We're going to start with a clean slate.  Our prior filters had apparently blocked certain users based on repeated profanity, personal attacks, or spam.  While we will not (and probably cannot) restore deleted comments, we are going to take off all filters for the time being so that everyone can post.  We hope this little "experiment" goes well.

4.  But here's the catch:  If we find that a poster is repeatedly using profanity, attacking others, or spamming the website, we'll enable the filters again to block such users.  Again, it is our strong preference that this not occur.

So, here's to a new NBA season!  Good luck to Jeremy!  And keep it clean guys!