Posted on 06/06/2002 10:54:54 AM PDT by Admin Moderator
Lately, we have been seeing more and more people who are posting articles to every topic, or to many topics which it is a stretch to see as applicable.
Please don't do this. You may be thinking that you are giving more visibility to articles that you find important, but in actuality you are making it so that people who read FR by topic have their interests spammed with things of no interest to them, making more work for the moderators (which may lead to more moderators, which may or may not be a good thing), and generally alienating the very readers you are trying to win over.
For example, philosophy should only be used for articles which are dealing with philosophy, not every article under the guise of "it raises philosophical questions".
What is appropriate for what topic? Let's have this thread be used for Freepers to hash out what belongs in what topic. All I will add to the discussion is that clearly posts are being made to way too many unrelated topics, so whatever the right balance is, we aren't there. It would be a shame to have people lose posting privileges over something like this, but that is preferrable to us losing Freepers due to others making FR unusable for them.
I will also use this thread to give guidelines for the "main" sidebar topics.
Breaking News is for articles of emerging, important news stories. Imagine a television station or a radio station being run by conservatives instead of liberals. Would regular programming be interrupted to go to this story? If so, then it may belong in breaking. If not, then it doesn't. The exception to this rule is activism. If one of our chapters is organizing an event, then Jim has given the OK for the breaking news sidebar to be used for that.
Frontpage is for stories that it would be reasonable to expect to find on the front page of a newspaper or news magazine.
Extended News is for stories that extend other important stories. For example, if there is a story in breaking news or on frontpage, and there are other articles which give background or are otherwise related to the main story, then Extended News is a good place for them. Also, stories which are not quite breaking or frontpage but are likely to be considered important, not by the poster but by conservatives in general, can be placed in Extended.
Editorial is for opinion pieces and editorials of note.
Anyway, please be more considerate when choosing the topics when posting articles. Thanks.
Okay, let's do a hypothetical:
I am just about to post an article that will definitely be above-the-fold front-page news in my city, but will probably not be considered front-page or section-B news outside of the tri-state area. Do I put it in Front Page or where?
| TOPICS |
| Announcements |
| Anthrax Scare |
| Breaking News |
| Free Republic |
| Political Humor/Cartoons |
| Click to Add Topic |
|
|
...the problem may be in allowing anyone to add whatever topics they wish.
Just call me the Jesse Jackson of FR
While the topics getting added to this thread are funny, I just want to warn that a feature that John did have working that will be making a comeback will be for us mods to be able to tell who added topics after the fact, and when it comes back it will tell me who was messing with me here ;-) But no, I am not vengeful, really (he he he).
Free the USA- Yes. Just don't abuse it.
hellinahandcart- why not see what the consensus is here? In general I would say use your best judgement.
My Identity- 1) Suggest it to JohnRob. 2) I believe that is coming.
Redcloak- Yes, but as with any feature, if it gets continually abused, the feature will be removed or changed. One thing that is being discussed a LOT is the ability to ban certain people from being able to post threads to certain topics- this would solve the majority of the abuse of the breaking news sidebar.
Give us all your money or we will Freepmail you.
The Sage of the Dustbin.
I think it's a shame to threaten loss of posting privileges over something like this. Sort of validates many of the things people have been saying about moderators.
RTFLMAO!
just remeber - you asked for it...
Cuz I fibbed about it being a hypothetical question, that's why. :D (I was just about to post an article when I saw this thread.)
I forgot about the News/Current Events category, maybe I'll just go post it there instead of in Front Page.
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