Posted on 10/21/2001 2:30:37 PM PDT by E.G.C.
Earlier today, I was going through the articles section to see what articles had been posted. I found an article from Newsmax, a great internet news source which was posted earlier this morning. I scrolled down and found the same article was posted last night. I pointed out on the second posting thread that the article had alreay been posted and provided the link to the first posting.
At the time I did this the first posting of the article had soliticed a mere 44 comments. Needless to say one of the posters to the second thread took exception to my mentioning and got a little bit crabby with me about it.
There's a good reason why JimRob and many other freepers do not like to see duplicate articles posted. The reason is because it takes up lots of valuable bandwidth. Bandwidth that could be used for other articles just as vitally important as the ones being posted.
There are millions of internet articles from great sources such as Newsmax and World Net Daily that are waiting to be posted here so people can have a chance to comment on these articles. The only articles which cannot be posted here are from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times for legal reasons. But, articles from other sources are there waiting to be posted here on Free Republic.
The Search Engine is our dear friend. It gives us a chance to type in an article we want to post to see if it has already been posted. If it hasn't, then it's perfectly fine to post that article so people like myself can comment on it. That's what Free Republic is all about.
Now, you can gripe and flame all you want to. But, the fact of the matter is that this is Jim's website. We are all guests here. Posting here is a privilege, not a right. If you make a mistake somewhere, even if it's inadvertant, you best be ready because it's gonna be pointed out like it or not if not by Jim or the admin. moderator, certainly by a freeper who's watching for these mistakes.
The whole search process assumes a lot.
Want to know what's worse than accidentally posting a duplicate? A whole lot of "police" sniping about it. That takes up just as much space and is infinitely more useless.
E.C.G., it's also impolite for a "guest" to act like a bouncer to other "guests."
Good point.
You are assuming that it is important to all of us to see *all* of the comments. This isn't exactly a historical archive.
Amen, bro. I hate it when someone says "Yo Momma !" at the end of a thread and I have to search for the new thread to see the snappy comeback.
Yes, they do -- IF people use the correct article title!
I'm not sure where you're going with this, but I have NEVER had the server reject an article because it was "full."
If breaking news is going on, and the title of the source doesn't show up in the search...you're asking the user to do the impossible...be a back end administrator. The search is our only tool. If the title isn't there..I'm really not going to care about how many freepers are going to flame me. Because here's what I'll do: I'll take the handles of each freeper who bitched about duplicates, and when they duplicate a thread at some point in their "freeper" life, I'll be there to remind them of how "important" it is to avoid duplicate threads.
Don't get too literal and think I really want you to police all of the above. It's just another example of how silly this whole issue has become. Surely we have better things to do than debate a non-issue.
Sweetie, they don't always *have* the same title. The wire services adjust those titles throughout the day as they update and re-release the same stories. A good example is the Hillary story about running down the cop. When Rush remarked on the title, it got changed. But, it is much more common than that. Other stories have title changes as the focus changes. If two papers pick up a wire story, each will write new and different headlines/titles. Title searches are worthless and keyword searches only work if the original poster uses keywords that are readily apparent to all subsequent posters. It just ain't all as easy as you are making it out to be.
I agree. I don't knowingly post an article that I can see has already been posted. I bump dormant thread's all the time. I have been known to bump REAL dormant thread's, like the ones on somebody else's profile page that they have saved. Because, while I am reading the one year old article I forget that it's not fresh at all. And then somebody gets a ping from me. Geez, I hate when I do that.
I just think that some people around here should not get their panties all in a wad if someone happens to post an article that has already been posted. And Lord help the person who gets caught by the search-nazi's by posting something that has been flying around on email that for some reason they have never seen before and wouldn't know what specific key words to use to see if it has EVER been posted before.
It has happened to the best of us. And it will happen as long as this forum is around.
8~)
I think the thread-locking business is the best solution, bar none.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.