Massive Free Republic Changes

[John Robinson]

There will be some massive changes to Free Republic from now through the end of the year. I'll quickly iterate those changes now.

1. Most important, on the 27th, Free Republic will be down while I move my network along with Free Republic to a new host. We're moving from UUNET to Verio. This in itself is a massive undertaking, and availability of the site may be intermittent. We will use all available resources to mitigate outtage. Verio underbid UUNET by about $17,500 on a one-year contract, so this is really worth it. ;-) Overall, bandwidth will be less expensive 2002 by about $25,000 which will be passed straight to Free Republic.

2. I'm making massive changes to the structure of the database, will be replacing the posting program, and the latest posts program. While I'm converting the database and working out bugs some features may be down. Hopefully for not too long.

3. When Free Republic's new posting program is online, the routine to post an article will be different. First, an article will be indexed into many topics. So instead of a pulldown to select the topic, there is a field where you can list as many topics as you feel appropriate. And at any time later an article can be added to additional topics.

   Second, no more "Category" and "Section". Both have been replaced by the extended topic system.

   Third, the posting of an article and a comment have been decoupled.

   Fourth, there will be different types of articles you can start. Shouldn't really call these articles anymore, discussions is a better term. The very basic "Discussion" requires just a topic, title, and body. "Article" requires topic, title, body, source, source url, etc. Some topics may not allow some types of discussions. There will be only 'article' type threads in "Breaking News" for example.

4. The topic system in general will be completely changed. Once again you will be able to create your own topics. But to keep the topics from becoming the anarchy they were before my 1999 changes, all topics will live in topic groups. Those groups: General Interest (all existing topics); Highlights (Breaking News, Extended News, etc -- these are their own topic now); Hot Topics (current interests, such as Anthrax Scare, etc.); Local Topics (These will replace the Locales); User Defined (a sea of Freeper topics.)

5. Bump Lists will be integrated with the new topic system. Bang_List could have its own topic.

6. It will be possible to host many forums within Free Republic. Each forum would have its own management features, user list (with independent user levels), moderators, etc. Some forums may be private, some may be created for special projects, some may just be alternatives to Free Republic.

7. Finding articles should be much easier. There will be a title search, you will be able to list articles in a specific topic, or with a specific keyword. Maybe full searching of the article itself or its comments. (Looking for the right technology.) And Author and Source searches will work again.

8. Sidebars. Any topic can be added to your collection of sidebars.

9. There are more features, but I'm really pressed for time. :-)

[John Robinson]

Get fired. :-)

[Heff]

What about live chat rooms???? Just a thought.

Thanks for this great site and all the work you do.

[Mo1]

FReep-addiction treatments will be administered at:

Thanks .. I was starting to feel the shakes coming on .. lol

[tomkat]

somethin' like this ?

[John Robinson]

Yes. IP addresses will change. Haven't been assigned my block yet, when that is assigned I'll post what FR's address will be.

[ladyinred]

I am lost already! Everytime I learn the new system......! LOL. I don't know computer talk well enough to understand all that you said, such as decoupled, I guess that means divorced or something.
I am sure you will do whatever is necessary to make this forum better and we will learn it again.
Just hope someone explains it in English to those of us who are not so computer lingo savvy, like me!

[John Robinson]

What about a "Barf Alert" topic? Since you can post the same story in many topics, it would be easy to just tag @barf into the topic list.

[John Robinson]

There could be a British topic, members are free to create topics, and region-specific topics will have their own "group" within the topic list.

It would be up to Jim and the Brits if FR is to host a completely seperate Brit forum with moderators, own user list, etc. But that is possible.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks for the info.

[John Robinson]

I'm interested in XML, and very interested in some kind of backend to FR where programs can download stuff quickly. Don't see it in the immediate future, but it sure would be nice.

[John Robinson]

"Things are getting better every day."

[John Robinson]

Spell check would be nice. It is requested enough, it should make it in one of these days.

[1John]

No, I don't work for anybody on the net. I'm really trying to get my own scam site going and I really would like to get a mailing list of suckers interested people going so I could offer my extremely valuable counsel and advice. Please send the requested info for further information. Absolute confidentiality guaranteed...... Honest..... I mean it....... Really......... Trust me..........

[redrock]

.....as long as I keep my soon to be 7 year old close at hand to EXPLAIN these 'computer thing's' to me...I'll be fine.

redrock--Constitutional Terrorist

[jjbrouwer]

John Robinson: There could be a British topic, members are free to create topics, and region-specific topics will have their own "group" within the topic list. It would be up to Jim and the Brits if FR is to host a completely seperate Brit forum with moderators, own user list, etc. But that is possible.

OK - well that sounds promising. There seems to be a pretty good team spirit among the Brits and we are organising a social get together next month in Central London. So maybe we can bash heads together then (not literally!) and come up with a few ideas.

[John Robinson]

"Archives" are now under the "Search" button. Searches now scour all articles in the database, however only their titles are searched.

[IM2Phat4U]

bump

[Victoria Delsoul]

I hope FR doesn't turn into endless cliques where only "members" are allowed. I was hoping this would be an open conservative forum where serious ideas are discussed.

[GraniteStateConservative]

A suggestion:

Right now you can go from reply to top of thread (by clicking the reply number to jump to a spot toward the top of the article), but not from top of thread to all responses to that thread. Some times someone writes something as a reply that gets so many replies that it almost makes it a separate thread and it would be nice to be able to go down that "fork" exclusively. As things are now, you would scroll through all the responses to the article and not really know whether people are replying to the article or the reply. I hope this makes sense.

[John Robinson]

I probably didn't explain that right. Decoupled. I mean, when you start a thread, there will be no text box for a comment. You can always post your comment after posting the text of the thread if you have a comment to post.

Private forums. For example, planning committees for Free Republic events may wish to have their own private forum. And there already is a "Forum Advisory Board" forum and Moderator forum, both private.