[Jim Robinson]

Believe it or not, once upon a time vanities were frowned upon by our participants. FR’s original format was established to not only fight for liberty and against government abuse/corruption, etc, but to criticize the liberally biased mainstream media. Therefore our original format was to post from valid NEWS sources and government reports, etc, and to tear them down where deserved. Vanity posters were shunned (unless they were very good).

Then a few years ago the blogger craze started. At first, most of them were treated simply as vanities and were pulled or zotted on sight. Eventually some were accepted as valid material on FR. And soon the blogger wars commenced. To allow blogs or not to allow blogs was the question. Can’t go blanket either way. Like it or not, some blogs are better than most others.

So, long story short, we created a special forum for blog posts. This was in lieu of simply deleting all blog posts. The theory was that as long as they were posted in the bloggers forum, those who didn’t wish to read them could simply click on the “news” forum and they wouldn’t see them. But, of course, as some blogs are definitely better than most others and some are much better than your typical mainstream news sources, we soon allowed certain blogs to be posted regularly to the news section.

This all worked more or less to a certain degree without too much friction until the non-commenting, short-excerpting, long-complaining blog pimp was born.

I have no complaint if a good conservative blogger posts his own material to FR, not as an excerpt to drive hits and discussion back to his blog, but rather to impart useful information to OUR readers and to promote and join in on the discussion and conservative activism HERE on FR.

If a blogger can’t or refuses do that, and if he constantly complains or fights with our participants over it, then I’d just as soon he doesn’t post here. It’s not my job to make his content or his presentation or cooperation acceptable to our readers. That’s his job. And if he cannot do it or refuses to do it and continues posting brief excerpts only and obviously attempting to draw away our participants while loudly complaining about it, then I have no sympathy for his complaints and the more apt I am to ban his account and blog.

Furthermore, I’m not big on “rules.” You won’t see me posting rules for bloggers. The rules for bloggers on FR are the same as the rules for everyone else. If you are a good conservative activist and are willing to work with US on OUR goals and causes and not against US, then you’re welcome to post to FR. But unless we say otherwise your blog material should be posted to our bloggers forum and it would be best if you do not excerpt your own material and if you would actually join in on the discussion here on FR. We’re not really that interested in driving OUR traffic to YOUR blog. But if our readers see that you post useful information then they might start reading your site and that’s fine by me.

[Velveeta]

Perfect Jim, thank you for the clarification.

Humblegunner - the “real” OVERLORD has spoken.

[humblegunner]

Thanks for the clarity.
Clear like crystal and leaves little room for weaseling.

I always figured as much, but it’s nice to have confirmation from the home office.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Thanks for posting! :)

[50mm]

Thanks for the clarification Jim.

This works well for the normal blogger, but as you know a new class of blog pimp has emerged that directly threatens the survival of FR. I’m talking about the type who grabs the work of others, sometimes from sources on the FR copyright list, pastes the work in a blog and then pimps the blog on FR while claiming ownership by putting their name as author. They usually are titled something like “VIDEO: LOOK WHAT I FOUND.”

I’ve seen several of these careless blog pimps warned multiple times and yet they persist in putting FR at risk to get hits for their blogs. Why not get more aggressive with these types before FR ends up with more lawsuits?

[thackney]

Thank you, Jim

[Eaker]

That is a keeper!

[Allegra]

Great post - thanks for making the concept so clear that even pimpiest blogger will have difficulty distorting it. :)

[ChrisBoundsTX]

Thank you for the clarification Jim.

[Eaker]

Ping.

I didn’t want you to miss this.

[shibumi]

I was at work all day and just got home about ten minutes ago. I was catching up on the latest feud on this thread when I saw your name attached to a lengthy post. At last, I thought, the Big Guy is going to spell it out. So I took a deep breath and read.

If I was you ghost writer I couldn’t have worded it any better. In fact, I could show you some old FReepMails I’ve sent to Bloggers here on FR that express almost the exact sentiments you voiced in you post, #552.

It has never been my wish to drive Bloggers off this site. In fact, some of the reason I come here is to read a few of the blogs, thus my page preferences are set on “Everything” as are those of most FReepers I know. I would not want that all blogs disappear, and in fact in several cases, it has been my plea that the blogger post ~more~ of his material, not less.

But, like many, I have no wish to visit the malware laden blogosphere, blindly following every teaser, posted here only for the benefit of the Blogger.

Thank you so much for giving voice to these sentiments. Your observation that there should be as few rules as possible, while good common sense should prevail is most welcome.

Again, Thank You!

[50mm]

Ping for Jim’s opinion.

[sausageseller]

Are threads using FRs link and excerpt list just driving FR readers to other sites? I do think FR members could make a choice as to bloggers they would go read just as we do with the link and excerpt threads.