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.
They are mood-balls.
And the 1964 Gun Control Act requires that all deadly (and friendly) weapons requires that they bear a serial number.
How about changing that to some such as:
STAY OUT DA'BUSHS..
And no one has ever been banned for sidebar abuse without having received literally dozens of warnings.
And no one has ever been banned for sidebar abuse without having received literally dozens of warnings.
Still, isn't it a bit like leaving the open cookie jar on the floor then punishing the kids for taking a few? Just get John Robinson to limit the choices to one or two, put a few tips for choosing on the topic list, problem solved. No need to issue "warnings," no need to continually bump this thread to newcomers, no need to threaten, etc.
Oh, what's the use. I'm making far too much sense aren't I.
There is already one for the UK..but it's not really appropriate (and actually 'twould be fairly insulting) to post articles of Irish interest under a United Kingdom heading.
There are quite a few people here that I regularly ping that indicate their interest in Irish topics...I guess it's a result of the massive Irish diaspora across the globe.
Anyway, just a suggestion :-)
What is it we say here about bureaucracy? :^)
Try the General Interest" forum. There's a multitude of topics to choose from when posting there.
Could you be more specific? Did I do something wrong? If so what exactly was it? I would like to know so that I don't repeat a mistake.
Thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.