Sometimes when I was a kid, and I was really pissed off, I looked suspiciously like that kid on the right. (That kid is pretty cute, and looks like he would grow up to be a real catch, ladies.)

You know how it is when you know you are right, and the world is aggrieving you… No, seriously, you know how it is, as long as you have been reading this site this week, as we have had one pissing match after another.

When I looked strangely like that handsome kid to the right, my mom would take me aside, and, before she would listen to my particular grievances, she would say “first, just humor me, and take three deep breaths.” What do you know, once in a while I would listen to her, and voila!, I would sort of calm down. If I could say anything to all of my commenting friends, it is, “just humor me, and take three deep breaths.” There has been, as Mike said, some distressing back and forth the past couple days, that is bringing us away from what the site is about: organizing progressives to push Philadelphia towards progressive policies.

This site exists so that young progressives (and our older friends in arms) can have a central place to network, flesh out policies, get to know each other and push Philadelphia toward a more progressive place. I know we get a lot of attention these days, especially as election season is here. And, it makes sense that when you have politically minded people, you have passions over elections. In fact, it is strikingly similar to what happened on national blogs in 2003 in battles between supporters of Wesley Clark and Howard Dean. And now, because there are tens of thousands of readers a week- politicians actively write to us, and ask us for our support. We have Fattah introducing his economic plan on here, Dwight Evans directly appealing to us on web chats, and Council after Council candidate trying to get our attention. It’s a cool position to be in, right? Feeling that we are being paid attention to in political races?

But here is the bottom line: This site is about organizing people and creating a spot for a lot of people- including those who don’t particularly feel comfortable jumping into the gauntlet that we sometimes devolve into. Those, generally, are the people who I really want to attract to this site- because when we get those people on here participating, then we become really powerful.

It is not always about purely electing people- even if it crosses over to that a lot. And it is not about winning through scorched earth arguments that make less people likely to write. So, when you use vitriol to attack another reader on this site or a candidate (I am as guilty as anyone), you are hurting the mission of our site, and are going to come afoul of me.

The basic rule is this: Don’t say anything to someone online that you wouldn’t say off. And understand that YPP isn’t here to serve anyone’s pissing contests. We want more progressive people checking in, not less. So, please, everyone, take three deep breaths. We all want the same thing here.