[Alas Babylon!]

The thread participation certainly has gone down over the years.

But that's true across all of Free Republic.

As an example, the Friday night Canteen thread where they play music, songs and mp3’s used to have 1-2,000 post over the weekend but is down to a couple of to three hundred...

Why?

Well, I know certain reasons I won't articulate here except to say I never seen so much backbiting, rudeness and plain old vulgarity on the site as we've seen this past year. It started back in the 2008 election season, stopped after Palin was nominated, and has been on a low boil ever since. It reached a new high during the past primaries.

Also, people have a lot more alternatives for social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. So for every post on Facebook, we lose one on Free Republic. I remember many years ago, some firm did an analysis of all the Internet web sites to see how they attracted and kept viewers. Free Republic was the “stickiness”. This meant people would stay here far longer than any other site. I wonder what our stickiness looks like today?

[TomGuy]

The thread participation certainly has gone down over the years.

But that's true across all of Free Republic.

The political purges, the heated primaries, and the slooooooooooowwwwww servers have not helped.

FR crashed during the recent SC decision on healthcare. Will FR hold up during the two conventions? election night?

I haven't read any updates on the status of server upgrades. But it is frustrating to try to follow live news events and FR posting takes 5 minutes or returns 404 Site Not Found errors.

[Lady Lucky]

never seen so much backbiting, rudeness and plain old vulgarity on the site as we've seen this past year

Sadly agree. I check in for the news and try to limit myself to splashing in the shallows of posting activity.

[rodguy911]

Part of the problem here besides the take it or leave it attitude,my way or the highway,is that we are all at different levels of participation. There are those here who make mainstream journalists look like rookies.Its very possible they have a hard time mixing with others who are at a very base level. Some here are so far ahead of what we read or see on TV that it has to be a frustrating experience to know what is coming up yet watch the DBM purposely not cover it or FNC not get there as quick as we do.

Then you have the fact that we are living under a communistic regime that is so easy for us to see/diagnose and yet a high percentage of the populace perhaps 48% just don't get it.And, are too lazy to do the research we have done.

FR has never tolerated ignorance very well and we tolerate it even less today.

This place may be down today but not out.

While FR may remain a take few prisoners type of site those who are successful here learn enormously and have the respect of many in their community. The two just follow.

[altura]

I know what you mean. We used to have heated, passionate arguments but they weren’t personally nasty and rude to the point of creepiness.

I think about one hundred very active posters are ruining this site for everyone. Were I the owner, I would warn and then suspend them.

You can disagree without being horrible and personal.

[Elsie]

I wonder what our stickiness looks like today?

I cannot accurately say; but it sure seems to me that the SLIMY factor has grown ^{EXPONENTIALLY}!