A freeper's observation: Duplicate thread postings.

Earlier today, I was going through the articles section to see what articles had been posted. I found an article from Newsmax, a great internet news source which was posted earlier this morning. I scrolled down and found the same article was posted last night. I pointed out on the second posting thread that the article had alreay been posted and provided the link to the first posting.

At the time I did this the first posting of the article had soliticed a mere 44 comments. Needless to say one of the posters to the second thread took exception to my mentioning and got a little bit crabby with me about it.

There's a good reason why JimRob and many other freepers do not like to see duplicate articles posted. The reason is because it takes up lots of valuable bandwidth. Bandwidth that could be used for other articles just as vitally important as the ones being posted.

There are millions of internet articles from great sources such as Newsmax and World Net Daily that are waiting to be posted here so people can have a chance to comment on these articles. The only articles which cannot be posted here are from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times for legal reasons. But, articles from other sources are there waiting to be posted here on Free Republic.

The Search Engine is our dear friend. It gives us a chance to type in an article we want to post to see if it has already been posted. If it hasn't, then it's perfectly fine to post that article so people like myself can comment on it. That's what Free Republic is all about.

Now, you can gripe and flame all you want to. But, the fact of the matter is that this is Jim's website. We are all guests here. Posting here is a privilege, not a right. If you make a mistake somewhere, even if it's inadvertant, you best be ready because it's gonna be pointed out like it or not if not by Jim or the admin. moderator, certainly by a freeper who's watching for these mistakes.

FReepers are an unforgiving bunch and quick to point out our mistakes, but the feedback is very useful to us.

I'm heartily in favor of the thread-locking business, but I know that you Moderators are busy folk.

The Moderators are the best. Don't let some Freepers whose panties are in a wad (from lack of insight) get you guys (and gals) down!

;-)

I never have a problem.......and I use search. I've been here since 1998 and have never posted a duplicate article.

Bully for you. Why not post your email addy and we'll all just email you to search for us before we post?

BTW, the credibility of someone who says "never" or "always" is always suspect.

If you truly want to save space and eliminate duplicates, chastise all the commenters that say the same thing as someone else. Or those who bump or ping. Or those that merely post an agreement to an earlier comment but add no new content.

Dude, you're losing it . . . bump or ping me when you get it together.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who participated in this thread. I do realize that there are some who do have lives and look at these things as kind of a neccesity to keep up with what's going on. I think mabye there's a balance that can be reached where we can maybe allow for dual threads. One for the nighttime crowd and then a second one where the lead one is just a link to the first. Really when you look at it, it all boils down to what would be economically feasible for this website which is supported by donations.

As to freeper Onedoug, Yeah I do agree FR is like a newspaper. You come to it to get the latest stories and updates. I do agree that sometimes these searches take so long to spew out the articles and so foruth. I do agree that's it's not an ego thing and there's nothing wrong with fresh points of view. I guess what I and other freepers are trying to do here is do things here to keep this place flowing smoothly. Running a website does cost money, especially when you're providing a place which allows people to exercise their first amendment rights of freedoms of speech. In any event your point is well taken, onedoug.

Again, thanks to everyone who participated in this thread. It has received more responses than the other two which I've posted here in "Your Opinions/Question." I'll have another observation for everyone to consider soon.
Regards.

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