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.
That's the way it is.
I'm still relatively new here and I'm still not sure where to post at times. Like this morning I wanted to post a personal note of thanks to D-Day vets. I think I put it under "editorial". I think I put it in the right place, no one complained anyway. Not meaning to be mean spirited or overly critical here, but it is rather confusing for the new comers to try and figure out what fits where by the titles of your categories. Maybe you oughta create a couple of categories for those of us that just want to jaw at each other for fun. That'll keep us off of the news pages anyhow and not tick of the serious news junkies here. And be gentle with my ignorance. As a newbie, my flame suit is still on order :-)
I'm sorry we can't do that unless you've shaken down large corporations and knocked up mistresses.
And for self written pieces, the topic "vanity" usually is the best bet.
Yes, better documentation would be helpful, and is planned.
Does that mean I have to wear my pants again?
"I am somebody." Wait a minute, that's Texaggie's line.
That's the way it is.
Instead of threatening people with loss of posting privileges for abusing topic choice -- for which there are no guidelines posted that I know of -- why not tweak the software to limit to no more than one or two choices, and post a few tips on what constitutes a proper choice? Up til now few had a clue that it was a problem at all.
Maybe it should be retitled as the Media Watch Forum!
LOL! Well, at least I still have these:
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