Forgive me for intruding, your comments weren't directed to me, however, I believe that moderatoring at least some moderatoring is really needed. Many times newbies or people just surfing through see only the outlandish or stupid posts and go on their way much to their loss.
Take Rush for instance...he thinks we are a bunch of Kooks, I'm a big dittohead. And his screener is a dittohead.
Another example is Hugh Hewitt, he recognizes FR for what we are worts and all. He lets his audience know about us often with the qualification that there are some nuts and to just recognize them for who they are.
So I say to JimRob moderators are the way to go and he should do it anyway he sees fit.
End of speech. :-)
Informed, loyal, committed to the cause were just a few of the words that she used to characterize FReepers.
Hey, jump right in :)
The problem with this scheme is that so many terribly, terribly stupid posts are on-topic, polite and in no way break any of the rules. Moderating for quality is almost impossible to do fairly and well and is by definition subjective.
Thing is, forums like FR let everybody have an equal chance to get up on the soapbox. I think that's a mind-blowing and fantastic thing - the real miracle of the internet, and one that I think is going to have a genuine impact on society.
Unfortunately, some of those voices are going to be stupid or stone cold crazy or merely inarticulate. It's just inevitable. I don't know how many thousands of posts hit FR every day, but it's a cinch that probably hundreds of them are embarrassingly dumb.
Given what platforms like FR are trying to do, I think it's terribly unfair for Rush (or anyone) to latch on to the worst messages of the day and call them representative. I'd hate to see more rules imposed because some people "out there" don't get the concept.