A feature I wish Free Republic had..... ( a call for someone to build it)

10/16/05 | Walkingfeather

[Walkingfeather]

I was looking over the tax reform commission members some I recognize some I don't. I am thinking about Meirs and the fiasco it has become and I thought..... "We need a way to automatically build a connecting matrix of political or power people and their organizations to be able to go to that name like a map and see who that person is connected to, what organizations they support etc. This way as people post it would some how high light their name to indicate they have a matrix history you can refer to. Sort of like that 6 degrees of seperation of Kevin Bacon.

This way we can easily track those that have "left government to spend more time with their family" and see where they then pop up 18 months later for the political pay off. Or having a way to see the people on their way up before they crest the horizon in public.

I know you can do searches via google for specific names that hit the media. If we can data mine these names and put it into a reasonable data base that we can all use, then we could make connections much faster about what is going on.

Think about the fact that those congressional aids today are going to be popping up on the campaigns of their own in 10 years. It sure would be nice to know who they worked for, what committees were they on, and what kind of policy they wrote. AND WHO WERE THEY POLITICAL SPONSORS ( who they will owe later)

Now God knows I am not smart enough to create such a project, but my bet is someone out there knows how to put it together. If if cost us I bet we would all be able to chip in to pay for it. It could turbo charge the effect we have on the political landscape of this country.

ANY ideas to add, or people interested? Jim what do you think about it?

[Rokke]

I always wished Freerepublic had an "ignore poster" button...but your idea sounds more interesting.

[G.Mason]

An interesting idea. You may have hit on something.

[AmericaUnited]

How about saving all that development, and just order your copy the "Total Information Awareness" software and database via the FOI Act. LOL!

[Walkingfeather]

Can it be incorporated into FR so it can be a reference within postings? I had no idea it existed.

[Dog Gone]

If you had just asked me, I woulda told you that I'm the political sponsor of Kevin Bacon.

[Walkingfeather]

LOL

[DTogo]

I can't imagine the Terabytes of data it would take to create a matrix for the Clintons, but I like your suggestion!

[JustAnotherOkie]

It would surely open a few eyes.

[cripplecreek]

"I always wished Freerepublic had an "ignore poster""


That was my first thought too.

[Jeff Gordon]

I always wished Freerepublic had an "ignore poster" button.

I'll drink to that.

[HAL9000]

CNET News has an interesting new social diagram to show the relationships between entities and concepts. You can click on the entities to change the focus.

[Squantos]

An illogical logic chart ?

[TomGuy]

I would like to see a decent search capability.

Too many good things get lost a few days after they are posted. Google can search FR, but many times the old FR articles are moved after Google caches them, and they get lost.

The current FR search is very limited. Unless one knows the exact keyword, or poster, or exact title, the search doesn't turn up much. And it seems to fail on trying to find older articles.

[hoosierboy]

http://politicalgraveyard.com/

[sit-rep]

What ya need is something like this...

Investigative software...

[TomGuy]

"I always wished Freerepublic had an "ignore poster""

LOL

Me too.

I have my own personal FR stalker -- a certain poster who has actually followed me from one thread to another to continue posting his personal attacks.

[Spiff]

I've been using Personal Brain to do just what you describe to map the political and social relationships of the liberal and RINO powers in Arizona. Personal Brain is cool - really cool - but there's not practical way to share the information.

Someone has already done most of the work you describe and the network/matrix is already available online. Go to www.discoverthenetwork.org and check it out. It was put together by FrontPage Magazine's David Horowitz.

[ItsForTheChildren]

I would like to see a decent search capability.

I'll second that!

[varon]

I always wished Freerepublic had an "ignore poster" button...

I'm still waiting for a reply to my request for a "Hi Mom" button ;-)