Vanity on Choosing Topics

[Admin Moderator]

Lately, we have been seeing more and more people who are posting articles to every topic, or to many topics which it is a stretch to see as applicable.

Please don't do this. You may be thinking that you are giving more visibility to articles that you find important, but in actuality you are making it so that people who read FR by topic have their interests spammed with things of no interest to them, making more work for the moderators (which may lead to more moderators, which may or may not be a good thing), and generally alienating the very readers you are trying to win over.

For example, philosophy should only be used for articles which are dealing with philosophy, not every article under the guise of "it raises philosophical questions".

What is appropriate for what topic? Let's have this thread be used for Freepers to hash out what belongs in what topic. All I will add to the discussion is that clearly posts are being made to way too many unrelated topics, so whatever the right balance is, we aren't there. It would be a shame to have people lose posting privileges over something like this, but that is preferrable to us losing Freepers due to others making FR unusable for them.

I will also use this thread to give guidelines for the "main" sidebar topics.

Breaking News is for articles of emerging, important news stories. Imagine a television station or a radio station being run by conservatives instead of liberals. Would regular programming be interrupted to go to this story? If so, then it may belong in breaking. If not, then it doesn't. The exception to this rule is activism. If one of our chapters is organizing an event, then Jim has given the OK for the breaking news sidebar to be used for that.

Frontpage is for stories that it would be reasonable to expect to find on the front page of a newspaper or news magazine.

Extended News is for stories that extend other important stories. For example, if there is a story in breaking news or on frontpage, and there are other articles which give background or are otherwise related to the main story, then Extended News is a good place for them. Also, stories which are not quite breaking or frontpage but are likely to be considered important, not by the poster but by conservatives in general, can be placed in Extended.

Editorial is for opinion pieces and editorials of note.

Anyway, please be more considerate when choosing the topics when posting articles. Thanks.

[Howlin]

I've seen some go all the way down the side of the screen!

Thanks.

[TomServo]

I've seen some go all the way down the side of the screen!

No kiddin'. Ego trippin'. :-)

[Admin Moderator]

"Editorial is for opinion pieces and editorials of note."

That should have said- for published opinion pieces. Vanities should almost never be posted to Editorial.

[Billthedrill]

A "doesn't this belong in Breaking News?" BTT...

[BlueLancer]

Posted by Admin Moderator to Admin Moderator"

Ah-hah! Caught you talking to yourself again!
Is your job like that of the Maytag repairmen, the lonliest guys in town?

[Temple Owl]

A suggestion: either under NEWS/CURRENT EVENTS or a new topic named MEDIA, place newspaper, television, radio, and all those associated with it.

[Just another Joe]

Way too many people posting vanities and bull to the news/activism page.
I know that the moderators try to move these to the General Interest side as soon as they can but it would be better if they started out there.
It might even get some folks to using the different forums the way they should.

[EggsAckley]

Thank you for clarifying this. Some of it was rather confusing. One of my pet peeves is people who completely re-write the title of their article, and often, the title doesn't even seem to apply to the text. It makes reading some articles a giant waste of time.

Can you please explain to me how to get "Breaking News" to come up first on my page? I tried unsubscribing to everything and then re-subscribing in my preferred order, but it always seems to be waaaaay down at the bottom of the right-hand column. Ideally, I'd like to see it first when I log on, and not have to scroll to it. (That takes a lot of time.) Thank you.

[Always Right]

Can't we just have one massive thread that just goes on and on and on and on about the on-going debate as to whether Bush is conservative or conservative enough?

[Admin Moderator]

I believe JohnRob is working on something that will allow you to put the sidebars you are subscribed to in whatever order you want.

[Admin Moderator]

*ping*

[EggsAckley]

Aha.....so it IS something yet to be added. People here were telling me that it could be done........
but with no real directions on how. Thanks so much! <{;o)

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Ironically, this thread is one of the few that arguably SHOULD be posted to all topics, so it's sure to be read. Kind of like when a big meeting comes to order, the main speaker has to yell "QUIET EVERYBODY!".

[My Identity]

Can you post or link the above guidelines on the topics selection page as a guide? While they may be obvious to some (or most), I suspect some posters would benefit by easier access to this advice.

Also, it may be useful to detect article posts that have selected all or most of the topics, and display an error or warning message (I know, I know, one more thing to change...)

[Texaggie79]

Was that DR. Conservative guy ever reinstated? the AM wrongly pulled his thread and banned him yesterday...

[Admin Moderator]

Don't I know it. I originally posted it just to fr and announcements, but I just bumped it to breaking for that very reason.

Should I do a yell now too? :-)

[Sir Gawain]

hehe anthrax humor

[Sir Gawain]

Japan should know about this.

[Free the USA]

fyi