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 Both have been replaced by the extended topic system.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]

Amen! Thanks!

[John Robinson]

Style. Yes, I filtered because the positional attributes are a problem. I will enable style again once I parse the style sheets.

[jjbrouwer]

Thanks John. I'll get him to email you.

Regarding the Commonwealth Forum: In terms of selling the idea to Jim, the major question is always going to be, 'Sure but what do I get out of it?'

One suggestion is that we could initially all make a tinsy donation to FR just to pay for the running costs.

Perhaps you could stick a paypal visa link up on the page and basically insist anyone who joined the locale had to pay five bucks. Small enough not to put anyone off, hopefully large enough to start the ball rolling.

That would be quite apart from whatever money we might earn the site from fundraisers during the year etc.

The guy who makes the chat rooms is of Australian descent so perhaps he could also occasionally offer you technical advice to help out the site in return for membership of a Commonwealth forum.

[John Robinson]

Ah...

In renegotiations, UUNET quoted $7,500 less than the existing contract. Essentially, they came down "a little" from last year's contract cost.

Verio was able to underbid the new UUNET quote by a whopping $17,500. Altogether, that is $25,000 less than the current contract cost. In other words, bandwidth will be roughly $2,000 dollars per month less than what is being paid now. My point being, despite the hassle, moving to Verio is really worth it.

[John Robinson]

Engineers. :-P

My apologies for leaving out that crucial bit of info, I assumed the meaning would be inferred. On a personal note, I rarely "showed my work" in math class, preferring to quickly juggle the numbers in my head rather than working out all the carry overs on paper. (There are some neat tricks to solving math problems in your head, the scaffolding gets in the way of those tricks.)

[John Robinson]

You are using Netscape. Something I did to the format of Latest Posts aggravated a bug in Netscape. I'll have that fixed soon.

[unsycophant]

Oh, bandwidth: If Mojo feels so confident that he could do a better job finding decent bandwidth, why don't you have him go out and fetch some quotes

Maybe the reason that Moojo hasn't already done this is because he is unable to FIND better quotes. It makes things easier for antifreepers if they keep drinking the Moolaid. It MUST be true because Moojo says it-he NEVER distorts facts. ha.

[unsycophant]

when I pull something from thin air, I call it Atmospheric Extrapolation

Do you say "Presto!!", silly rabbit?

[Grampa Dave]

Sounds Great John! Try to get some rest. Hopefully it will work better and will cost FR less money. That's a double win!

My wife was praying for a shutdown of Free Republic from Christmas Eve to 2 January. She is off work that week and sees FR as a competitor!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks to you and your dad for all you do, and you Mother for putting up with the two of you!

[patj]

Thank you very much for the quick response.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

This read like UUNET made their reductions after VERIO's bid so the $7,500 number hasn't been explained. I'm an engineer so this kinds of differences are glaring to me.

I believe that John Robinson's answers to you in 244 and 245 should handle your questions on this. I have to say, I sure am glad I left engineering school if it makes one so 'anal retentive'. No offence ;-)

[terilyn]

If FReepmail going to be revised also or will that remain the same?

[diotima]

Trix are for kids!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Though it is an interesting article, my comment was more or less tongue in cheek. =;^)

[unsycophant]

Exactly. heh heh.

[facedown]

BTTT

[supercat]

Style. Yes, I filtered because the positional attributes are a problem. I will enable style again once I parse the style sheets.

Did you mean parse inline style attributes? They're different from style sheets (as of course you know).

You still
support table-align
I see
(good).

What sorts of positional attributes are you worried about? I wasn't aware of any that would operate beyond a [div][/div].

[editor-surveyor]

"Could you squeeze in a way where you can figure out (click to reach) the particular post that someone was replying to? That was the one feature of the old style that is sorely lacking."

It's already there!

Look under the postor's handle, and slightly to the left.

Click on that number, and it will take you to the reply that is being replied to.

[editor-surveyor]

"'Course I liked Baby Ruths for a nickel, too!"

My mom once told me that they were 2 cents when she was a kid... :-)

[klee]

What, and run the risk of inflating Harry_potters ego even further?