[justshe]

This comment, by the admin moderator, was buried deep within a thread on Sean Hannity and addressed the bitter and often 'dirty' in-fighting that seems to be occurring on this forum on a regular basis. The Moderator gave permission to have it posted as a separate thread for further discussion as warranted.

As I am unfamiliar with posting threads, should any of the "topics" chosen be inappropriate, my apologies.

[gitmo]

Can someone point us to a thread that exemplifies this? I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. I've seen a lot of disagreements, but isn't that part of the political debate?

[absalom01]

Good post. I'm sure that there are many like myself who have a limited amount of time to scan the various threads here, but it did seem to me that there was an increasing loss of civility in the recent past. What i've noticed is that a few folks are resorting to the most adolescent name-calling: "nitwit" being a favorite invective.

"One can have a rip-roaring take-it-to-the-mat political debate with someone without getting personal, without resorting to childish taunts," ...

This gets it about half of the way there -- I'd argue that one can ONLY have a real political debate if the silly ad-hominem attacks are left out.

But, look at the bright side -- FR must really be bugging the opposition for this level of effort to be applied.

[mrsmith]

Liberals consistently hide themselves as "real" conservatives or libertarians on FR to provide themselves cover, sometimes their bogus criticisms are then defended by eager anti-gov Freepers who are trying to make valid criticisms of the president.
It's too bad, but it is sometimes hard to identify these people until things have advanced to the hurt feelings level.
(Hi to "MIT" and to another 'consistent' liberal who is still here so I won't mention the name)

The pure trolls will hide themselves on any side- including, of course, 'pro-Bush'- to cause trouble... any trouble. They get found out pretty quickly though.

[lewislynn]

The Moderator gave permission to have it posted as a separate thread for further discussion as warranted.

Why? It will only start another "in-house war"

[AmishDude]

I really don't know what good this can do, though. The disruptors, if malicious, won't stop based on any entreaty and most of them are gone within two weeks, so they won't see this anyway. I don't know what the solution is and I don't know how/whether JimRob wants to resolve it.

There are several ways I can think of offhand, but any would change the nature of FR:

• Have ranks of membership, e.g.: probationary, junior, senior, that appears either with each article post or with each reply. For example with a colored dot next to the name.
• Post member date along with each article posted.
• Provide a probationary period for each member. (There are sleeper accounts, of course.)
• Make a statistical graph (say posting rate/week or rate/month) available for each member.

Some of these would be impossible to do, some undesirable.

I think the biggest problem is that certain factions are unwilling to police their own. Right now, the Bush-bashers, of course, have the highest percentage of distruptors. But, the genuine posters in this group seem so happy to have the support that they are unwilling to out disruptors in their midst.

On the positive side, these things happen in waves. Not too many months ago, one could not help but see antiwar.com or lewrockwell.com articles everytime one was browsing. Now they're impossible to find. Those of us who have been around a while, I think, don't mind it so much because we've seen it before.

[IronJack]

As the Admin Moderator is well aware, I am not a proponent of a moderated forum. But in this post, he is exactly right. We can rely on the sensibilities of others to groom our forum or we can do it ourselves.

Be aware that many of these disruptions come from disgruntled former FReepers who childishly return to the forum after a suspension to ruin the atmosphere for everyone. It's like a brat kicked off the playground who sneaks back in the middle of the night to vandalize the jungle gym.

There are numerous other sites on the net started by grudge-holders and tantrum-throwers, and they troll FR regularly to recruit malcontents. Not content to differ in their view, they obsess about bringing FR down or contaminating it with their vitriolic spew to the point that it's rendered useless.

Be aware that many of the flame wars and sniping sessions you see are their handiwork. Then lay back and watch the show, just as you'd watch with morbid curiosity if a loudmouthed brat threw a tantrum in the grocery store.

Then walk away shaking your head and thanking God you've got better manners.

[rintense]

PING!

[pittsburgh gop guy]

If good conservatives leave FREEREPUBLIC then the terrorists have won!

[Consort]

How many of the in-house bashers are "posturing" so that they can say "I told you so" if the GOP loses both Houses in '02 and the White House in '04?

[Grampa Dave]

I have copied a few lines from the Admin Moderator's reply:

Obviously, the goal is to drive people away. This is not happening on just one side, it is happening on all sides. It is a form of disruption that relies on the cover of good people engaging in flame wars with them so that the disruptors seem part of the mass rather than the agent provocatuers that they are.

There are two options, really. People can help us out in finding them by refusing to take part in the flame wars and being understanding when a person gets sent to the cooler, so that eventually the real problem children are rooted out.

And the other option is to let them win by letting them drive you away- with you being people from every single conservative faction we have. Rest assured though, if that one happens, if you make another home and it starts being successful, they will come there and do it to you there. ============================================================

There are dedicated groups who dedicate their entire lives to destroying effective conservative sites.

They know that an effective, growing and cohesive Free Republic is the worse nightmare of the left wingers.

Most often they are the great pretenders, pretending to be unhappy conservatives. They come on any thread blaming the Republicans, president Bush, a Republican Governor and even a Republican Candidate like Bill Simon for anything that happens or doesn't happen.

They love to cite the left wing maggot articles from the NY Slimes, the DC Compost, LA Slimes or the SF Gay Rhonicle when they lie about is happening. Then their buddies drop in and agree with their what appears to be disgruntled right wing sentiments.

They act like they have a daily quota of posting electronic lynching replies to any thread that appears. Makes you wonder if the DNC doesn't have them on their payrolls.

They remind me of a suicide bomber trying to blowup class rooms in Israel. Of course they never get hurt. They just explode the electronic bomb that destroys the thread.

As our Admin Moderator noted, "They are reall agent provocatuers, who are intent on destoying the effectivess of Free Republic.

So maybe we should label them as FREEPAKAZIS! I refer to them as the Axis of Whining Weasels!

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Earlier tonight thanks to a tip from someone who I wish I had listened to earlier, we discovered someone who had at least 8 different accounts

Well that comes as a shock, and I know a few folks I'd like to ping. If they are still here.

[inquest]

People can help us out in finding them by refusing to take part in the flame wars and being understanding when a person gets sent to the cooler, so that eventually the real problem children are rooted out.

That part about being understanding can be made a lot easier if the mods would be more forthcoming as to why a particular corrective action was taken against a poster, rather than just deleting his comments and banning him out of the blue. That really is much more of a problem, IMHO, than flamers. Flamers for me have been mostly little more than a minor annoyance, but overactive moderators, or perceived overactive moderators, can really cast a pall over a thread at times.

[Amelia]

Earlier tonight thanks to a tip from someone who I wish I had listened to earlier, we discovered someone who had at least 8 different accounts....Several seemed to have a thing for mocking Registered.

Just to be clear, I ping AM here because it was AM's post to begin with.

As someone who was part of many of the "flame wars" the poster in question was involved with, I'm very aware that the "flame wars" in question were going on well before the arrival of this poster. Perhaps I'm confused, but I thought they actually calmed a bit after the arrival of the poster in question.

As to the mocking of Registered, it appeared to me to be a reaction to Registered mocking the poster in question and others--up to and including the behavior that earned Registered his recent suspension.

My opinion, for what it's worth.

[lodwick]

Good job - don't be a stranger and bttt.

[FairWitness]

There is no freedom without responsibility. In the context of this thread, our freedom to participate on Free Republic requires we behave responsibly in replying to our fellow Freepers. I normally avoid the threads which I think will degenerate into flames, but but perhaps that is a cop-out. We all have the capacity to behave as "assistant moderators" by avoiding ad-hominem attacks and doing our best to pull back from the brink those that do attack in such manner. The incorrigible's will of course have to be dealt with by the official Admin Moderators.

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting this worthwhile thread. Have been tied up the last several days and missed the other thread on Hannity. You cannot imagine how disgusted I am at both sides of these continual flame wars and would like to know what the point to them is except to drive folks away!

Time for some people to grow up and quit acting like a bunch of spoiled kids who when they don't get their way want to pick up their ball and go home! Or the person everyone went to school with that HAD to get in the last word! Thanks again!

[Tribune7]

Well, FR is now the big time.

[Erasmus]

BTW, love the graphic. It's a picture of me after a seeming lifetime of dealing with Cornputers in general, and Windowze in particular.

<>--<)B^)

[wattsmag2]

Geez, this stuff is child's play to the often raucous early days here at FR.

[Neets]

Thanks for posting this excerpt on the main forum...I THINK I get the meaning of the AM's post and if he/she is right, this means there is a "faction" of some sort out there working to divide us from within.

I hope we can each remember to work for the common cause of what bring us all here in the first place, and learn to keep an eye out for those who will try to do their best to make us look bad and tear this place apart.

Remember that one of the three pronged attacks that proponents of Marxism use is the method of turning the people against their government...tell me you don't see people here trying to do that???

We no longer have an issue that rallies us around the flag pole (i.e., the corrupt X42 and his minions) so we need to work desparately to find something, ONE thing that we can all work on and focus on together that KEEPS us together, and recognize and alert others when these so called "disruptors" appear on this site.