Posted on 12/19/2016 10:19:57 AM PST by Yollopoliuhqui
Edited on 12/19/2016 3:16:46 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Hi Jim, I didn't know how to email you privately so I'll use one of the more casual forums. This is not a new topic, I'm sure, but let me add my voice to whatever clamor there is to migrate Free Republic to a more modern forum software package, one that
1. Has functions which are easy to see/find and invoke
2. Allows easier upload of pictures
3. That allows email notification of replies to comments
4. That allows editing after a comment is posted
5. That has text editing features so one doesn't need to know HTML code in order to add emphasis.
6. That has a Search function for previous posts
7. That is easier to navigate to the specialty forums such as "Gods, Graves, Glyphs", which, had it not been mentioned in a random post, I never would have found here on FR.
This is the modern era, there are far, far better forum software packages out there. Free Republic may well experience a rapid growth in users post Trump victory. We'll want to make joining and participating fully in FR as easy as possible.
“How is posting on a phone difficult...”
It’s not, at least it isn’t difficult for me. I have an older laptop, but all I use it for is the DVD player. It’s been 4 years since I bailed on having a landline or satellite connection, so I pretty much do everything from my iPhone. The ONLY complaint I have is the increasing amount of video posts eating up data and slowing the speed down.
Dang! That thing might blow up!
Quick toss it into the toilet, save us all!
But that period was also a time of intense anti-war activities funded by the left, which in turn inspired activism on the right. The FR DC Chapter's weekly freeps of anti-war trolls at Walter Reed started in March 2005 and continued until the original base closed in 2012. During those years, the DC Chapter not only freeped many organized anti-war protests in the Federal area of Washington as well, but also coordinated with ProtestWarrior, Gathering of Eagles, Rolling Thunder, Patriot Guard Riders, and many organizations formed to provide support to troops, both active-duty and wounded. DC Chapter published a widely read weekly After Action Report and pinged hundreds of freepers across the country. And freepers in Texas joined with other FR patriots to counter Cindy Sheehan's odious demonstrations against Bush at his Crawford ranch in 2005 -- the live thread drew thousands of replies. There were organized weekly freeps (and AARs) in several states across the country. And of course, the 2004 elections were a draw for people with a positive interest in resisting Kerry's bid for the presidency.
I'm not disputing that trolls entered in; but there were many affirmative reasons for an influx of patriots here at that time. The DC Chapter's Walter Reed were mentioned on Limbaugh and Hannity in 2005, and there were half a dozen regular bloggers in attendance year after year as well.
LOL!! Good one!
That would make spammers around the world hysterically happy. All they would have to do is type in a few letters and they'd get a bunch of real screen-names. They could easily collect hundreds of thousands of names and spam freepers to death. A nightmare for Admin to combat, as well.
The phone is mainly nice to read, not to respond.
I found a link to FR on alt.impeach.clinton, and that’s how I found my way here.
As you can see from the replies to your post, the average age of Freepers must be over 80. You have some good suggestions. But this crowd hates good suggestions.
Did you read what he said? He said that if there were a like button (I’m ok without it but I see the value), you could scroll the thread titles and see in a flash which ones were popular or controversial. You can always still read the whole thread. But a lot of people freep between activities and want to get a faster “gist” of what’s going on.
It isn’t that people would ONLY hit like instead of forming intelligent posts. It would be an additional tool.
I have angle brackets on my iPhone but typing out HTML would be tedious and I have little female fingers and still mistype constantly.
The worst problem on an iPhone is that in most browsers you can’t get the entire text into the box to see it, so you have to scroll left and right as well as up and down. And that is just to READ. Then I found two browsers where you don’t have to do that, Atomic Web and Opera Mini, but still the font is small and when you try to post in Opera, and I think in the others too, you CANNOT SEE THE POSTING Box so you are typing blind.
And on the stupid iPhone (nothing FR can do about that) the return key is in part of the old space bar so I am constantly hitting it and not knowing, so my post
Comes out like
A haiku
As if
I wanted it to
Look like this.
What am I, Wardaddy? Lol. ;)
I don’t know whether a full app is needed or if there is some trick to get FR easy to use on a phone. I do all my home freeping on an iPad where everything is absolutely awesome. Thank goodness. But when out, I’d love the same ease. Thanks for listening, John. Merry Christmas!
I don’t mean to be rude but you send a message like this at Christmas? Your timing is terrible, and honestly I’ll bet more than 65% of donors to FR don’t want ads, don’t want slow loading pages or 5 clicks to get to a story... but I can’t focus on this now because I’d much rather be wishing Jim a Very Merry Christmas full of friends and family and love! And thanking him for such an amazing 2016, and for the FReeper family we have all found here! And wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas as well, it’s time to jump into the holiday spirit with both feet :)
You've been around how long?
Popular and/or controversial posts tend to attract comments. Even a NOOB like me knows you can get that information from the posts page. For instance on this topic it says (note information in BOLD in case it has been missed for the entirety of your time here):
Message to Jim Robinson
12/19/2016, 1:19:57 PM · by Yollopoliuhqui · 191 replies
Standard Version Illumination | 12/19/2016 | Yollopoliuhqui
You want the LIKE button follow the link at #191...
I just read all your posts. The assumption is that up to date forum software can’t be made to look and feel simple or fast loading or Android/phone friendly. This is not the case. Forum software is customizable. A user can have a choice between HTML and Java versions of the same site.
Comments that a learning curve to use FR means people are dedicated and committed to their principles is bogus. This is a digital medium in the Digital Age and if it ain’t at your fingertips, you won’t grow the site by attracting a younger demographic. Obsolescence is avoidable, but only at the cost of removing obsolete memes. FR will ultimately emulate the biology of its remaining users, do a MacArthur, grow old and fade away.
Secondary comments about ads and ad revenue assume that the admins wouldn’t be able to select ads based on how FR should look and feel. This is a reaction to past media uptake and not intrinsic to how ad content can be required to behave, ie., reactionary.
The only salient criticism is that any upgrade to FR would be expensive, would rely on outside tech support and possibly compromise security. The upgrade can be crowd sourced and the talent pool of trustworthy conservatives can’t be that impoverished.
Basically I see conservatives doing here with this thread what they do best, hunker down, grip what is familiar and let faster moving elements run circles around us like them goofy technophobe hippies did back in the 1960’s making us pull Trump’s victory off by the skin of our teeth 50 years later while them paradigm busting lefties gained near total hegemony over academia, the press, youth culture, entertainment, urban governments, etc.
If there is one thing we can learn from Donald Trump, it’s that we can bust the paradigm and win.
so in other words you want to ignore the vast majority of Freepers and force a change because YOU want change?
Gosh, no, Yaelle; I'm functionally illiterate and never make any cogent replies.
Tidied up the formatting of your post.
Now you can replace me with a robot.
Your resistance to learning curves explains the shallowness of your prognostications in the rest of your post.
If anyone is counting (not recounting) I like 4 or 5 of the ideas posted. Everything can be improved on.
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.