Get Yer Ya-Yas Out [FR Moderating Gripe Thread]

[I Am Not A Mod]

LM here.

It's been a while since we had a thread along these lines.

I can tell from comments I am seeing in threads, on abuse reports, and in Freepmail that some people are unhappy with various policies and their implementations by the staff here.

I've seen allegations that certain factions are picked on. I've seen allegations that the moderators have killed activism. I've heard rumors that we killed Kenny, and even that we killed the radio star. I see certain personality conflicts acting up, and know that one (or both) sides in it feel that we aren't doing what we should.

So let's open this can of worms.

This thread is for making your grievances heard. If you think something stinks or is wrong, make your case here. Back it up with facts. Let the audience at large weigh in on your evidence.

I'll read the thread. Jim will too in all likelihood. So will the other moderators. Depending upon how well you make your point, and depending on if you can convince Jim, me, the other moderators, and/or the world, maybe you can change things. And if you don't, then it might make you feel better to have vented, so it won't make this thread a total loss.

I'm not going to reply to this thread for quite a while. Rather, I am going to sit back and watch to try and get a feel for the general tenor. I encourage those who are both happy and unhappy with things to particpate in this thread.

Let's rock.

[Quix]

No doubt a hugh-ly series shower with cheese

and a moose . . .

but . . . 1 question . . . uhhhh

what sex is the moose?

[Neets]

HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just like old times sweetie!!! I can't help it myself!!!

[HairOfTheDog]

It really wasn't complicated. I had been looking for a different answer! There are a lot of other options between 5,000 and 65,000 (the size of previous threads) so asked for a reconsideration on the option chosen. No biggie.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

SEX? Oh, Quix!

[Admin Moderator]

Search is not a perfect tool. I have best results using just a single keyword from the title, eg Kerry, Bush, Syria, etc. I also sort by Title(date) which brings the most recent threads to the top of the list of posts found. Make sure the word you use to search for is more than 3 characters

[Texas2step]

What do you all wish to see in front page?

News. Period. No "caption the pic" threads, those belong in Vanity/Opinions, or some such. No vanities, no editorials, just news. It doesn't have to be "cutting edge" news, we ought to allow odd stories and events, but it ought to be news.

While we're on the topic, Breaking News needs a relook as well. We've had stuff still showing in Breaking News that's 5 day old. Breaking News should be a little less heavily policed. If you are getting articles that are 3-5 days old still showing in the Breaking category, then we're missing the point of "breaking news".

That's JMO. ;-)

[Quix]

AM STRONGLY IN FAVOR OF BEING ABLE TO SEARCH MY COMMENTS

AND

TO BE ABLE TO COLLECT FREEPMAILS according to length and topic so deleting silly chaff & outdated minor ones would not be such a long tedious task.

[Quix]

Yeah, my hand/fingers still smart from some smacks several years ago, too. Ah well. Not my living room. I just live here. hehe.

[handk]

This is off-point, but I haven't been able to get a "Mod" to respond with freep mail.

Here's my idea for a neat way for FR to raise money. Buy a caseload of real, actual "barf bags" (they are readily available from several companies on the Internet, do the research for best price, etc.) Use more appropriate "air sickness bag" search words at Google.

Then print the FR logo on the bag (I think a solid white barf bag would be best, along with any other text such as "Barf Alert" or "Major Hurl Alert", etc.) To make it explicitly clear, as to the intent of the item, would be to print something like "In Case of Liberal Vomit, Use this Barf Bag".

Now, here's the deal. If you buy the bags in large quantities, at least at one site I checked out, they will also print whatever you want on the bag for no additional cost. The minimum order, to get free printing, is 50,000 bags for a total cost of $2,700, which works out to about $0.54 per bag. (For cynics reading this, NO, I have no connection with the company).

What JimRob would do is sell, for example, a dozen FR barf bags for say, $20, and the net profit would be around $13.50 per order. Freepers would buy a dozen, keep one for themselves, and give the other 11 bags out to friends as a way of promoting new visitors to FR.

If all 50,000 bags were sold, in minimum "lots" of one dozen, the total net profit (approximately) would be -- drum roll -- $56,333.33!

As Homer Simpson would say; "It's win-win!".

[Sabertooth]

This has nothing to do with the moderating, but it certainly would be nice to have a direct link to posting an article from the search results page. As it is, once you've searched for an article title you have to page back to post the new article.

C'mon, make it simple and rewarding to use the search function to prevent unnecessary duplicate article posts.

The reason for that little change is that the search function now works across all forums (though I'm not usre about the Backroom). When you get your search results, you are no longer in anyone particular forum, you are in all of them. Hence the need to go to a particular forum after searching.

The multiple window solution is a good one.

[arasina]

I'm with you on "thesummerwind" --- he was banned for saying something that was misinterpreted, IMO.

[Tunehead54]

Can we have Topless Tuesdays this summertime?

---

I've gotta go with the dentist. I'm certain it'd be an uplifting experience for FReepers maybe down in the doldrums from listening to one too many Kerry - did you know he's a Viet Nam vet? - speeches.

I must say I'm a little disappointed in the dearth of keyword additions - must be the economy or something. And why isn't this in breaking news?

[HAL9000]

SEEMS TO ME, JOHN R would do well to set up the posting function to screen out more than X lines from the prohibited sources.

He is checking the Source URL for obvious cases (washingtonpost.com, latimes.com, etc.) - but that method won't screen out syndicated articles from those sources on other web sites.

For some reason, a few users believe it is okay to post the full text of a Washington Post article if it is syndicated and reprinted on another news site. That is incorrrect. Those articles should be excerpted too.

[ShadowDancer]

You're right, it is a free market. And as a capitalist, you know the outcome of bad business decisions. I would assume you do anyhow.

[Admin Moderator]

Keep in mind there are a small number of us here covering 24/7 with Jim. We're not all here at the same time or even the same time period from one day to the next. We each have our opinions about what is and isn't sidebar material, but we're pretty much in sync there.

If we deleted things from Breaking News, older stuff floats up from the bottom. We tend to let the posters decide and go along unless there is abuse. On occasion an event happens quickly and there are 3,4,5 ...10 threads all at once and all in Breaking News. Then we'll leave the first and pull the follow on's.

We will also move threads into Breaking News if appropriate.

[Sabertooth]

Is that for real?! How do you do that?

Yes, but it's a secret.

I can also control everyone's personal menu.

Don't ever mess with me.

[Dog Gone]

That makes sense. I'm not a programmer, but I worked with one for nearly a year to write a program to serve my department in my company, and that would explain why a direct link wouldn't work. You'd need several in order to make sure that the story got into the right forum.

Not that it would necessarily be bad. The moderators are moving stories out of the News/Activism forum to the appropriate forums after the fact. A choice on the Search page might get better results.

[Neets]

You have too much power sweetie....

...you are starting to scare me ;-)

[optimistically_conservative]

Second that! or third or whatever it's up to.

[Quix]

Hmmmm.

I wonder if it would help to require answering a question about whether any forbidden sources are involved in the post AT ALL?

It wouldn't cure abject mindlessness but it could help while annoying the rest of us not involved with such at all.

What's the software solution--searching the whole post?

There has to be a viable sofware solution. John's certainly clever enough on that score. We should be able to help him on the human factors end.