[Publius6961]

Along those lines, I'd move aggressively to upgrade the quality of the moderators who are policing the content at Free Republic - the quality of the moderation is utterly unpredictable from hour to hour - one hour there will seem to be a moderator who "gets it", and the next hour, it's as if that moderator's shift suddenly ended, and we have an utterly clueless moderator in charge of things.

Amen brother.

I see a lot of "bruised egos" liniment in FR's future.
I can echo the statements in one brief sentence: Some Moderators are hopelessly inept; PC uber alles, and sucumbing to an avalanche of whines when a poster hits close to home, and effectively so.

I may have missed an important move in your list: Rooting out "sleepers" who may have signed up a year or two ago in anticipation of this election cycle, and limiting new posters to a number of the site's choosing each week (my personal choice would be no new posters until mid-November, but what do I know?)

As someone has mentioned, this should be an interesting thread. I did not understand the specifics of your recommendations, but can grasp the motivation behind them, and the risk we face, specially in view of the spotty and erratic behavior of Free Republic in the last week or so. The "gremlins" continue.

[Obadiah]

... Rooting out "sleepers" who may have signed up a year or two ago in anticipation of this election cycle...

Here, here. How about all the "new" people who apparently have signed up years ago who are now posting and come out only during national election time. Honestly, I don't know half these people who are suddenly appearing who have a sign up date of years ago.

New people, or casual posters are fine - and welcome - but I too question whether or not we have a whole boatload of sleeper trolls around here.

[PhiKapMom]

While we are offering suggestions, can we do away with so many vanities that are now appearing. I read some of them and have to wonder why they stay posted.