Get real. You know very well that I support what’s best for FR and it’s my opinion, which you happen to disagree with, that this blog overlord nonsense has reached proportions where it is both embarrasing and damaging to the site.
Of course, I don’t support any of the things you suggest. I expect you to argue better than to simply make sarcastic assumptions about what “I” support simply because I disagree with your approach to what we both agree is a problem.
All of the things you bring up can be dealt with the usual way: by getting rid of abusive posters and by freepers deciding FOR THEMSELVES not to click on stuff that is “ill-conceived,” “poorly written” or a simple “marketing piece.”
I think we can all figure out what those things look like. I certainly don’t need anyone protecting me from links I think I dumb. I know how to not click on them when I don’t want to click on them.
As for the integrity of the site and the forum experience, again, it’s simple: if a poster is abusive, let the mods zot them. In the meantime, if a poster’s threads die a natural death because they are all the things you are complaining about, good.
Could you show me, please, how this particular blogger, the OP, just to try to bring this discussion down to specifics, posted ill-conceived, poorly written, marketing tools?
If I had posted a normal thread (link and excerpt) to the OP’s blog, wouldn’t that have been okay?
You know I’m not trying to fight with you, hg. But I do disagree with this phenomenon (what it has become) and it’s a positive to hash some of this out here.
You might catch some static about the source not being on the excerpt list.
HOWEVER.. you would not be blogpimping. Not enriching yourself by abusing Free Republic.
If some blogger writes something, there is no reason in the world for him to excerpt it.
Other than using us as a marketing tool, that is.