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.

[Mo1]

LP's a lot more than that, you deceitful maggot!

Well gee that wasn't nice either

Did ya sign up tonight just to say that??

[nopardons]

No, she was supposedly on my side,but sent me a FREEPmail,telling me what I should and should NOT post.I assume she didn't like my reply and is now against me. It takes all kinds.............

*sigh*

[breakem]

uh, the one you were seen with last night who was harrassing a guy because he didn't get the humor. You remember don't you? Check your posts or your meds. Paaaaaaaa

[Tamzee]

You can tell a great deal about a person by their "enemies"... If I didn't already know and admire nopardons, I would simply because of the poisonous behavior of the people slamming her.

[breakem]

I can ping you when you're having a slow night. Just don't attack their award winning research. They've spent a lot of time on it.

[Howlin]

LOL....I'm still trying to figure that post out!

[Texasforever]

Most of them just need a change of depends.

[nopardons]

I can't thank you enough. It takes real courage to tell the truth, when there is a mob trying to get me, any way possible,

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I'll say one thing, breakem... as a human being, I believe we should all try to rise about the anti-homosexual rhetoric, and speak as adults. The "homo" comments are off-putting, and I avoid those threads, as well as that language. We can all discuss things reasonably and learn from each other.

Just my two cents.

[Mo1]

Ohhhhhhhhhh ... them

They should just be ignored ... like Clinton .. it drives them nuts

[breakem]

I do go there sometimes to point out the BS that's passing for science and dogma here. Can't do it full time. The owner agrees with most of the stuff, so there you go.

[nopardons]

LOL.........I don't live in a castle,dear friend, but it is an uphill climb, once they get passed the gates; which they can't do.My gardener won't let them. :-)

[chance33_98]

Some things I would like to see:

1. Better search engine, I post a ton of articles (almost 10,000 to date) and due to my time constraints I don't always have time to try 3 or 4 different searchs to see if the article has been posted. I do try, and have eliminated the need for myself to post many (but out of 10k, I am bound to hit the same ones once in awhile!)

2. Thread view counter. I can tell on some because I have images linked back to my apache server and have a perl program I wrote to track them. I can track my own by using a mini-gif on each thread I post, but would just be nice to see it integrated in some way.

3. My only real gripe falls into moving things to chat. I can post very similar articles different times of the day and one gets moved the other dosen't. My general ideal when I post crime stories and such is to add the state to the topic, because I see crime as relevant to states and how they handle them - there is no state option in chat.

While I have, several times I am sure, posted things into news that should have been in chat I often search through hundreds of new sources a day looking for material. Often the stories I post are within the top 5 stories from those news agencies. If it was tops there I see it as news generally, I will do a better job myself of placing stories better (and, perhaps, to that end, if we had one posting page which let you select a box as to what forum it went in that would go a long way to getting things in the right places. Now I have to go to chat, then post, whereas my default bookmark takes me straight to news, I click post, and go.)

At any rate, I think you guys/gals do a good job, I just hope some of us can do so as well.

[Senator Pardek]

You're such a liar and deserve to have your nut sack crushed with a ball-peen hammer.

Crushing a "nut sack" with a "ball-peen" hammer is most original from that crowd - I was expecting "Yo momma wears army boots!"

[Howlin]

You can tell a great deal about a person by their "enemies"...

Isn't that the truth!

It's sort of like a badge of honor!

[Pan_Yans Wife]

"Yo momma wears army boots!"

Do they realize that would be PRAISE?

[onyx]

uh, the one you were seen with last night who was harrassing a guy because he didn't get the humor. You remember don't you? Check your posts or your meds. Paaaaaaaa






Now you qualify as an obnoxious poster!
Guess what?
You're on your own.
No defense from me.

(psssst - I wasn't here last night).

[Carolinamom]

Darn! When I clicked on this thread, fur flew out of the monitor!

[nopardons]

hey..........I was here in the beginnings. MAny of the complainers weren't! LOL

[agitator]

Nobody asked me so feel free to ignore this post. Opinions are like certain bodily orifices; everybody has one. Here’s mine. Relative to the issue of moderating, there is a wolfpack at FR that loves pinging each other to particular threads and then deliberately trashing their opponents. I’m not talking about people who happen onto a thread, I mean a pack of regulars who operate in concert. These aren’t people who are interested in debate, they’re interested in squelching debate. They’re professional flamemeisters, verbal log-rollers who specialize in pushing their opponents to the point of getting themselves banned. They’re nasty, vituperative, angry, combative people who appear to define their lives by their online personas. They’re incapable of a civil discussion. They’re easily identified because they’re survivors and they continue. No newbie wants to come under their withering attacks so not only do they squelch their usual targets, but they squelch potential new posters. Any valid argument they might posit is usually vastly overshadowed by their flamethrowing. IMNSHO, many of them are statist thugs and in any event, having them as public relations representatives for W is counterproductive. If the goal is to keep W in office, no thinking person would hire an obnoxious [expletive deleted] for a PR man. If I were calling the shots at FR (of course I’m not and more on that later) there would be no less than 15 regular and voluminous posters here who would have been smoking holes in the ground a long time ago.

There are way too many people at FR and other forums who seem to have this curious confusion about the difference between being a keyboard commando, i.e., whining about this that or the other thing, and *actually doing something.* Actually doing something means activism, not whining on a computer. It could mean research, public demonstrations, stuffing envelopes, organizing telephone trees or letter writing, local party work, you name it. Spending excessive amounts of time on a computer furiously flamemeistering with an aire of superiority doesn’t rate.

Now to the part about how I’m not calling the shots here. I notice that there is some confusion over the concepts of “free speech” and “freedom of the press.” Free speech only exists on the street corner. Freedom of the press only exists for the guy who owns a press. The only “free speech” or ‘freedom of the press” that exists at FR is that which the management sees fit to allow and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Those people who participate here are free to leave any time they want to. Those people who donate are free to stop donating any time they want to. The management has repeatedly stated what its goals are relative to FR and anybody that doesn’t like it can go start their own forum. Nobody with the FR management owes anybody anything. The idea that “You mean somebody isn’t going to provide me my own unlimited soapbox for free?” is an entitlement mentality. Sometimes it takes a little while for that concept to sink in. I may make a comment or a suggestion relative to FR but that’s all it is, nobody has to listen to me, and I’m not going to be ticked off if they don’t. If I don’t like engaging the flamemeisters (and I don’t) then I just refuse to engage them. I have better things to do. If the management doesn’t like my suggestions, that’s their prerogative and I have no right to complain about it. I run a chat server. There is no pretense to “free speech” on my server because I own the equipment, I spent the time and money to set it up, and I spend the time and money and effort to operate it. Anybody that doesn’t like my attitude problem is free to shove off and spend their time and money making their own attitude problem happen.

Of course, that would require *actually doing something.*