Let the Free Republic site create the Title, Author, Date, and Source, given the Source URL

vanity | January 9, 2022 | me

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That’s a permanent fix...until Hostgator goes belly up, changes direction, or gets acquired and the buyer says “that image hosting doesn’t align with our strategy.”

It seems the only thing somewhat permanent on the web is FR.

[cuban leaf]

And modern browsers allow you to add emoji graphics. 😎

[Openurmind]

“I’d like editing after posting to correct mistakes and also being able to vote on posts.”

We have those in our forum and these features can cause huge conflict. Editing allows folks to bash someone and then go change it to cover their tracks. And we had to set our voting system to just positive “likes” with no downvotes because of sadistic campaigns to gang up and mass downvote each other. It can cause more fights about downvoting each other than actual productive dialog.

But very limited editing would be nice. Like a limited time to edit real quick, like one minute to click edit or it is set permanent. But blocked from editing as soon as someone else replies to it.

[Pollard]

That would be done with Open Graph META Data; https://ahrefs.com/blog/open-graph-meta-tags/ — https://ogp.me/

FR software would have to sniff the html document at the url for OG tags and pull them in to the posting form fields.

[Responsibility2nd]

One great option that would increase readability and make free republic a more enjoyable place would be to eliminate the forums.

All we need is just one forum for all topics. We do not need a general chat or a blogger or a breaking news or any of the others. And what the heck is a vets COR anyway?

Maybe 20 years ago the different forums were viable, but who needs them anymore?

[caww]

Well everything I’ve purchased that’s digital broke down much quicker than manual operation....from TV to space heaters. Went back to Manuel and Im a happy camper now.

The less there is to fiddle with the better. FR works great for me...and I sure don’t want popups nor ads.

[FreedomPoster]

I bet I am far from the only one around here with a timing light in his toolbox!

[Openurmind]

“I think it would be asking a lot for FR to solve this problem for something that takes posters 30 seconds to type out manually.”

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why is anyone even typing it manually unless it is personal? When we can copy and paste everything from the original source. Title, author, content, URL, all of it copy and paste...

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Or the edited posts could still be there for everyone to see by clicking on a link. Not removed - just hidden.

[bhl]

Lots of tech people here would be happy to volunteer their time to work on improvements like this.
We see lots of duplicate posts. Copying and pasting author and title and url is manual labor that is prone to errors. This is a simple improvement that could attempt the autofill that a poster could go with or not. Would not impact the rest of the site

Some kind of technology group could also help with outages, or help if any of the existing help get hit by the proverbial bus. But managing such a group would in itself be added work for Jim.

[FtrPilot]

I have my own domain through Dreamhost and a web site through Smugmug.

Here's a pic from my trip to Churchill, Canada in November.

Polar Bear

[usconservative]

I bet I am far from the only one around here with a timing light in his toolbox!

There's at least two of us as of this post, so I'd say you're right.

[Openurmind]

“I bet I am far from the only one around here with a timing light in his toolbox!”

Got a Dwell meter? I still have two and actually know where they are. lol

[Ezekiel]

I'd like the ability to post by entering only the Source URL, clicking a button and having software populate the entries of Title, Author, Date Published, and Source.

Better yet, make FR more like 4chan! /s<<<

Heh. Or Reddit or...

The original post and some of the comments are downright Biblical.

We want a website with cool, convenient features like on the other websites!

Go, tell the people what kind of website they're going to get...

Tracking, ads, pop-ups, viruses, but hey if it's autofill you want, it's autofill you'll get!

This could be a fun thread. :)

[Openurmind]

“Or the edited posts could still be there for everyone to see by clicking on a link. Not removed - just hidden.”

Then you have taken up twice the disk space needed for just one post. Whether you can see it or not, the one post would still use twice the storage because of the prior post being archived.

Generally a standard is that user edited posts would remain for the admin and mods to review. But there is an unnecessary burden being placed on admin every time there is a discrepancy.

[TomGuy]

That would seem to be a nightmare scenario for the programmer(s), since the millions of websites are not consistent in how they are built.

[SkyDancer]

Okay, I understand. thanks.

[FreedomPoster]

Of course! They’re both in the big stand up toolbox in the garage.

[dayglored]

This 16+ year Freeper, a monthly donor for many years, says:

IMO, FreeRepublic's limited feature set is just fine as-is. Here's why.

• It's simple, fast, easy to learn, and JohnRob can maintain it without requiring additional IT staff. Do you want the Freepathon goal to double?
• Storage for on-site graphics would rapidly increase server costs. For less than $100/yr you can host your own graphics (that's what I do, on AWS).
• The last thing we want is to increase costs such that JimRob has to start accepting ads. NO!
• While edit for prior posts sounds nice, it complicates the heck out of the software, and is easily abused by trolls. And it would require a ton of additional programming/maintenance effort. Do you want "edit" badly enough to pay for it?
• If you are entertained by ads, popups, and flashy graphics, join Fakebook or Twatter or Reddit or any of dozens of others.
• My conclusion: FR ain't broke. There's no reason to "fix" it.

[dinodino]

You nailed it.