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.

Sounds good to me.

Feel free to ping me if I can help out in any way.

This is passionately one of my most favorite places in all my life . . . I figure all conservatives would likely feel that way if given a chance to settle in and learn our somewhat unique ropes.

I think that all newcomers ought to have an immediate FREEPMAIL of our FREEPER VOCABULARY doc/thread beginning.

And the moose/cheese/whine/shower/hugh/series thing should be written up and FREEPMAILED to them say within a week.

Probably though also ought to have a doc right away explaining that

they want to discuss religion or read about religious discussions, we have the RELIGION FORUM which has more strict rules than the rest of the forum—but also has open threads—not for the faint-hearted nor thin-skinned.

AND that if they do not want such, they will need to always deselect the religion forum by selecting NEWS ACTIVISM vs the all forum selection—if I got that all right.

There would probably be wisdom in mentioning that we are a bit more strict hereon about family friendly including four letter words.

The Viking kitties ought to be explained but not in an off-putting sort of way.

The forbidden things in the Rel Forum might be good to inform them of—including the specifics of what is considered hate mongering as well as religions not allowed air time—e.g. Jihadi’s, Islam etc.

Some of this stuff would be better say 72 hours to a week after joining than to hit them with all of it full force first thing.

Maybe there could be a WELCOME LETTER every 48 hours for the first 2 weeks with sections of such piece mealed out.

At least they’d feel more cared for to have such attention frequently the first 2 weeks.

I think it would be good, also, if a mod or other seemingly ranking person or old timer social star would collect some info about them that they’d like shared and then introduce them to the rest of us on a WELCOME THREAD.

There might also be say a hundred of us old timers that listed our hobbies and interests . . . and then the WELCOME WAGON PERSON could insure that those with shared interests of the new comers were pinged to their welcome posts.

I think things like AMY’S PLACE and the military support threads would be good to introduce them to early on.

If they have an interest—the SURVIVALIST thread and the THREAT MATRIX threads would be good to introduce to interested newcomers early, too.

Perhaps ditto for all the special interest ping lists.

Maybe that list of ping lists would be good to send them the first two weeks, too.

You know those emails that we sometimes get . . . asking us to answer a list of questions about ourselves and send it around to the list of names who all know us? I could come up with a dozen or so questions like that . . . and they could answer however many of them they wished—on a thread or their home page . . . as a good way to get to know them.

Speaking of the home page . . . I wonder if there would be a way to cause the html coding to default to the left margin vs mushing all together. It makes editing it a real bear. Having a more friendly home page construction setup or editing setup would be more welcoming to newcomers.

I think it would be good to have some of JimRob’s classic essays sent to them—say 3-5 or so. It helps to be able to get, early on, a gestalt level sense of where the BOSS is coming from.

I think we should inform them that a high priority value of THE BOSS is that prayer threads can occur in NEWS ACTIVISM and why—and that they and those they love can benefit thereby.

Perhaps instead of metered out docs sent to them per days or hours—we should do it say every other day or every other post or sign-on or some such—that they feel attended to but not overwhelmed.

I think a good essay ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY—and the COMMUNITY aspects of our togetherness and mutual helpfulness would be great to give them. I don’t know that there is such an essay. Perhaps there could be a contest to write one.

I think it would be great to give them a summary of the GREAT MOMENTS IN FR HISTORY. Is there a doc about that? Who could compile it?

It might also be good to give them some FREEPER names who they could call on for CRITICAL NEWS ACTIVISM [in behalf of conservative priorities and ideals—needs in the world at large to take action quickly]; in various kinds of political/governmental issues situations . . . as well as . . . safety, terrorists, family discussion, talking points etc. sorts of situations.

Perhaps an essay about whatever kind of consensus there might be about what constitutes the IDEAL FREEPER would be good.

Perhaps there would be some merit in informing them of the limitations or glitches about the software—though it’s the most wonderful forum software on the web. It’s not 100% perfect in all respects.

Guess that’s about all I have to suggest off the top of my noggin.

Thanks.

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