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.

[Lead Moderator]

Yes, things are not done with 100% consistency. There is the matter of if we see something, there is the matter of how busy we are, there is the matter of if there is a lot of fluff being posted at one time or if it is relatively sparse.

We try to be hands off as much as possible, but when things are getting out of hand then we will step in. Thanks, LM

[Cyber Liberty]

Is your nickname "PbMod" for short?

I once knew a guy named "Helium Moderator", but he was a real airhead....

[Lead Moderator]

I do not understand how you missed post 26.

[Lead Moderator]

Chat is also known as "General Interest". You should see it listed towards the upper right hand of your latest posts page.

[ImpBill]

FR used to be a place where "like minded folks" joined in a common cause. Then it became a "debating" society, which more often than not takes on vitriolic and belicose verbage.

[Wolfstar]

Not intending to be unkind to those who have family members with medical problems, but the "prayers needed" threads, and cooking threads, and such, really don't belong on a news/political site, either. There really is so much irrelevant (to news/politics) stuff cluttering the site these days that it's beginning to get a bit discouraging.

[Capitalist Eric]

Proceed with the moderator bashing on this thread as is customary for these threads.

Ok. Here goes:

In several of the Terry Schiavo threads, I became curious as to why everyone was becoming so worked-up about the whole thing. From my perspective (before Jeb Bush signed the bill stopping it), the legal system and laws were very cut and dried. Of course, the flaming was incessant, and abusive. The most abusive flaming, came from a man who said I would (paraphrased) kill my own mother for money, just like the husband of Terry Schiavo is doing to his wife. Later in the thread, he admitted he'd let his own mother die, by taking her off life-support in a hospital...

When I pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of his actions (including the financial gain of such actions), by doing exactly what he accused me of, my comments were pulled- not once, but TWICE.

No reason was ever given.

If you will allow flaming on this forum, then perhaps you should allow the person being flamed to properly respond- especially if the response is not threatening, and is factual and logical.

I find the double-standards exhibited by your moderators, to be most odious.

[Admin Moderator]

Here's a quote from Jim.

Prayer was banned from school and they're trying to remove all traces of God from public life. I'll be damned if I'm going to ban it from FR. Jim

[Admin Moderator]

During the heat of the Terri threads (or any hot topic), we were battling flames on all sides, and on many threads. If you can point out the particular thread or posts, I'll be happy to look into it. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to decide who said what to who, but, if you ask about a decision, we will try our best to correct it. If an error was made, we have no problem fixing it. Thanks

[discostu]

It's the oldest rule of sports Eric: the action causes the ref to turn his head to look, the reaction draws the penalty. The mods don't have the time to dig through the thread (and sometimes multiple threads, flamewars have a tendancy to hop) to see who insulted whom first, somebody complained about one post and it got pulled, you restated it and somebody complained and it got pulled again. I got suspended for defending myself against wild and insulting accusations, feces happens, learn the lesson and move on.

[Wolfstar]

I cannot in any way quarrel with what Mr. Robinson chooses to allow on his site. He does a great service for all of us. I still, however, agree with the person who started this thread that there does seem to be a growing amount of non-news/political stuff posted. I used two examples, the other being cooking threads. Can anything be done about it? Probably not without being too restrictive. Especially since the forum participants are encouraged to donate to cover the costs of the site, it would seem to me unfair and inappropriate to become overly restrictive.

[Jim Robinson]

If more people would simply post the non-news/non-political threads into the proper forum and topic to begin with, we wouldn't need to move as many threads and we'd all be much happier forum users. Can't we all just get along? LOL

[Wolfstar]

Jim, I have been a regular on FR since the earliest days, and continuously registered since 1999. I cannot thank you enough for all you do, and only wish I was a person of means so I could help cover the site's funding. I trust you totally to do what you believe to be in the best interest of the site.

[Moonman62]

I think it would be helpful to put 'chat' in parenthesis after 'General Interest'.

[MaggieCarta]

"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..."

Ahem. As a "long time lurker" I must say, there has been a noticible uh, alteration in the quality of some of the postings lately. I, for one, thank you for your gentle reminder.

I really should send you a check.

[GrandMoM]

I'm sorry, I did not see post #26. I emailed you soon after the thread was posted and waited for an answer. I did not realize others were unaware of how to post there also. Of course you were smart to post the answer rather then email each of us separately. Thanks GrandMoM

[Lead Moderator]

Email is very inefficient way to reach us- we only get those mails when we change accounts. Same thing for pings. (We can make replies as moderator from our own account which is why sometimes it appears as if we should be getting pings and mails but are not). If you really need to contact us, the abuse link is the best way to do it. But if it is to just ask a question, then the thing to do is just be patient. Thanks!

[GrandMoM]

....now I know!

[Fledermaus]

Thanks. I got many helpful replies.

[King Prout]

And I am Batman.

as in: "Keeper of the Wood-Shampoo"?