Posted on 11/28/2001 7:31:29 PM PST by Jim Robinson
There have been bad decisions made regarding the LAT/WP lawsuits and the Eschoir action. Some of the players were less than honorable, and the results certainly not what we desired. But Jim Robinson was, is, and always has been an honest man who took on the establishment with his bare knuckles. If he got beaten, we all got beaten. Freedom got beaten. The Constitution got beaten. And our Republic got beaten. For you to glory in that defeat, or to slink away in fear shows your moral mettle. Thank God Jim had more guts than you.
If he needs help patching the bullet holes he took for us, I for one will be glad to pitch in and do my part. If that means funneling money into the Defense Fund, nobody ever said freedom was free. (Not that facts matter to you, but Jim hasn't paid one dime to the Times/Post for their "judgment.")
You are at best a sunshine patriot, a fair-weather friend. The loss of folks like you -- and the company you keep: Don Morgan, Nav, Mojo, et. al. -- is no great loss for this forum, or for this Republic.
LOL!
Hm....as much time as I spend logged onto Free Republic, that would be a cost of about 0.00001 a minute! LOL!
That didn't hurt much to admit, now did it?
Thank you.
Pot=kettle=black.
You're FOS and everybody knows it>>>>>>get over yourself!
I don't think that's asking much. If it is, don't contribute. But we've got work to do, and kvetchers don't contribute much to the effort.
1) From your description it would appear that you are having your bandwidth delivered, and you are paying substantially for it. Further, it appears that your contract is about to roll over. Maybe it is time to look at shopping colocation instead of keeping your machines cozy at home (or business location) with big chunk of bandwidth.
2) Management and software costs are understandable. You have to eat. But can some of this be improved? I've never been very impressed with your software, particularly when the software behind slashdot (slashdot.org) is available for free, is efficient (moderately), and is currently handling demand significantly larger than Freerepublic.
3) Speaking of slashdot, it offers a far better method of discipline. Namely distributed moderation. If you are a valued poster, you get the authority to rate the postings of others. And you only get respect if sufficient other posters agree that your postings are valid. Then they take it one step further with "meta-moderation". That is, everyone has the opportunity to vode on the validity of your moderations, and you have the chance to lose credibility that way.
4) Another lesson from slashdot. Why bother posting the full body of articles. Just put up a link. Everyone comes here for the discussion, not for the artful way the news is listed or rated. They bounce off, read the article, and come back. And the whole threat from big publishing houses gets blown away.
5) Threads and subthreads.
6) Posting authority, and the ability to filter specific story posters, on a user based basis.
7) I have no problem with advertising, particularly if no single person has complete editorial control. It seems to me that a major advantage of a site like this one is the general absence of a single editor. Not to worry, the predominance of conservatives/libertarians/tin foil hats/republicans/ etc. can take care of keeping the site largely on track.
8) Maybe everyone has been over all of these issues, but I sure haven't seen it. Most people here have no idea what slashdot is, but anyone discussing policy regarding a news discussion site should take a glance at one of the best implemented such sites. And by the way, there are well over a hundred such sites across the net.
9) Don't get offended at any insult to your software product. It works well, and handles load moderately well. But in economics it is referred to as sunk cost. If you can pick up an alternative for .... free, and then do your own development to tailor, it deserves serious consideration.
Finally, maybe we need to think about putting up such a site just as a test.
P.S. - Bumps are a massive waste of bandwidth and a huge source of noise - Restructuring along the above lines could save piles of money.
Irrelevant? Read the whole thread--it's about the relevance of personal opinion.
And FR is "created" by ALL posters, including those whose knees don't jerk and who eschew cliches; if it wasn't, it wouldn't be FR. It's the source, degree, and consequences of dissent that this thread is about.
Yep, I was wrong. And I won't make the mistake of underestimating this country again.
But..big deal. I got over it. I suspect most others did too.
Actually, my lovely, gracious, beautiful, 6' tall, former-farm-girl-and-strong-as-an-ox, former Texas State judo champion, wonderful mother of my seven children would start with mine................:)
As for how long you've been here, believe me, compared to them, you're a well thought of Freeper. (Well, that's kind of an insult, isn't it, since nobody really likes them......LOL) but you know what I mean!
Because TLBSHOW proved no such thing. His post actually proved that you were in error in claiming that I took two days to ban the fake Howlin and delete her posts. Our mutual friend will confirm this. Please confer with her before you embarrass yourself further with this.
My gawwsh! That's a downright fantastic pile of horse-dung prose, Arator. It's so grandiose and eloquent at the same time!
Honestly, I don't mean to overreact, but I'm just not used to seeing such grandiose thinking and such eloquent prose go hand in hand. It's perfect for fund-raising purposes.
Don't forget: Show up at least once a quarter. You're great for business.
Arator, really, you have very little knowledge of what went on with that lawsuit, with the exception of what "heard" on the AF boards, so my suggestion is that you shut your pie whole and stick to what you know best...and that would be...
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