That would be a welcome and refreshing development.
Posted on 08/26/2002 7:21:32 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Most of you know that a battle has been raging over the last several weeks between me and BadJoe regarding some of our moderating policies. Looked pretty bad there for awhile. Joe was going to resign from Free Republic and there was even a dust up regarding the monthly donors and how the records would be turned over to a new credit card service.
I am happy to report that today that battle has officially ended and Free Republic may have avoided being fatally damaged in a disastrous train wreck. As it is, the only losses suffered were a few black eyes and a lost ear or two. Fractures and abrasions were suffered, but no major bones broken or organs punctured. Hurt feelings, bruised egos, dampened spirits, damaged bodies are now all on the mend. A satisfactory agreement has been reached between all warring parties as to how we will continue forward in our fight for Freedom.
Summary of today's agreement between BadJoe and JimRob:
We will be working on a moderator policy manual (the boilerplate guidelines) and will post it as soon as completed. For now, I will say that we do not want racist material, anti-Semitism, religion bashing, tin-foil hat material, leftist propaganda (used to smear or bash conservatives), profanity, vulgarity, pornography, excessive flaming, insults or feuds, liberals, leftists, marxists, etc., are generally not welcome as are multiple screen names, disruptors, anti-FReepers or returning bannees.
Said material may be deleted as discovered or reported and posters may be warned, suspended or banned depending on severity.
But the standing moderator policy is to go as easy as possible on the posters. Many flame wars and insults and even some minor violations of other rules may sometimes be ignored. It depends entirely on the situation and the posters involved. Posters with unclean hands might as well avoid using the abuse button. We do not want to wade through hundreds of posts looking for who is at fault. We do not have time for it and do not want to act as nannies anyway. The general rule of thumb for a moderator is to always give the poster the benefit of the doubt. If there is any doubt, then we do not delete and do not ban. I'd rather bend the rules than stifle the debate. And now that we have a smokeybackroom forum, we'll suggest that people take their feuds and flame wars there and unless it gets too nasty the moderators will look the other way.
Believe it or not we do not like deleting or banning. We want to attract as many new people as we possibly can, but we also want to run a clean board. And we want to advance our conservative causes while not assisting the leftists propaganda artists in their dirty work.
I know this does not cover everything, but we'll be posting more as we can.
Also, we are in the process of contracting with one of the major nationwide credit card processing companies. Joe has been processing these for us for the last several years, but the job has gotten to be a huge task and a burden on him. Joe will assist us in making as smooth a transition as possible to the new service.
As always, I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart and we are all very appreciative of your support and understanding. I'm sorry for this recent turmoil and hope it is all behind us and we can get on with our FReeping!
God bless you all and God bless America!
Jim
Oh sure! Blame ME! LOL! (See #113 for more low humor...picture wouldn't post, but the link works) By the way, read your own post #176 and ask yourself about your choice of words! :)
On occassion I've pressed the Abuse button when a liberal disruptor has popped up. But I think it is to the benefit of Free Republic to allow reasonably polite, non-disruptive liberals to post here (should any exist and choose to do so). Free Republic's strength is in the factual analysis and incisive commentary it brings to news reports, and that requires a certain range of viewpoints.
Once in a while I pop over to Democratic Underground, just to see what they are obsessing over. DU is extremely intolerant of any viewpoint that does not fit within their narrow political worldview. Indeed, they pride their site on being a haven from unfriendly ideas which could prick their ideological bubble. The resulting threads are mostly filled with invective against Bush and Republicans, along with a total ignorance of widely-available facts. One non-liberal could have a field day posting links to contrary information, but non-liberals are apparently banned no matter how polite they try to be. (Just to be clear, I've personally never attempted to register with DU.) The result is that they weaken their own ability to respond to opposing ideas.
Free Republic seems to tolerate a considerably wider range of viewpoints, with the result that with many Freepers have become expert at debating and contesting with fellow posters. As long as it doesn't get out of hand and degenerate into vicious personal attacks and flame wars, this is a Good Thing. More importantly, not having to carefully hew to a "party line" allows us to better analyze the news and debunk false information.
In practice, I don't know exactly how much you tolerate liberals and Democrats on FR who are non-disruptive in their posts. I have no good way of knowing who is banned and who isn't. I'm just recommending against a too-rigid policy to exlude them.
It was intentional, but chadsey didn't bite!!
OF COURSE NOT, (although you really couldn't be talking about her, I aint taking no catfish bait this round)
I am out on leave and don't have my kingsize bed yet.
You reach a point where you just have to trust people.
JR?
That would be a welcome and refreshing development.
Huh? Sounds just like FR. LOL
Yes, we have a few liberals aboard and I don't ban them. Some of them aren't even that polite. But we keep them around in case some of our regulars get tired of bashing Bush and the Republicans and or each other.
But the strange thing is, chadsey, that I'll sleep in the big house tonight in a king size bed.
What time does lir set out your food bowl in the morning?
There's always the possibility of conversion...Matthew 9:12 "..."It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." :)
Heck, I'd flame you but this is a love fest thread so I'll be restrained. :-P
It's turtles all the way down.
Whenever a freeper reads a poster that he appreciates, he can membermark them. A flag, perhaps? Whenever someone is out of control, a member may put them on probation, which has the effect of deleting(actually, I believe it takes 5 votes to affect a symbol) one flag.
Most will be motivated to earn flags and will be a bit more careful about losing a flag and newbies will be obvious.
This isn't an original idea, I admire its affect on www.ragingbull.com, but the membermarks are $, not flags. The alternative to a membermark is ignore, but that can be a nuisance because you can never read their posts. When everyone is still responding to someone you can't see, it can be a pain the bundinghah. Alternatively, I would suggest that when someone has accumulated more probations than membermarks, a donkey symbol should appear, signifying their true allegience.
Just a thought.
Wise choice! We Freepers are a rather feisty bunch.
Ahhh, you've finished the remodeling on the doghouse?
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