It's time for a posting refresher course (Welcome Newbies)

Admin Moderator | October 27, 2003 | Admin Moderator

[Admin Moderator]

Hi all,

It's time again for another posting refresher course. Thanks for your cooperation.

Only one these topics will show up in the sidebars, posting to multiple topics will still only show one topic.

Activism/Chapters - Activism, protests, news and business of Free Republic Chapters. Freep this poll should be placed in vanity. General news stories about activism should be place in news. After action reports from Freeps are allowed here.

Announcements – Notifications of Activism events, FR business

Breaking News - Not every story is breaking news. Breaking news should be news that affects most of us. There are some exceptions. If there is a hot current event happening, check breaking news. Most likely, it's there already, please check first, then use our search function. (explained below)

Editorial - Editorials are opinions. Some vanities, if well written and thought out can be considered editorial material.

Extended News - Extended news is for stories which have been posted previously and have updated or newer information.

Free Republic - This categories is reserved for Free Republic business.

Front Page News - Front page is for stories which are not breaking news, but would be found on the front page of a newspaper.

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These are just some of the topics that you may use two or more. Do not go out of your way to put in more topics just to try to get more views for your thread. Doing so makes the topics less usable for everyone. Also, do not list every state on your thread. It is unnecessary. Please limit the state topics to those states that the story pertains to.

Business/Economy - Business, industry, financial, markets, trade, banking, budget, debt, taxes and economy news.

Constitution/Conservatism - Discussion of conservatism and conservative principles and issues.

Crime/Corruption – News and discussion of crime, corruption government abuse, power grabs, and scandal.

Culture/Society - Discussion of health, education, welfare, drugs, abortion, environment, housing, unions, employment, social security, religion, arts, humanity, sports, and other cultural and societal issues.

Foreign Affairs - News and discussion of international politics, foreign affairs, diplomacy, national security, war, military, defense and armed forces issues.

Government - News and discussion of all branches of government, departments, agencies, law, policy, legislation, processes and judiciary.

Miscellaneous - Anything which doesn't fit into another category.

News/Current Events - News and discussion of current events.

Philosophy - Discussions of philosophy and ideology.

Political Humor/Cartoons - Funny stuff

Politics/Elections - Discussions of politics and elections.

Unclassified - Articles awaiting re-classification.

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Vanities and General Interest.

Your Opinion/Questions - All non-sourced non-news threads are posted here. This doesn’t mean your one thought is a thread by itself. Lately, we have been seeing articles posted that should be comments made on the main article. Your comment/vanity article will be pulled or moved to General Interest. Vanities should be limited to the mission of Free Republic.

General interest – Is for discussions of news and interest topics unrelated to the news forum. We will move articles unrelated to the news forum here.

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To avoid duplicate posts, please search before posting.

SEARCH

The best method to search is to pick a key word or two from the title. If the article you are posting is, “Agency to probe alleged spousal abuse of Terri Schiavo", start with 'Schiavo' for the key word. If it is a hot topic, you might want to use two or more keywords, in this case, try ‘Schiavo’ and ‘Terri’. For an effective search, select 'match all words' and select 'order by post time'.

[Admin Moderator]

Reference threads:

The Ultimate Sidebar Management Thread

Regarding Terri Schiavo Stories, the BN Sidebar, vanities, and newcomers

Knock it off with the "funny" vanities. We've got enough of the funnies in the news already.

Please do not post photos or links to photos or other personal info on the Kobe Bryant Accuser

Do NOT post ads, offers, solicitations or links to pages that offer merchandise, etc.

[yonif]

bttt

[11th Earl of Mar]

If you don't stop these vanity posts, I am going to report you to the Admin Moderator for abuse of the forum.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You forgot to mention that articles from certain publications MUST be excerpted and linked. Also a link to the HTML Sandbox is good for newbies.

[Sabertooth]

Only one these topics will show up in the sidebars, posting to multiple topics will still only show one topic.

Activism/Chapters - Activism, protests, news and business of Free Republic Chapters. Freep this poll should be placed in vanity. General news stories about activism should be place in news. After action reports from Freeps are allowed here.

Announcements Ð Notifications of Activism events, FR business

Breaking News - Not every story is breaking news. Breaking news should be news that affects most of us. There are some exceptions. If there is a hot current event happening, check breaking news. Most likely, it's there already, please check first, then use our search function. (explained below)

Any chance of making these three sidebars completely separate?

[ChadsDad]

lready posted

[ConservativeMan55]

Thanks for all your hard work!

[sourcery]

This sort of information really needs to be available on a "Posting Policies, Rules and Buidelines" page.

[Texaggie79]

General interest – Where fun threads go to die...

[Ciexyz]

btt

[sourcery]

Buidelines

Ack! Guidelines!

[Admin Moderator]

John would have to do that.

[GO65]

some instructions on what "pings" and "bumps" are would be helpfull. I've been here a few weeks and still haven't figured that out.

[Admin Moderator]

HTML Sandbox

Important Legal Notice:
LAT/WP vs Free Republic Settles
Free Republic has settled the alleged copyright infringement suit brought by The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post and has agreed not to post full text articles from their publications or any of their related subsidiaries and affiliates. Please do not post full text from these sources.

Any full text articles from LAT or WP or subsidiaries or affiliates will be deleted in compliance with this settlement. Click to see a copy of the Amended Final Judgment in this case.

[Admin Moderator]

I've sent your request to Jim, spelling corrected ;)

[Admin Moderator]

Thanks for the kudos.

[Jen]

Some other good threads for newcomers:

HTML Boot Camp

Fifth Edition of the Lexicon of FreeRepublic * * A helpful FR dictionary for newcomers * *

FReeper Photo Album

[smith288]

General interest – Where fun threads go to die...

Thread Blackhole...

I have often thought "Why aint anyone seeing my bumps???" only to find where an admin mod sent it... *sigh*

[1rudeboy]

The reason that the "Activism/Chapters" field gets regularly abused is that most do not read the field descriptions that follow each field on the checklist. Add to that the fact that the word "activism" itself is too broad, and you have your problem.

[Admin Moderator]

A ping is a flag that someone posts because they feel you might be interested in that article. You will see it in 'my comments'.

A bump is just a place marker to advance the thread back up to the top of the latest comments page. (bttt is sometime used - bump to the top)

[Jen]

You've just been "pinged" which "bumped" this thread. See the FReeper Lexicon link in post #17. ;-)

[Tall_Texan]

ping - notifying someone or a group of someones who have not been participating on the thread to the existence of the thread. Some who indicate a continued interest in a particular topic join "ping lists" that are used to ping multiple people.

bump - a method of keeping a thread in the "latest posts" category. Frequent bumping might prevent a thread or topic from being ignored by the group.

[Admin Moderator]

Lexicon of FreeRepublic - 4th Edition

[Codeflier]

ping

[theDentist]

And Zots! Don't forget the ZOTS!

[Admin Moderator]

There is an explanation of Zot on our profile page.

[eyespysomething]

on "Caption This" photos, do you need to link to the original photo, or where you got the photo from, ie Drudge Report? Are there any other criteria for these threads?

Hey, in less than a month, I won't be a newbie! I'll be a onebie!

[Jen]

What? You didn't like the Fifth edition that I posted?

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

FYI PING from the Admin Moderator

[Admin Moderator]

I found this one, but not by you.

Fifth Edition of the Lexicon of FreeRepublic * * A helpful FR dictionary for newcomers * *

[dandelion]

I'm just dismuffed it took you this long to ping ME!! Owwwww...

[sourcery]

There are two rather different ways of reading Free Republic:

1. Using the Latest Articles page: This page shows articles (also called "threads") in the order in which they are first posted.
2. Using the Latest Posts page: This page shows each post (whether a new article, or a comment/reply within an existing article thread) in sequential order.

Many view FR using the "Latest Posts" page. Whenever any comment/reply is posted to an article thread, that causes the article to which the reply/comment is posted to be listed on the "Latest Posts" page, thus "bumping" it to the top of the list of latest posts.

The term ping comes from internet/UNIX slang. Many years ago, when the internet was very young, a little Unix program was written named ping. It's purpose was to send ICMP-protocol packets over the IP transport layer from one computer to another, for the purpose of verifying that the internet connectivity between the two computers was functioning as expected. Using the ping program is analogous to dialing a phone number to see whether it rings, and whether the person who answers is who you expect them to be. The term's usage on FR is metaphorical. We use it to notify someone that a thread may be of interest to them.

[TexKat]

Thank You Admin Moderator.

[Jen]

That's the one I posted in #17.

Would you like some coffee??? ;-) (just teasing - don't zot me!!!)

[DollyCali]

Hey, Thanks. I have been with FR since mid march & in reading this & the various comments/posts that followed, I learned QUITE A FEW THINGS.

My biggest "awe s**t" is to be reading a thread & seeing:

no post but statement "removed by admin. moderator".. the voyerism in me is VERY CURIOUS..

Thank God for FR and for President Bush ~!

[Admin Moderator]

Near the top of the thread, in the 'keywords', click on ADMINLECTURESERIES. We try to place all our threads there. Lots of interesting things you might like to know.

[Nov3]

How about an admonition to post under the original title! When the title is made up by the original poster duplicate threads will happen

[Admin Moderator]

Posting incorrect titles is a hassle for everyone, and we have duplicates everyday for that reason. Thanks for the reminder. Please use the orginal titles from the source.

[MeekOneGOP]

[trussell]

Here are some links that might help:

Freeper Tips and Helps
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/562247/posts

Help. Where are the HTML bootcamp threads?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/653391/posts

HTML Bootcamp
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38d821710885.htm

HTML Sandbox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/802064/posts

HTML Sandbox 1-2-03
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/815719/posts

HTML Sandbox-7/1/03
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/938739/posts

NEWCOMERS: Welcome Center and Information Desk
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3abaf6e76f1b.htm

Welcome, and Thanks (Repost) [New Users Especially Read This Thread]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/869321/posts

[sonsofliberty2000]

This post would not be complete without mention of one of the greatest threads:

How Many Freepers Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?

Patriot Paradox

[MeekOneGOP]

I would throw in THIS tip too ! Some folks post excerpts unnecessarily.
Only the WP and LAT sources require excerpts.

Outside of WP and LAT articles I would think that only EXCEPTIONALLY LONG articles need excerpting.

[Admin Moderator]

That's a classic, but so is this: Man Arrested For Hitting Girlfriend With Fish

[george wythe]

Thanks for posting this.

Even those of us who have been here for a while could benefit from reading it.

[MeekOneGOP]

My reference/orientation for Freeper Newbies ...

Here is a link. Go to post #116 first (link should take you right to that post), and look under "Pictures". That will give a walk-thru for picture posting. That article gives a lot of very useful and helpful tips on HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which you need to post on FR. There are other related links and information there as well.

Click Here.

You might want to bookmark that article. Bookmarking puts an article on your FReeper Profile page for quick and easy referencing. See post #53 & 59 for bookmarking instructions.

If you have any questions or problems, feel free to send me a Freep mail or a note and we’ll work through it.

[sonsofliberty2000]

Very true. Any story with this sentence:

``The woman had left the store after the argument and was out in the parking lot when the male approached her and struck her with a large tuna,'' Robinson said.

has to be a bonafide classic.

Patriot Paradox

[Admin Moderator]

We do it periodically, it helps everyone. Please add any comments, suggestions or links. We've had a lot of new members join, and hopefully they will get some useful information from this as well.

[Nov3]

On the next Revision of the software perhaps there could be two fields in the title area. One to give the inventive freepers a change to show their ingenuity another for the proper title. It seems some are unwilling to use the real title.

[george wythe]

Outside of WP and LAT articles

That's not completely accurate.

The settlement includes the parent companies, not just WP and LAT.

If you look at the home page and click on the judgment documents, you will find over a hundred sources that must be excerpted.

Admin Moderator,
Please correct me if I misunderstood the Washington Post/LA Times settlement.

[chance33_98]

Can we rename General Interest "The Dead Zone"?