Posted on 10/25/2001 8:59:47 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Ok, this is a free for all thread. Come in and take your best shots. I promise I won't delete it or get upset. Get it out of your systems and then we will see if we can solve the problems. There always several sides to any story and several possible solutions to any problem. I'd like to hear them all and I'd like to solve as many problems as we can and get this forum kicking socialist butt again instead of kicking each other. So, please anyone with a complaint or a problem or a possible solution, (moderators, posters, FAB, everyone) please chime in. Thanks, Jim
I will say it again, you give yourselves and Freerepublic way to much credit if you think you really have to delete posts to protect our troups. If that one rare post ever does appear, well by all means delete it. But obscure foregin sources? Methinks you guys are suffering from delusions of grandeur.....
Personally, although I find the socialist/democrat point of view highly offensive, I also highly value the opportunity to debate with them on substantive matters. What good is a debate where all sides essentially agree?
I think I will reframe from posting for awhile and send my info FReepmail.
What does bother me, however, is that the sidebar and thread moderators here do not all appear to be operating from a single sheet of guidelines. I realize that when there's more than person making such decisions, there are always going to be the occasional difference of opinion over what constitutes a yankible post. But it seems obvious to most of us that many of the moderators have wildly different ideas as to what should and should not be allowed. We can post something and have a moderator yank it within 30 seconds, then come back a couple hours later, repost the exact same thing, and it will pass right through. On long threads, we see one moderator yanking responses like crazy, and then people come back later on and complain about what was yanked, include quotes of exactly what they said in the yanked responses, and have their reposts left entirely alone. This is exactly the sort of thing that is driving so many people nuts, and it needs to be stopped. There has to be some sort of real agreement between all the moderators as to what to allow, and then such agreed rules need to be followed equally by all moderators.
Really, what I would like to see more than anything:
1) Every Post Article page should include, either directly on the page or available via a link, a clear explanation of what sorts of posts should go into which categories: Breaking, Extended, Front Page, etc. Likewise, every Post Reply page should have listed on it precisely what sorts of posts are subject to being pulled. "NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts" doesn't mean a thing when Moderator A will nuke a post on "violence and profanity" grounds for the silly humorous statement of frustration, "I'd love to see Berkeley bombed, let's get rid of all the damned fifth columnists," while Moderator B wouldn't see any "violence" or "profanity" until someone said something as extreme as, "Here's the name and address of that f*cn*ng #$@%^&@# in Berkelely who did such-and-such, and I think a bunch of California Freepers ought to go bash his skull in!" These sorts of blatant inconsistencies in enforcement happen every day on FR, and all it does is confuse and annoy posters, and cause them to care little about ANY posting rules because they know, correctly, that they can get in big trouble for saying some silly and minor right now, and then somebody else can come along in the same thread a little while later, say something ten times worse, and get away with it. That has to change.
2) I propose we start a regular, continuing thread where people can discuss moderator actions and general posting policy issues. Whenever anyone has any questions about where something should go, or why some thread was killed that they thought shouldn't have been, they can post in that thread. You and the moderators would then be free to post responses in there as you felt the need. It would centralize all these constant arguments and bits of confusion in one place, and would give us posters a much-desired place to go to bring up stuff like this. Right now we just wander around in a constant daze when it comes to posting policy issues. At the very least, I'd like to see us try it. If it turns into a constant bitching session or personal attacks on the moderators, we can always kill it and go back to the old way.
3) Any user who has a moderator-imposed suspension of posting privileges slapped upon him should be notified of the suspension via Freepmail, with a copy of the offending post(s) and a clear, concise explanation of why the post was over the line. Right now, this usually does not happen at all, and the "offender" will have no clue he even did anything wrong until he gets an error message the next time he tries to post. And even that error message will not tell him precisely what he did or said to deserve the punishment; all he can do is sit on his hands and try to figure out on his own what he did, and what post was the offending one. Not only is this bad-faith treatment of FR members, it does nothing to prevent future infraction of the rules, because the member has no idea what he did wrong in the first place!
4) I'd love to see a fifth sidebar column, "Free for All," where people could post their vanities, questions, bits of humor, technical problems, etc ... all the things that never seem to quite fit in any of the other four categories. Right now whenever any of that stuff gets posted, it dies almost immediately because the Latest Posts list is always filled up with Breaking News and Front Page responses, and without a sidebar, nobody ever knows they're there.
On a totally unrelated note, for anyone that might be able to help me: For the last week or two, I have had to relog in the first time I want to post a new thread or use the self-search feature, if I've quit the browser and relaunched it. In the past I have NEVER had to reenter my username and password here for any reason, except when my browser's cookie file got trashed, and of course in those cases I had to reenter my passwords on every site on the web. But now, it's just FR. Is this some new security change that I hadn't heard about, or is there just something weird going on on my end? (See, if my suggestion (4) above were implemented, I'd have had a better place to post this question!)
While you're at it, there are quite a few FReepers who could be deposited in an institution for safekeeping, as well!
And let's bury the hatchet, if you are willing.
Yet, there are 'chat' threads here (against your stated guidelines) that must eat up more bandwidth than a few duplicate postings.
Which is it, Jim? Are you going to change your guidelines or tell the 'bandwidth police' to hush?
Sorry for my part in all of it.
So you want to be able to launch personal attacks against religious and social conservatives on a conservative forum?
Let's not forget about the 25 page posts of legal documents, books, scripture, military code or whatever other 1000 words or more someone can find to post without offering an opinion that would be buried anyway.
And the graphics! Yes, let's make sure all Freepers have trouble loading threads because of those gigantic graphics! While we're discussing graphics, how about this one?
Damn, I don't have it loaded. You know, the one with the man's arm and fist shoved up another man's ass?
And let's not forget about all the liberals, white supremacists, (we don't really want any minorities on this site, do we?), the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israelis and those who think America deserved what she got on 911! Don't you folks know that it's all our fault? That it should have been us buried in that rubble under the WTC? Don't you know that America is evil and we all should die NOW? Oh, wait, I've overlooked those who want to NUKE 'EM ALL whether they're terrorists or not. Well, if both contingencies are left here on Free Republic, maybe they'll all kill each other off.
Wow, imagine not having to pull a thread because more than every other post is some obscene graphic or profanity or threat to kill someone! No, I am still undecided on this one. Maybe us moderators should spend all day individually picking 90 posts out of 100 on each thread just so the article can stay.
Now about those whiners. You know, the people who get a single reply pulled and then send 10-20 FRMails A DAY to the moderators and Jim wanting to know WHY their post was pulled. They want a 100 word explanation on their 10 word post that broke a simple guideline, like NO PROFANITY, NO RACISM, NO PERSONAL ATTACKS.
Or how about the guy who posts a personal e-mail giving away our military men's latest orders or position? It's news isn't it? You're right, those posts should remain on the forum that has 100,000+ hits a day!
If we would just not pull anything, then all those users wouldn't have to tagteam with their buddies or re-register under 20 new names and repost the same thing 20 more times before we nuke them again. Wow, life would be so easy. Just post the garbage once, have only one username, and move on. Who cares if it's trash and goes totally against what conservatism means? Who cares if it puts our military in harms way? Who cares if it's anti-American? Who cares if people use "free" speech as a weapon against our goals and other users? WHO CARES?
fwiw, I learned all of the above on Free Republic. I used to never talk this way.
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