Posted on 04/23/2016 9:01:58 PM PDT by Lonely Bull
Thank you for your comments.
I know I appreciate them very much. I’m sure WindFlier and Lonely Bull do as well.
You addressed some issues I’d given thought to, but a little differently, so I appreciated reading them.
Take care...
D1
Thank you WindFlier. I appreciated you and Lonely Bull pitching in to help out. The after vote Caucus Discussion thread was a good idea, and Lonely Bull’s idea of presenting organized links from the thread was also a great idea.
Shows that any effort looks better when people volunteer to make it better.
You took up a cause and dedicated yourselves to it.
I think that was very nice of you.
D1
I believe that your work was more important to Free Republic than anyone realizes. There are many features of the site that cause it to be less easily manipulated than other forms of social media, largely the efforts of moderators who do their very best to keep things under control. I think that I saw every trick in the book being used by Cruz operatives this time around. This included almost diabolically sneaky tactics in some cases. I think that this dishonest activity is what they call a “better ground game”.
This behavior from a few caused a lot of problems and confusion. I think without the reference point you provided with the nightly caucus results, what was actually going on would have been much more difficult for anyone to figure out. I felt that the future of Free Republic was being threatened by trained operatives from a well funded campaign who really could not care less about the community here. I truly believe that anyone who cares about the future of the Free Republic owes you more than they realize.
Their ground game cannot withstand the bleach of sunlight.
Your perspective is appreciated.
I’d rather not comment further on the caucus until it is over.
I welcome the supporters of the remaining candidates to participate if they want to.
D1
I saw your link to COINTELPRO previously and am fairly sure that every dirty tactic mentioned was being employed here at one point or another. I have been here through several election seasons and never felt that the integrity of the site was threatened as much as this time around. This is what some people call a “better ground game”.
Most the people here started out supporting Cruz. One would think that the Cruz campaign team would have viewed this site as a natural ally and taken a hands off approach. But that was not the case and I felt the very existence of the site was under threat.
It felt like any effort the moderators made to keep things civil was met with open rebellion. Some of it was so blatantly contrived that it might have been humorous if the actual effort was not intended to destroy the credibility of the site. Somehow in the face of all this the moderators managed to hold things together, but I am sure their job would have been much more difficult if they were not aware of the numbers provided by the nightly caucus results.
I understand completely. However, I could never express my gratitude adequately for your efforts.
Yes, the person with the initials GGG was an interesting character. The unusual activity this year was far more obvious at places like news outlets that allows comments. Breitbart is one example. These places will have literally 10,000 comments on something fairly inconsequential. They will be flooded with so much bot traffic that an actual conversation is impossible.
We also have regulars such as 2DVet who have been here for many years and have gotten very active in the Cruz campaign this year. He is much more effective than people like GGG because he tirelessly starts threads, but doesn’t generally get into shouting matches with anyone. He is a very smart guy and I have enjoyed his threads and posts for many years. We need people who have different perspectives. We just don’t need people who use seminar tactics to manipulate the discussions.
Agreed with all you posted. A handful of ops took over the forum.
Well said! I could not agree more, onyx.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.