"All's well that end's well"
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
God bless you all and God bless America!
Spoken like a true gentleman! Although there are several other competing conversation boards with similar formats, I think FR will always be the "Mother Ship".
May God bless you and yours.
Tolerance for these topics is razor thin around here. It's a fine line anymore, especially since W is in office; it just seems like there are throngs out there who will jump all over you just for criticizing the guy (face it folks, he does not walk on water). There hasn't been a "real citizen" elected to the office of President since James A. Garfield (and we all know what happened to him).
Thanks for your reply, I suppose I knew what the answer to my question was before I typed it. The link was only to remind folks of what FR used to be like...and I am grateful it has survived this long. FRegards
"All's well that end's well"
Please define this statement. Thanks.
Oh you know, wild, far out stuff, like the mention of any possibility that any Republicans, particularly any Bush administration appointees, were in any way implicated in or profited by the narcotics flights into the US during the late 1970s, '80s and '90s, and cooperated with their Democratic counterparts to keep the lid on, at Mena and elsewhere.
Oh, what a glorious moment that was! I was on the thread when it happened, and saved a copy of it for posterity.
By the way, just out of curiosity, I visited Rivero's site recently. Just as tin-foily as even. He claims that his "Total visits for the week [are] 4,021,309."
Pretty good for the little monkey, no?
I guess you could say it's a dead issue....
'Tisn't me. ;-)
For instance, one may state the assertions in the arguments behind a pro-choice position without assuming that position or intending to propogate it legitimacy.
That is an exoteric, hermetic discussion and debate.
The same type of debate is possible on most of the taboo subjects you indicated.
Can you put forth a position on that type of discussion assuming the participants are conducting themselves in a civil manner, or does the potential of bystanders misbehaving give cause to veto all such discussions a priori?
It may seem I am squinting at gnats here, but the policies on FR seem to have evolved from insisting on civil discussion to deeming areas of discussion off limits or an endeavor that one conducts at thier own risk.
In the interests of fairness and recognising that many of todays policies and news have tenticles rooted in these taboo topics, a debator can be hampered and cornered by the designation of such 'land-mined' areas of discussion.
Given that, I would think it is encumbant on the policy makers to be a bit more specific.
Understanding that there are those who seek merely to 'sow discord' and ugliness on certain topics, the question of fairness becomes: Why should the uncivil endanger the civil?
Right now, as best I can ascertain, the policy can be boiled down to: Do not conduct arguments or put forth assertions that cause turmoil because the majority consider them invalid/offensive -- but this only applies to forbidden topics, and does not consider the attitude, intent or civility of the poster. It does not allow exoteric debate nor 'devils advocate' mechanism.
By logical extension of this policy, you would have to include arguments critical of homosexuality -- a topic that is missing from your ad hoc listing.
I sympathize with your position, but this is an endeavor that is of your choosing alone. And now the conundrum amounts to this:
If anti-homosexual arguments are not supressed with equal ferocity as pro-racist or anti-semitic arguments, then how do you defend against the assertion that the policy allows 'hate' for the homosexual more than it allows 'hate' for the racist or anti-semite?
This can continue ad infinitum because there will always be a group 'exposed' and a group 'protected' whose differences are miniscule relative to the extent of the 'intellectual assault/bashing' the policy exposes them to.
This is why taking responsibility for the content of the discourse on FR or any board is a mistake, one should only enforce civility and congeniality and take no position on the political correctness of content.
The result is that FR has been pruned into a tool of advocasy and lost an important portion of the free dialog that proved it of public interest.
The moderator has the same problem as a secret trial -- no one really knows what happened when a post is deleted, its just GONE. I might suggest that to maintain the 'trust' of readers, the moderator might append a warning to a borderline post instead of deleting it, this would prove educational in refining what the policy really is.
It is human nature to suspect a 'good point' was executed simply because the post was brash or otherwise -- a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In football the refs explain thier calls, I think that in a colosseum of the intellect a simular respect to the accuracy and legitimacy of a moderators calls need to be assured by the warning mechanism I described above.
I appreciate your consideration and am assured in your beliefs in the principles of free speech and the fruits it ultimately delivers. I hope the pressures of the ideology of yourself or others will not undermine the value and faith in that principle.
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