Replies

Boss:
Thank you for a great site that has become influential in the public and political discourse. The single best example of how important Free Republic has become is the Tea Party. It simply wouldn’t have grown to the size it is without Freepers. Period.

The anonymous poster:
TrueBlueFreedom.com costs money to run and you will be faced with that reality as it grows, if it ever does.

First off, it is a for crap site that requires registration just to see the articles or opinions Hmmm…not very enticing for membership and doubtful that strategy could ever work.

Second, your not so well thought out site has advertisers all over it. It seems you are trying to make money with click throughs to those advertisers. Good luck. It takes on the order of thousands of click throughs to accumulate any meaningful remuneration and there is a floor before they will even cut their first check, electronically. Heck, even so it takes as long as 3 months after you reach that floor and you are back at zero, waiting for the floor to be met again and then wait, wait, wait, for some pittance of money.

Third, you will absolutely be held hostage to those advertisers. If they or their customers decide they don’t like your website for its postings well guess what? You will be boycotted and looking for new sources of advertisers as well revenue.

All the best sites are subscriber based and that is what keeps them going.

Free Republic is an exemplary example of subscriber based in that contributions are totally voluntary. In other words, the Free Republic community absolutely supports the site and because of its voluntary nature can have tremendous input regarding the content as well as poster.
Jim Robinson has a personal core of beliefs and the site will not change to suit the whims and dictates of anyone or any group. His life is so ordered and that is why he started this business.

Freepathons are fundraisers for a site that actually can be indicators of society’s beliefs. Yes it may be true that if a single Freepathon is not met then Free Republic is gone or changed to some other format.

There is a base cost for running this place and as an ISP I can guess what it is. What’s left over from a Freepathon has to support new equipment, software and even the plain living expenses of at least two families.

As a result, the incomes for these two families are really quite modest, especially when one considers the cost of living in California.

Free Republic is so very different than PBS. Did you know the top 10 executives in just about any major market make in excess of $300,000? For what? That doesn’t include the benies that are part of the business such as travel, dinners and a whole slew of other fun stuff that have nothing to do with their compensation.

Go ahead and order the 501c annual report from any PBS outlet, in any major city. Eye opening to say the least.
Moreover, Free Republic differs from NPR in that there is no George Soros type stuffing the bank account and having such influence as to develop content that is well, un-American.

Free Republic articles are culled from around the world by Freepers and posted here for consumption by other Freepers. Vanities are also posted and the Free Republic community is free to join in the discussion, argue about the points contained in it, have a little fun between each other about it and here is the best part: Only Free Republic allows subscribers to excoriate a poster to the point of demanding their account be closed for over the top offense. A ZOT as it were, as it is and as the community would like it to remain.

Come here and spout racist rants, buh bye.
Come here and spout anti-American view, buy bye.
Come here and spout pro-abortion, see ya.

Even a rant that calls for physical aggression of any type will be tossed into virtual space or if its content is so lame the community will be allowed to excoriate the poster and make fun of him for being so stupid.

Free Republic is simply the best example of community rules, much like neighborhood rules, having a direct influence on what is acceptable for this community.

Jim Robinson is a tyrant? LOL. Well, I agree, he is. This is his site. He owns the field, the bases, the gloves, ball and bats. Like all website operators Jim sets the rules for what is called AUP or Acceptable Use Policy. Such AUP can change or evolve just as it does on any other site.

You just don’t get some form letter from a heartless corporation telling you they have decided your privacy is not important to them and they have decided to sell their subscriber base to gain new revenue.

No, Jim will instead inform the community what has changed, why and it is usually heartfelt. His AUP is more from how he believes in the ideal of an America he has in his heart and I like to think his principles are just unchangeable.
All the top posters and many insignificant ones have at one time or another been purged. Even me.

Jim wants this site to remain as close to his vision for America and wants to Free Republic to be as emblematic of that as possible.

I’ve been ZOT’d plenty of time and on reflection deserved it. Cool thing about Jim is he doesn’t hold a grudge and allows one to work your way back into the community and remain a part of it honorably.

If you are a Romneybot then too bad. He represents absolutely no one but himself.

Jim, like the community, wants politicians who represent our ideals and shouldn’t we all?

Your site will never amount to anything and as a website operator I don’t just host sites but help my clients improve their viability. Sadly, the way you have ordered yours ain’t gonna make it and I have no advice for you anyway.

Free Republic and the community is the only site I have found where the content and users represent my viewpoint. So I ante up every Freepathon to keep the lights on.
You have no core belief and will not be successful in your endeavor.

I do wish you the best of luck. Maybe you can eek out enough money to justify spending so much time monitoring it in your off hours and hopefully it won’t become some animal that just plain ruins your daytime job and wrecks your life.