Replies

Your attitude is wonderful, and we need more people like you -- so don't let me dampen your enthusiasm. But we already have FR to share news, and discuss things in a forum, so a Web page would only duplicate this.

If we need a place to list links to threads and pictures, we can do that on a Freeper's home page. We can even e-mail each other very easily here.

I'm not saying we should never use another forum, but -- as an administrator by trade -- I don't see any value that would outweigh the organizational inefficiencies it would cause -- there would then be two places where news must be posted, names collected, etc., and they would have to be linked. Outsiders could join the Yahoo forum whose identify as FReepers we could not verify and security would be undermined at events. (Unless we used freepmail to exchange info to verify. Which takes time and work but does not value.) Etc. etc. I have even had second thoughts about my MFHH blog.

Additionally, by keeping local chapters, clubs and events al on FR, we make it possible to learn from each others' models of organization and duplicate them.

One value, however, of having an outside site is attracting other people. Specifically -- when you start a blog, you join "the blogosphere". When blogs begin to link to each other, they can subscribe to each other and receive news feeds. Conservative local NYC blogs are numerous, and many of them build very large readerships over time. The number of politically active New Yorkers who blog together far outweigh the number of FReepers who meet and FReep regularly.

A robust New York chapter can occasionally form coalitions with other organizations to maximize turnout and attract the kind of media attention that will advance our causes and, at the same time, perhaps help build FR itself.