Topic Abuse is Getting Out of Hand

Free Republic | 04/04/2003 | xm177e2

[xm177e2]

Take a look at the articles with the topic "Philosophy"--less than half of these articles can reasonably be described as relating to philosophy.

"Soldier Is Relieved for Streaking on Base" or news of a dozen different bomb attacks--those are not philosophical threads!

The same goes for "Constitution/Conservatism" and "Crime/Corruption." These are supposed to be, respectively, "Discussion of conservatism and conservative principles and issues" and "News and discussion of crime, corruption government abuse, power grabs, and scandal."

Miscellaneous is probably the most-abused topic. Miscellaneous is for "Anything which doesn't fit into another category"--so if you've already put your thread in one category, DON'T ADD MISCELLANEOUS. This is pretty simple.

Breaking News--the worst category, in terms of abuse. DO NOT PUT OLD CRAP into breaking news. Breaking news is for NEW news. If it has been posted before on FR, IT IS NOT BREAKING NEWS. It also has to be IMPORTANT news.

Front Page News: this is for IMPORTANT news. I don't see much abuse of this topic.

Anthrax and WoT should be pretty easy to figure out.

States: this is news about specific states. DO NOT PING EVERY SINGLE STATE TO YOUR THREAD. That is incredibly stupid. PLEASE do not do that.

Before you post a vanity or miscellaneous thread, consider if it would not be more appropriate in the chat/general interest forum.

And of course, no discussion would be complete without mentioning the LEAST-ABUSED category: Vanity ("Your Opinion/Questions"). When you make a vanity post here, you MUST put it in this category.

[Illbay]

Brace yourself.

I even have a Master's Degree.

[TomServo]

Wow, Jim and the Admins must be busy. Thanks for helping out... ???

Years ago, before the moderators, Jim appointed us all as "caretakers" of the forum. He stated he couldn't do it himself. He asked that we all do our best to abide, and ask others to abide, by the posted rules. And to use some common sense when posting.

[boris]

Part of the problem is that needed topics are not present.

I will give one example: "environmentalism/environmentalists". Or maybe another: "global warming".

One can argue that nny post relating to these topics is automatically misplaced so long as FR persists in not opening a topic for them.

Why has JR resisted correcting this obvious deficiency? Darned if I know.

--Boris

[lilmsdangrus]

Bwahahahahaa you beat me to it!

[freebilly]

Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse, Elder Abuse, and now Topic Abuse....

"Hey, bring that Topic over here and I'll slap it around a bit....

[freebilly]

"

[Revolting cat!]

Don't the topicalists run Abuse Topic Centers in major cities to help out topics that have been victims of domestic abuse? Me thinks we need legislation to deal with this problem!

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Ok...ya' got me.

I need some clairity-- Just for the record, does this one fall into the usual "ingore-this-thread" catagory??

[Tall_Texan]

Simply rub "Topic Abuse"(tm) into the skin and feel the burning sensation. Use as needed to abuse topics. Do not abuse more than twice a day without the advice of your doctor.

[freebilly]

Yes, I'm deeply saddened and concerned about the problem of Topic Abuse. Saddened because this thread failed so miserably at building bipartisan support for Topic Abuse legislation. Saddened because our senior citizens are still without a Prescription Topic plan. And most of all I'm saddened that our children will be left behind by the current thread's goal of Topic Relief for the wealthiest posters of this FreeRepublic....

[xm177e2]

Can someone add topics to any thread? I always thought only the original threads poster could.

Yes, you can. You click on the hyperlink that says "Click to Add Topic," it's the one next to the topics and keywords.

R U an admin moderator that came out as xm, or just wanted to vent?

Just venting. But you never know. Maybe I'm just tricking my enemies into exposing themselves on this thread, so I can ban them all. Zot! Zot! Zot! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!

[DBtoo]

I do the same like you. I don't click on topics, I look at the latest posts.

[Young Rhino]

Does this constitute abuse of the Topic Abuse thread?

Gay hip hop a.k.a. Rainbow Flava....ROTFL.

[hobbes1]

If topic abuse is getting out of hand....

Would self abuse be getting in hand ?

[OPS4]

So lets have classes on how to post, so we can all be politicaly correct non-egocentrics, or maybe we should pick the corn out of the pig s**t.

Ops4 God Bless America!

[BSunday]

All your Topics are belong to us!!

PS IGNORE THIS POST PLEASE !!!!!!! LMAO