I can not even imagine life without FR--the thought is too horrible to contemplate.
Freepers, it each of you would send just a few bucks to keep it going, we wouldn't have these problems. We are not talking about people needing to make huge donations (although that would be nice--LOL)--but since there are tens of thousands of us, a few bucks from each one would go a long way to keeping FR in the red.
I have learned that a monthly withdrawal from my credit card is a painless way to give--and I don't even have to remember each month to send it in. I recommend this method.
Thanks, both Jim and John, for all you do. Please know that you are loved and appreciated.
That said, there has been a change in tone to FR in the last year or so, I call it the tinfoil craze. It used to be that this board was the only one where you could go to get the unedited raw data, as it were. Rumors, leaks, informed speculations - they formed the basis for wonderful discussions. But now the moment anyone reports anything that is out of the mainstream, there's that damn tinfoil. I do not think it is funny and I know of several new posters who quickly decided they would never post again when their first honest posting efforts were so ridiculed.
Where I am going with this is, I think FR has to survive, and this might be an opportunity to "reset" the board back to its roots. I say leave the board free, but only let paying members post. That satisfies the need to keep the information here freely accessible, while it might weed out the troublemakers as well as those who use this board as a daily chance to shoot people down.
Thats my view of it. One question I do have is whether consideration has been made to selling more advertising space on FR. Maybe I missed the memo on that one, but with this many hits, and a well defined demographic - heck, I'd advertise my company here if it was possible.