So, What Sort of Free Republic Should This Be?

[Lead Moderator]

"Pantless driver charged over kiddie porn"

Dr Who fans to mark anniversary (40 years!)

DRUDGE "THE 'LOVE' LETTERS TO 'RUBBA' THAT MAY DESTROY JACKSON"

Seeking Help for a Computer Problem (Vanity)

'Can YOU Be A Porn Star?'

Oklahoma U. Qualifies for College Football Title Game

Man tries to smuggle bologna in shape of car seat over border

Posner is a fraud........

Screenless TV's Picture Floats In Thin Air

Syphilis Cases Rising In Idaho - many of the victims are pregnant

Michael Jackson: Take me to South America! (Midair meltdown as he returned to CA)

Teenager narrowly escapes crocodile attack

Dixie Chicks Singer Still Speaking Mind

All of the above were originally posted to news. That means that for a person having their settings for 50 threads at a time, their latest posts page would have had all of these.

All have been moved to chat.

[sissyjane]

>>I will not eat them here or there.....<<


I will not eat them anywhere,

Seriously--I think that a lot of threads that start out as "local or vanity" threads turn into more.
i.e. The sniper threads, the Challenger, the hurricane threads, the western fires, even the World Trade Center attacks. They all sterted as local news and turned into something much more. Threads maybe will have to be moved, but you don't know until they play out.

[lepton]

FReeper Beeper

O.K. What does it do besides open up a Java window?

[HairOfTheDog]

Once the thread is pushed past a threshhold multiple of 50, the poster will give him or herself a big "Woo Hoo." Then another half a dozen regulars post their "woo hoos." Some time later, the process repeats.

This is spam, and I hate it, too, even in Chat..... God love them.

then certainly the daily chat threads belong in Chat.

Aren't all the daily threads already in Chat?

[GOPJ]

Insightful:

To be perfectly blunt, if I were trying to think of the perfect way to disrupt a website from its objective, it wouldn't be to come in and post things that would get me banned. It wouldn't be to come in and talk off the wall. It would be to come in and just gently steer the site to irrelevance.

[Amelia]

Dittos to your #198. You said what I wanted to say, so now I don't have to! :-)

[FreedomCalls]

We have had to endure tens of thousands of postings about Laci Peterson and you are only now just figuring this out?

[NonValueAdded]

How about some words about duplicate posts? I think some guidance is needed on that subject too. Maybe that can be your next topic after this one is absorbed.

Maybe a point of confusion is that the same story will appear at other outlets than the one posted first, possibly with different title and editing but usually pretty much identical. I'm assuming the proper action is not to post the new item but rather reference it in a reply to the original thread, correct?

NVA

[sweetliberty]

It pings you when you have new posts or FReepmail, but it only pings to posts in News/Activism. It's also nice because it will still ping you as long as you keep the little window open and minimized, or whatever, if you're surfing the web. Make sure you hae your volume up to where you can hear it.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

Seriously--I think that a lot of threads that start out as "local or vanity" threads turn into more. i.e. The sniper threads, the Challenger, the hurricane threads, the western fires, even the World Trade Center attacks. They all sterted as local news and turned into something much more. Threads maybe will have to be moved, but you don't know until they play out.

My wife also pointed this out. Happily there is a simple solution: Instead of spending extra man hours to enforce complete segregation of apparently non-conservative posts, let the more popular of them appear among the "Latest Posts" along with the more popular from News/Activism and all other forums.

Then all of the threads that attrack the greatest amount of Freeper interest -- including those that change to activist threads mid-flow -- will be visible on one page.

[Billthedrill]

Look, I can explain about the story I posted. It's just that the "Alien Sex" forum is right next to the "Breaking News" forum alphabetically and my hand was shaking a little from too much cheap tequila. It could have happened to anyone.

[eddie willers]

Seriously--I think that a lot of threads that start out as "local or vanity" threads turn into more. i.e. The sniper threads, the Challenger, the hurricane threads, the western fires, even the World Trade Center attacks.

Excellent point.

Another reason for the "ALL Latest Posts" page.

[FreedomCalls]

This post is a perfect example of what you are talking about.

[Cultural Jihad]

It was a tough battle, but I have the window office.

Uh-oh. You know what they say about moving to the desk next to the window -- your next move is on the other side of the window! You'll often find yourself staring outside at the breeze in the trees, and day-dreaming, and your productivity will begin to plummet, and then comes the tap on the shoulder! ;-)

[HairOfTheDog]

I don't know if more divisions would be popular or not, but it seems the Laci Peterson/Michael Jackson/ and all the big trials before them that temporarily overload the forum (because a lot of people do follow them) would be to create a "trial watch" forum for all the trial watchers.

[Quix]

IF

"LATEST POSTS"

does not include ALL the LATEST POSTS regardless of forum,

PERHAPS, the software could be changed to allow the user to select which fora would be included in THE USER'S "LATEST POSTS" stream???

Perhaps that would help sort some of the abuse of threads out.

Also, John, I mentioned above . . . part of the following . . .

What about when a post was being entered, the user would have to select a priority: Say 1-4 or some such--as to

WHAT PRIORITY DOES THIS POST HAVE IN YOUR ESTIMATION OF:

"FR PRIORITY" =

FR1, FR2, FR3, FR4, FR5 . . . say . . .

1 = UTMOST RELEVANCE AND IMPORTANCE TO THE REPUBLIC AND FR'S GOALS RELATED TO THE REPUBLIC.

2 = OF INTEREST AND RELATED RELEVANCE TO THE HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC BUT NOT CENTRAL TO FR'S PRIORITIES FOR THE REPUBLIC AND FR and/or NOT URGENT TIME-WISE.

3 = OF INTEREST AND RELATED RELEVANCE TO THE HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC BUT QUITE OFF IN THE FUTURE OR RELATED TO HISTORY OF SAME. LOWEST PRIORITY OF POSTS RELATED TO HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC.

4 = OTHER NON-OFF-THE-WALL; NON-TIN-FOIL; NON-BIZARRE . . . e.g. SPORTS, HUMAN INTEREST, PRAYER THREADS, RESEARCH TOPICS NOT CENTRAL TO HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC; COMPUTERS, MOVIES, EVENTS, MUSIC, PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY ETC.

5 = OTHER--OFF-THE-WALL; BIZARRE, TIN-FOIL, CRAZY HUMAN BEHAVIOR, SILLINESS, HUMOR, ETC.

*******AND*****

a guesstimated INTEREST INVENTORY:

I1, I2, I3, I4

FOR ALL POSTS

I1 = POSTER GUESSTIMATES THAT ALMOST ALL USERS WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THEIR POST REGARDLESS OF TOPIC.

I2 = POSTER GUESSTIMATES THAT 60-80% OF ALL USERS WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THEIR POST REGARDLESS OF TOPIC.

I3 = POSTER GUESSTIMATES THAT 30-60% OF ALL USERS WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THEIR POST REGARDLESS OF TOPIC.

I4 = POSTER GUESSTIMATES THAT LESS THAN 30% OF ALL USERS WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THEIR POST REGARDLESS OF TOPIC.

---

THEN, THE SOFTWARE COULD BE CONFIGURED, I assume, such that a user could

CONFIGURE THEIR READING OF "LATEST POSTS" to consider BOTH PRIORITY rankings AS WELL AS WHICH FORA WOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE LISTING OF POST HEADINGS TO BE COMPILED IN THEIR PERSONAL LISTING OF "LATEST POSTS."

---

AND, ANY PRIORITY OF FR1-3 AND/OR I1-I2

WOULD EITHER

BE LISTED IN THE "LATEST POSTS" LISTING AS A HEADING (DEPENDING ON WHETHER IT WAS APPROPRIATE PER FORUM POSTED IN, OR NOT--THAT IS--ALL THE BREAKING NEWS AND OTHER HIGH VALUE, HIGH CATEGORY POSTS WOULD BE LISTED IN THOSE FORA REGARDLESS)

AND

OTHER HIGHER PRIORITY POSTS FROM OTHER FORA WOULD HAVE A 1-2 LINE ALERT FILLER LISTED IN ALL "LATEST POSTS" EVERY 30 POSTS FOR SAY 30 MINUTES REGARDLESS OF THE SETTINGS OF THE READING USER.

---

I think such would considerably bring order and discrimmination to such issues without losing the robust flavor of FR and the great "FRONT PORCH" flavor of so much that we share here.

It would take some getting used to in addition to no small effort on John's part. But I think it could really help the flow of our sharing as well as limit chaff for those who really needed and wanted the chaff limited. Yet, those who had the time or on slow news days or insomniacs could enjoy the whole nine yards when they felt like it, too.

Responses, reactions, rebuttals?

[FreedomCalls]

Trial watch forum

That would work.

[Cultural Jihad]

... cheap tequila.

Hey, there's no such thing! It may be some mixture of corn liquor and an agave distillate, but it ain't tequila!

[bjcintennessee]

I hope you will not find it necessary to limit the main forum strictly to news/activism. Some of the best laughs I've had came from posts like "Earworms, Songs that Get Stuck in Your Head" and "Ladies, Learn the Rules".

Those and a few other articles gave me the best insight into the wit and humor of fellow FReepers. I never go to any of the other "channels" here, but I guess I could start if that becomes the only way to see the "lighter side".

Is it a lot of trouble for the Mods to move a post from one board to another? If not, perhaps you could allow a few frivolous posts, and move them if the board gets too full.

I also liked someone's suggestion of posting the titles of threads from the other forums at the bottom of the news/activist page -- Just a thought.

You guys do a really great job and I appreciate all that you do.

[Quix]

SOUNDS FINE, TO ME.

What are your responses, thoughts relative to my ideas above?

[Stop Legal Plunder]

Another reason for the "ALL Latest Posts" page.

Another helpful -- and probably relatively easy-to-code -- reform suggestion is an automatic 24-hour suspension from Free Republic for any poster whose thread is completely pulled (because inappropriate anywhere in FR) rather than merely reposted to another forum.