I disagree completely with the tone set by this article.
The author makes a moral and functional equivalence between FR and Daily Kos with the description of FR as the “Daily Kos of the right”.
It isn’t. He thinks the function of someplace like FR is to rally people to swarm to online polls and sway them en-masse or to raise money.
It is neither of those things. It is a place to discuss issues and ideas, something not ACTUALLY done on liberal analogs like DU and Daily Kos. Not to say it is without emotion, bias and occasional mistreatment by both admins and other posters, but it is not the howling at the moon environment like DU.
FR hasn’t done some of these things such as swarming because of a conscious decision to behave according to a conservative ethical code.
What a silly article.
Some of the sites, indeed, discourage members from being more than simple readers.
That said, while criticizing FR, it would have been nice to mention that the place most of the purge-ees landed censored immigration debate to such a point that they were only allowed ONE thread a week--and the software made it difficult to find, let alone follow, the points being made.
Other sites were kook magnets or draconian in their policies. FR remains our best bet.
I am glad Freepers don’t drink Hugh & Company’s koolaid. If we did, every GOP decision would be deemed to be perfect and unquestionable.
Lets just picture their “perfect” world: Harriet Miers would be the chief justice of the supreme court; borders with Mexico would be wide open (welcome to the NAU!); we would have 100 million new hispanic democrat voters; the No Amigo Left Behind Act would ensure that all new citizens get a quality college education; Patriot Act VI would have just been ratified; CFR II would be in place and the Law of the Sea Treaty would guarantee UN funding forever.
Wouldn’t that be great?
Oh, and I forgot to mention that we would all be expected at HCI/Planned Parenthood’s Giuliani fundraiser tonight.
I’ll come out and say I agree that FR has been marginalized. And that the marginalization has become publicly apparent enough that Bill O’Reilly decided to get his kicks in while FR was already down for the count.
1. Dozens if not hundreds of the most prolific and irl politically active Freepers have left FR permanently to create and build their own websites, blogs and media outlets. The brain drain is apparent. Most of those who left no longer cross post to FR. Original content is lacking because of it.
2. IN their place we’ve seen untold multitudes of keyboard kommandos and internet tough guys who post one line drivel in thread after thread, much of it openly racist and xenophobic.
3. FR has not implemented a proper search function yet.
4. Patently non-political threads abound, from sports to horses, to Lord of the Rings devotees to the inner minutae of the Anglican Church.
5. This site has lost Buchanan supporters, Keyes supporters, Forbes supporters, Guiliani supporters, McCain supporters, McClintock supporters, libertarians of most stripes, pro-choice/fiscally conservatice types, and hosts of others in purges. That is a lot of hacking, we’re down to the bone.
6. Anyone want to comment on how large numbers of original Freepers from outside the US have abandoned FR due to the xenophobic comments?
7. This FR could use
A. imbedded video,
B. better search engine
C. RSS/CSS/ATOM/etc feeds that work
D. and official function to ‘ignore user’, to make avoiding the idiots easier.
E. /. style commentary value voting system.
The fact of the matter is that the blogosphere is largely responsible for the current stridency and lack of reason within those members of the Democratic party who are impressed by the passion of its members. One hears the latter screeching for a Bush and Cheney impeachment at any price and on any topic and the professionals just roll their eyes and nod their heads silently. Whatever, guys. Just keep the money rolling in.
FR is not, by design, in quite that same sort of incestuous relationship with the Republican party leadership, typified in my opinion by pundits such as Ruffini who appear to regard the whole thing as merely another form of mass marketing campaign, useful only insofar as it puts money in the coffers and feet in the street. It doesn't quite work that way, and attempts to force a discussion forum into the mold of activism are doomed to only partial success at best. Anyone who has tried to organize a FReeper protest comes to realize that. If that's your metric you're stuck with inadequacy or perhaps - just perhaps - you're using the wrong metric.
I've been here long enough to see a number of interesting turns. Anyone lamenting the current lack of civility on the site probably doesn't remember the old days before the advent of the Mods. FR isn't about boots in the street although it does that. It isn't about money funnels into any formal party. It isn't about high-profile media frenzies in Chicago that draw political candidates like a turd draws flies.
It is what it is, and I thank its members past and present for their stimulation, and especially I thank my host for his indulgence. You can opus out of FR but you can't opus out of the country. We're all in this together, like it or not.
Free Republic is not a blog, but we are the granddaddy of all Internet political blogs.
We've always posted the fact that we are NOT affiliated with any political party, news source or any other entity. We are a pro God, Life and Liberty grassroots conservative site and if that sometimes puts us at odds with the so-called conservative Republican party or the liberal RINOs within, then so be it.
We are the dissent, baby.
Given (see below) that Patrick Ruffini is the chief e-campaign guru for the RNC (or at least among the chief RNC e-gurus), his complaints about FR may amount to nothing more than that he wants a loyal army of e-bots to follow the RNC line at all times and work on behalf of the party. Since so many in Republican leadership have failed so egregiously to uphold conservative principles at least some of the time (and some of them fail ALL of the time), Ruffini’s remarks on FR amount to simply a demand that Freepers should be party hacks rather than conservatives. I would take everything he says with buckets of grains of salt and his background clearly in mind......
“From 2005 to 2007, Ruffini served as eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee, overseeing the Party’s online strategy for the 2006 election cycle. His tenure saw unprecedented outreach to the online community, breakthroughs in online fundraising, and successful initiatives in the emerging worlds of social media, online video, and text messaging. Even during a difficult election cycle, the RNC’s relationship with the blogosphere grew closer and stronger than ever. Beyond these successes, the RNC’s eCampaign serves as the Republican Party’s R&D arm for innovation on the Internet, where no major development online goes unnoticed or is left untapped. In this role, Ruffini advised Republican candidates and organizations at all levels on best practices for winning online.
In the 2004 election cycle, Ruffini served as webmaster for Bush-Cheney ‘04....
http://www.patrickruffini.com/about/
That's because liberal mouth-breathers are dumb as rocks and need useless eye-candy rather than actual content to hold their attention.
Ummmm....No.
If the thread consists ONLY of your opinion, that is a vanity.
The opinions of the poster of a thread are posted on Post 1 and everybody else's opinion follows.
As a matter of fact, we often skip reading the posted article and go straight to our opinions. :-)
Interesting article and interesting posts to the article.I disagree with the premise about FR in the article though. I’ve yet to see a household appliance that does every job around the house from mowing the lawn to fixing the roof but apparently Hewit thinks Free Republic is supposed to be that “do all” site on the net and there ain’t no such animal.As for some of the postings,the yearning for yesterday by some of the “old timers” here might be misguided.As a small businessman trust me when I say new blood is a GOOD thing for a business or a website because without it lock the door and shut the light cause the party’s over !!!
I have a feeling that the people who would most like to “marginalize” Free Republic are certain GOP “leaders”, particularly those who tried to open the floodgates for illegal aliens but ended up getting smacked down thanks to the “grassroots” efforts of Free Republic and talk radio.
Last month the elitist RNC idiots were seething about talk radio (Trent Lott was the only Republican who had the guts - - or stupidity - - to say something out loud) and this month it’s Free Republic. You have to wonder if they will ever get a clue.... Meanwhile, my checkbook remains closed.
Swarm this Kos.......ya sore-losers !
I think he makes some good points.
“If you support Rudy Giuliani, who still has a decent shot at being our nominee, you’ve probably been purged.” This is a real problem. If Rudy IS the nominee, will FR support the Dem candidate? The level of hostility directed at this very viable candidate is counterproductive. We should know all the negatives on all of the candidates - recognizing that we will never get everything we want in one person - but the personal attacks serve only to alienate FR from the GOP - which marginalizes our utility in the fight.
“What lessons did our activists learn from this? Freepers, who were our best online activists, never learned how to swarm to other sites, to take different kinds of actions, and to raise money for conservative candidates.” This is true - but that is not the kind of site envisioned by JimRob. Kristinn has taken it to the True Activist level in DC, but otherwise we are not really ‘out there’ much. And it’s a shame... FR could have been Conservative Central for news and information.
I used to be able to find ANY story first on FR. It’s still my favorite site and a daily read, but no longer sufficient in itself.
Where’s the George $oro$ of the Right?
“What lessons did our activists learn from this? Freepers, who were our best online activists, never learned how to swarm to other sites, to take different kinds of actions,”
Pantload alert.
Ping
Odd, I’ve always respected Hewitt. Yet, he attacks FR after the O’Rielly debacle. He is a strategist extrodinaire, that’s for sure. I think FR is a beautiful thing. It allows intelligent people from all walks of life and talents to interact and share viewpoints and information. Most importantly, it allows the free expression of ideas, something sorely lacking in today’s society. If it’s posted on FR, it may not be pretty but it may be the truth.