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.
I don’t know what a technology paradigm shift is and frankly, I don’t care.
I hate most forum designs. FR is nearly perfect for my needs.
I like the fact there is no editing. I like being able to research a members past postings, many a liar and troll has been revealed over the years. Except for a few here, a misspelled word or two is no big deal, trolls on the other hand is another story. Not saying either of you are by no means.
I do to. If it gets changed to look like every other stupid blog, I’ll just leave.
keep the look the same- this site’s design is way better than 99% of the other sites which are too stinking confusing to wade through- this site here gives you the thread title and a brief description in an easy to scan, quick format- no flashing ads, no blocks no rectangles, etc- this site is far and above the easiest to scan through quickly and read just the articles you’re interested in-
WAIT!!! WHAT!!! Are you saying ALL FR’s that came in 2005 are WHAT???@!!!...I joined in 2005 and I’m NO TROLL!!! (weeping uncontrollable, you hurt my 72 year old feelings, WWWWWAAAAAA) 2005? Most horrible class of Free Republic. Don’t you trolls ever give up? You sure you don’t want a pony too? 51 posted on 12/19/2016 11:41:34 AM by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW evil, stupid, insane ignorant or just clueless, doesn’t matter!) lol. I agree with your assessment. Them ‘05ers cannot be trusted. Ban them, I say. 57 posted on 12/19/2016 11:43:12 AM by Responsibility2nd
Most of what you’re asking for is already built in.
Maybe the problem is with you needing things spoon fed to you.
FR works fine, it’s you I’m not so sure of.
Well I’m thinking more of grammar and spelling since there are people here just waiting to jump on someone’s post because of errors, missing words, etc etc. Or if it was a stupid post or erroneous post you’d might want to remove it.
I don’t want any of that, but I do miss one old feature and I wish they’d bring it back. When you’d use a HTML tag in a post and forget to close it out everybody who posted afterward had their posts in green or bold or blinking and then someone would yell “close yer tags!” or “Italians OFF!” and then somebody Italian who didn’t get the joke would start complaining about bigotry and the rest of us would all have a good laugh...I thought that was kinda cool...
Maybe I should have waited nine more days...
You can always have any post removed by hitting abuse and asking the mod to do it for you.
I had a 64 Olds 442 back in the day...I'd love to have that car again today and if I did, I wouldn't change a thing...
Actually, I don't think FR uploads anything. It links to the site where the photo is already stored.
-PJ
Reader View on the iPhone works for this posting:
freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3498813/posts
Try it.
Why? I wish I knew. 99.9% of the Reader View doesn't work on the iPhone. There must be something embedded in this page that lets Reader View do its thing.
Maybe John Robinson can figure it out and then invisibly add that HTML code to each FR posting.
and for the love of bob do NOT go with that crappy idiotic disqus commenting format- cripes i hate that format-
KISS- do NOT ‘modernize’ (’Modernize’ Translation- take a great concept and make it super crappy because young folks think it ‘looks cool’ Corsets made the wearer ‘look good’ but they caused massive internal problems for the wearer- so vote no on forum change to prevent massive internal organ failures-)
It’s simple. The format and the usability work well for most.
As one poster said, if you haven’t figured out the private reply or mail functions, discussing how to add or improve functionality is kind of silly.
Now, on to some of your suggestions, let’s look simply at the base. A mobile platform is long overdue. But, Jim and his family run this board at a great personal expense. It’s a labor of love but is also a drain, and, if it is to be understood properly, I believe a loss center, even with the fund raisers.
If you want to improve things, and you happen to have access to a real computer, get in touch with the admins and find the SOAP/Rest address locations. They were building that out at one point years ago, and it kind of got stalled, but it should be mostly complete, if not finished. If it is complete, then go get a copy of Xamarin and create a multi-platform mobile environment. You’d do a native C# or Javascript call to the API’s and be able to write your own client. It would improve the readership of the platform, have more readers for the fund raisers and maybe end up making it easier for them to make some improvements they’ve long wanted to do. The other advantage is, if you wanted to have bold or other features, improved picture posting, or whatever, you’d have control of your client and how it sent the data to the Rest API’s.
In other words, if you want changes, do something, don’t just bitch when someone provides you a great environment and says “You can use it at will” and has to resort to requesting every quarter that people pay for it, but never demand.
FR internally is only searchable by words in a title, by poster, or by keyword.
FR is totally searchable via Google or Bing.
Just begin your search with site:freerepublic.com and Google/Bing will limit your search to FR content.
-PJ
Not necessarily.
JWR's website Survivalblog.com seems to have done nicely without all that. A simple banner on the right side that shows ads/links to their sponsors. I like that. Unobtrusive and the page loads very quickly.
You make an excellent point.
In order to avoid having trolls trying to alter history, a ‘post-posting edit’ function would need to include 1) some kind of attached notification that the post had been edited, and 2) a tracking/retention system to keep a record of the original unedited text.
That would be a lot more complicated to implement than a simple editing feature, so we’re probably better off without it.
I guess I just need to get in to the habit of using “Preview” to reduce my typos.
Hey, I get that. Back in the mid-90’s I had a friend that was a dos fanatic. He would use Windows 3.1 but had memorized all the keyboard shortcuts and refused to use a mouse. :-)
FR
Doesn’t
Need
Changing.
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