Mod Lecture Series- Freeper Community Update

This is a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Admin Moderators (Sidebar gave us some attitude so we shoved him in the closet for a while. He never recovered from the Yacht incident) For a while, we have noticed some things happening that we need your help with. The Free Republic community is strong; we are almost a family, albeit very dysfunctional at times. Like any community, we have new members joining us daily. Unfortunately, the air of suspicion and the desire to keep things “the way they are” has fostered a feeling of distrust with new members. Almost every day, we see new members join, then, because of comments of suspicion, they often don’t return. For any community to thrive, it must grow. Because of this, we are asking for your help. Here are some important things you should know:

The Internet has changed greatly since Free Republic first started. When we formed, few people had their own websites, now, everyone has their own blog. With this, there is an attitude change where someone who doesn’t understand how our community works may be more interested in self-promotion than we have been used to in the past. We don’t want to change the overall feel of this site- it is about our shared values, not about self promotion, however, we don’t want to drive people away simply because they link to their own blog. There are blog “pimps” who want nothing more than to promote their own sites, but for most people, it is simply how they start out sharing their thoughts on a matter. Encourage these members to take part in existing discussions.

Many new members may not communicate well what they believe and it gives the appearance they are not 100% kosher in their Conservative beliefs. This may have nothing to do with their Conservative credentials but simply how they are communicating their beliefs or how the media/pop culture has told them what to think. Be an example and discuss what you think is wrong. A liberal troll’s true colors will reveal themselves while a new member who is honest, but may not communicate well, may learn from the conversation.

Remember, how you respond to a topic not only reflects your thoughts, but also is a reflection of the community and Conservative values. We need to be an example of positive conservative values when responding to members, especially new ones. As mods, we make a strong attempt to screen all new members. Every new sign-up goes through a period where their posts are reviewed. This helps us eliminate most trolls, porn and commercial spammers, and those who don’t fit in with our Conservative values. This isn’t a perfect system, but it does help us make sure that by the time a new member reaches the community, there is a greater chance this person is the type we want around. Some slip through, yes, and you can always help us by hitting the abuse button. (of course, we do let some world class morons through every once in a while as “Live Chow”- after all, the kitties have to have toys.)

With all that said, we need to grow. We need to be far more welcoming to new members and guide them into how to use our community best. With this said, we are issuing a challenge to our long time Freeper family. We would like to start up a ‘welcome wagon’ type of ping list or group whose job it is to welcome new members, show them the ropes, and guide them through our community. This could be as simply as giving new members a kind welcome, guiding them to how to post topics or replies, or just making the experience pleasant.

As this is your community, we would like your thoughts, ideas, and most importantly, for some of you to step up and help us with this.

would it even be wise to change the basic layout, or functions?

This system has a long legacy and changing it in any radical way would be very destabilizing. And there is no purely information/communications reason to change much.

Even embedding videos is not necessary in that any video on youtube, for example, is only one click away through an URL that the reply editor will format for you without HTML. You can always post a pic with your link if you want to show the opening screen.

I see no real *reason* to change things drastically. There are a lot of details I'd change but I'm sure others would like them to remain the same so - there you have it.

On FR we have folks who trash lots of Republicans for not being conservative enough: Bush, Medved, Gingrich, even Cheney. Eventually, nobody is good enough. It makes you wonder what the true goal of these perfect conservatives is, really.

There is much to be said for

"A political party cannot be all things to all people.
It must represent certain fundamental beliefs
which must not be compromised
to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers."
RONALD REAGAN

There are "certain fundamental beliefs" which are the core of conservatism. For example...

"The basis of conservatism is a desire
for less government interference or less
centralized authority or more individual freedom
and this is a pretty general description
also of what libertarianism is."
RONALD REAGAN

But hey, if you don't enforce any minimum standard of what constitutes conservatism, then you will support practically anything, in essence standing for nothing.

No, you’re right, it’s much better to have Ozero as the commander in chief. I’ll let my brother know. And my friend in Iraq. Maybe you could explain it to them. How it’s better to have the worst possible president than one who isn’t a perfect conservative.

While you're at it, please let them know that even though the last wonder-lust was Republican and did 'love the military' he didn't bother to lift a finger against Iran or Syria when they trained, armed, and deployed terrorists into Iraq. Need I remind you of who those terrorists victims were in many instances? How about the upgraded flack jackets? What about the new upgraded personel carriers? Did our guy do all that he could? In a word, no.

He was just too busy doubling the budget of the Department of education in his first three years, and pushing through the largest single Great Society program in 40 years.

Until our populace gets tired of the leftists, we're going to have them with us. The best we can hope for is to out them for who they are, and change directions in this natioin. We simply cannot do that by voting in people who claim to be conservative but drag their feet. I spent the last eight years trying to talk sense into 'Conservaives' on this fourm, hoping Bush would get it. He never did. He was defended to the bitter end. Nothing he did was worthy of him being taken to the wood shed over.

Well, Bush was bad enough. I will never sign on to the likes of John McCain to lead this nation. While our troops risk their lives on foreign soil, he would be using our borders to further his globalist agenda. He would be whittling away at our military as surely as Obama is. He's happy enough calling them tortureres.

When McCain worked with George Soros and Teressa Heinz Kerry to form a foundation, I promised myself I would never support him. When he sided against our POWs, their families and the military to grant Vietnam normalized status, I said to myself, this man is evil. I will never support him. I have a list of forty to fifty things that reveal to me that I can never support this man. He is EVIL.

On FR we have folks who trash lots of Republicans for not being conservative enough: Bush, Medved, Gingrich, even Cheney. Eventually, nobody is good enough. It makes you wonder what the true goal of these perfect conservatives is, really.

Well, I know it's a quaint concept, but perhaps they want people who truly believe what they profess to believe. Did you read Gingrich's latest diatribe on the forum today? Have you listened to Medvid over the years? Medvid means well, but he's lost in the ozone. He takes the wrong side on so many issues that it's a surprise when he doesn't. Every time I turn his show on, he convinces me I've come to the wrong place. Newt is now convinced that it's too much to think a right wing majority could win a national election.

As for Cheney, I've had some problems with him over the years. I would still probably vote for him.

Look, if these folks want to lead us, they need to think about what they say. It's not my fault they don't believe in Conservatism.

How many tenets of Conservatism am I supposed to dismiss so I can vote for a Democrat who only believes a couple of things I do?

Sorry, we're so much farther left today than we were under Reagan, there's no denying that going along to get alone has brought us to where we are. At some point we must take a stand or we'll be standing in the middle of leftist central as happy as a lark to be there.

Not me today. Not me tomorrow. If you think that makes me a leftist operative, then that's just sad.
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I very much agree with that viewpoint, although adding a Rich Text Editor wouldn't hurt or change the basic function or layout of the site. It would make posting a lot less tedious, though.

John Robinson is the tech guy (that's his screen name, too) and he, I'm sure, would be open to your suggestions.

Again, I am not an insider. I'm just blathering my own experiences here on FR. It is a great site, accomplishes what it intends to accomplish and my vote is for the slow, evolutionary approach and not a revolutionary "upgrade" that doesn't improve fundamental communications abilities.

Even then, I agree that a nice editor would be an improvement if they can work it out. And fix the search, like others have suggested.

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