It took me a long time to get used to it, but now it works for me. I think you should make more use of the search feature, and maybe the various forums if you have particular areas of interest. Now those other formats actually confuse me!
I've never had any problems with the FR format. Not even the older versions.
I use the "messages" view so that I can gauge current interest in a thread. If something's been posted to 5 or 10 times on the page, I can see that's where the current action is. You can't really do that with the number of posts in a thread, as there are always 5,000 post threads out there that get dragged back to life once in a while.
I prefer this format to what DU has
I'd like nested comments a la slashdot myself...
Why not?
I agree. Another issue is that the links at the top of the page disappear or move depending on where you are on the site. When reading a post, for example, the pings link disappears and the other links suddenly are on the left side. A consistent set of quick links would make it possible to get to the most commonly used areas with a single click regardless of where you were.
Because he, (Jim Dad) said so.
Have you tried this Latest Articles?
Try this or this to see what a "commercially available and user adaptable" database program does.
This format works for me, and (obviously) for most users here. If you can do better, develope it and sell it.
I'm sure there are LOTS of sites looking for a better, more user-friendly and intuitive forum format.
I love the banter and information on FR, so I just go with the flow, but truth be told, I absolutely hate the layout.
The Free Republic search function is seriously damaged, compared to the way it used to be.
I searched "Islamic" in the Advanced search page, using the "quick," "match any word" and by "order by post time" settings It returned about 20 hits, from 3/01 to 3/13.
As I recall, a single page used to return a lot more hits than than -- I have my preferances set to 250 articles per page. Further, only 20 hits on the word "Islamic" for a two weeks worth of posting seems too few.
At the bottom of the page I think there used to be a link for "find additional results," which would bring up several new pages of recent hits. But that's been changed to "Click to search older articles ... " When you click on it, it returns the same amount of articles from the same time frame -- 3/01 - 3/13. In other words, the "archive" setting is the same as the "recent" setting.
I seem to recall that it returned many more hits and went much deeper into the archive.
Note to Mods: Is anyone working on this?
The search/archive could use a drastic overhall.
After a few days, a topic rolls off the planet. Just today, I tried to go back to find an article I saved to hard drive and inadvertantly deleted. It was an article about the USS Lincoln providing aid during the tsunami. The search (title by date) only allowed me to go back one page of listings, which listed articles only for about the last 2 weeks.
It is too bad that the historical content gets so easily lost after a few days. I have yet to see any search engine, however, including Google, that allows searches between specific dates or earlier than a specific date. Google does some indexing of FR and I usually rely on it to do any searching.
FR has allot of historical content, but unless someone has saved a link or just happens to know how to get to a particular article, trying to go back and find a specific article is next to impossible.
Folks over at DU don't like the FR format either. I suggest you stick to a website you like.
I wish I can organize my ping account. I can't find anything past two weeks ago. The ping account is great but I hesitate jumping onto high volume ping lists.
Otherwise, I love this site more than any other.
I like it just fine. FR seems to get even better with each update / upgrade of software.
I hate the lack of filtering stupid vanity post.