Posted on 10/23/2012 3:58:44 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
The 4th and final of the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates have come and gone for 2012.
Here are the three things we can walk away with.
- Romney can't lose a debate coin toss, going 3 for 3. Which of course means nothing.
- Obama gets more moderated debate time, going 3 for 3 in the time column. Which of course means nothing.
- Free Republic crashes before any debate and doesn't get back to normal until dawn the next day.
I would like to state that I have been here since the 2004 election season. I can't lay claim to being an old timer here compared to some of the posters here. I can safely say though that I am not a spur of the moment account meant to come here and spam, insult and run away.
Here's my point; Free Republic is in danger of not being relevant and it's purely because of technical reasons.
I know your technical team or advisor is trying like mad to isolate why this site is unavailable for hours on end surrounding the debates this year. It's not working.
This debate season for Free Republic has been the equivalent of having a TV network go out for a wild card round, divisional round and conference or league championship. The network knew the times of the contest, they knew tons of people would be watching, they knew where the technical problems might arise yet failed 4 times over the course of every scheduled event.
Now the Super Bowl of American politics is 2 weeks away and the same team that has aired loading screens for every head to head political contest this year must realize this simple fact; if you're not up and running on election night 2012 you might as well close the door on any thought of continuing your political relevance.
Online communities do not build themselves overnight but they can collapse overnight. As inconceivable as it may be this could be a swan song moment that you were warned about, tried to prevent yet ultimately could not control. If your traffic can't get to your site, you have no site.
If you fail in giving voice to this community during what should or could be a glorious night for America your role in history will be noteworthy, just like print edition of Newsweek's coverage of the Presidential inauguration in 2013. Non-existent.
History will indeed be made on November 6th because of the nature of the event. The question Free Republic needs to determine is if it is going to report history or become part of it.
Run a trace route on FR.
Music soothes the savage beast.
Without the snark (and dude, you snarked a lot), I agree on the facts. FR needs load-testing and techical upgrades. I hear that the server is physically present but uninstalled. Might be a mistake to switch that RIGHT now, should have been done a month ago... JohnRob, I hope all is well, personally, with you....Prayers for all, for health and peach in your lives....
To me it seemed like there was way too many multiple posts, personally I don’t think its necessary to have an epileptic fit with the send/post buttons just to get a message across, and I saw this over and over.
I suggest Jim needs to get some software adjustment that prevents an identical post repeat withing a specified time.
FR was definitely under attack, but it was done by anti-Romney groups that are daily FR posters that are fully aware of the weaknesses of FR, which they exploited.
You posted this at 5:11AM PST, and you are surprised no one official has commented?
Apples to oranges. JimRob has decided to fund the website off member contributions.
I'm sticking with Jim.
Traffic will return to normal in two weeks, when the elections are over. The Obamabots will return to their caves.
You don't know that. Besides, if FR was under attack, it would be constant, not just at high-demand times.
This is some sort of load issue.
btrl
Sure it was a load issue, posters sending the same message two dozen times! One poster was very adamant that everyone knew that GM did something with 7 out of 10 cars, because the post was done over and over and over I just blanked him out.
That's the social feedback loop. The load issue is the fact the first post cannot get posted.
Exactly. Those live threads are fun, but they're rarely of any real analytic value.
If I was sitting in a room trying to give an opinion to the rest of the group and they didn’t hear me the first time I don’t repeat myself over and over for the next hour like a stuck record player.
If you cannot get your post in then you just cannot do it, the universe may be nothing but opportunities of timing but that doesn’t mean losing a comment will shorten your life.
I must have deleted a million comments over the years because my reply takes too long, I just dump the page and hit the FR portal page to start over.
Well, Laz, we all need peach in our lives :)
Last night was the first debate that I could kinda, almost, slowly follow here. The other two nights I couldn't even get the site to load.
I think when a business experiences ongoing massive systemic failures sleep necessarily becomes secondary (although I did note the early hour in my post).
I love FR, but it's creakin' a little.
Unfair. The issue is not occuring now. Further, JR has serious health issues.
You’re right on the “something needs to be fixed” part, wrong on the “becoming irrelevent” part.
There is more to FR than just the live threads — but I agree, those are important and yes, it’s increasingly frustrating not being able to connect during big events. JimRob made a comment on a prior thread about John not being ready to “give up”, but as I see it, a lot of people have sent money with the understanding that a fix is in the works. Time to put away the stubborn streak and get additional help.
But if obama is re-elected, it is immateral because obama will shut it down. From what I am hearing, there are still enough fools to elect obama. Teachers and I know someone that works at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant whose management is telling the staff to vote for obama because Romney will take away their health care and social benefits. Last Sunday a fellow Church member told me that a relative of hers is voting for obama because obama will pay off her student loan and Romney will do away with student loans. Combine lies, deceit,fraud, fraudalent counts and recounts, crooked hudges,and Conservatives not voting or voting third party,obama still has a better that a 50-50 chance of being re-elected.
May there be peach on Earte, and may it BEgin, with me......
Likely because so many others have stopped trying to log on here during big events.
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