That is the obvious answer. Folks shouldn't have to pay to read the site, but they should pay to post. $20 a year. Just to get in the door. No bitching: cough it up or work your mojo somewhere else. If somoeone is not willing to invest that small amount into a resource they use actively, they're not worth keeping as contributors, because they have no stake in the success. To pay for the lurkers use of the network, set up an access plan that funnel their free entry through some sequence of pages that features an advertising revenue source.
The quarterly fundraisers are tough for everyone involved. The people who use this forum should pay for it in an equitable manner. If there are only 1500 individuals here willing to pay a $20 door charge to post on FR, Jim may not need the data and network resources he needs for 5000 people to post. He may not want to continue hosting the site. Typically, 1000-1200 Freepers contribute something during a typical quarterly fundraiser. Meaning many more folks contribute nothing, though they may post articles and commentary or access the place on a regular basis. If you aren't willing to pay up to support FR, you can hit the bricks.
The forum has to enact a policy of only linking to the source sites hosting the news items - no full article cuts and pastes. Period. The presentation of whole text articles taken form other news sites is just bad business, legally and IMO ethically. We need to pay (through our traffic) for the content we use in our discussions. FR needs to minimize every legal exposure, support our conservative friends whose websites depend on traffic hits, and just generally conduct ourselves as a conscientous and serious community of conservatives.
Great idea. But does the 1000-1200 include us monthly donors? I skip the threads because AmEx takes care of FR like clockwork.