20 Top Political Forums of 2007 [DU #2, FR #9 - Oh Please]

Pollyticks ^ | 6/30/07 | Staff

[Sleeping Beauty]

What follows aren't complete reviews of these sites and everything each has to offer. These are only reviews of their community discussion forums. I tried to stick to sites running traditional forum software, like phpBB and vBulletin, as opposed to comment blogs, with a few exceptions here for notorious blogs like Daily Kos, Huffington Post and Free Republic. Here you'll find forums on the left, forums on the right, and forums in the middle.

Thanks to everyone who took time to build forums and recruit members. Your efforts have helped foster debate.

1. Whistle Stopper Political Forums
Membership: mixed

2. Democratic Underground
Membership: left

3. Bartcop Nation
Membership: left

4. Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Membership: left

5. The Huffington Post
Membership: left

6. Political Crossfire
Membership: mixed

7. Political Forum
Membership: mixed

8. Debate Politics Forums
Membership: mixed

9. Free Republic
Membership: right

Simple but effective blog layout with comments posted on daily news items. Militantly territorial community, impatient with strangers, particularly left-leaning ones, but very active community. The "Freepers" are notoriously aggressive in print. If you're not ultra-conservative and you're aching for a fight, you'll find one here. The site excels as a breaking news source as well. Just know that you'll catch hell from the locals if you aren't ultra-conservative or libertarian. You've been warned.

10. U.S. News - Political Hotwire
Membership: right

11. Politics Forum (.org)
Membership: mixed

12. U.S. Politics Online
Membership: mixed

13. George Bush Forums - Topix
Membership: mixed

14. Democracy Forums
Membership: left

15. Political Forum - It's All Politics
Membership: mixed

16. 4Forums
Membership: mixed

17. Revolutionary Left
Membership: left

18. NoPC Forums (Nation of Political Conservatives)
Membership: right

19. Defending the Truth
Membership: mixed

20. Liberals Only
Membership: left

[Tribune7]

Note they don’t mention Captains Quarters, LGF etc.

[Vision]

I have a hard time believing FR is not the number one political forum, and I do not believe the Daily Kos or Huffington Post are ahead.

[NormsRevenge]

The "Freepers" are notoriously aggressive in print. If you're not ultra-conservative and you're aching for a fight, you'll find one here. The site excels as a breaking news source as well. Just know that you'll catch hell from the locals if you aren't ultra-conservative or libertarian. You've been warned.

-- Huh?

They got the Breaking News right at least.

Practice Courtesy and Consistency (PC²)in supporting a conservative agenda and one will do just fine here. It's not the place for those who only seek to inflame and incite and oft times use every convenient issue to do so.

[Badeye]

(chuckle)

Whats fun is watching site operators whine about Alexis ratings being ‘inaccurate’ til it suddenly shows a one day ‘surge’ then Alexis is touted from the rooftops of the site that formerly laughed it off.....I heard about that recently in a forum of kooks, and I’m still laughing over it.

[gondramB]

Its the highest ranked conservative site.

[Vision]

If you're not ultra-conservative and you're aching for a fight, you'll find one here.

Somebody put that on the homepage.

[JerseyHighlander]

Adding sites that have less than 10,000 members to the list is a bit funny. Considering that FR has more than 3,000 new sign ups a month. If John Rob hasn’t changed the thread numbering schema again, FR is approaching 1.5 million threads. That’s right, more threads posted here than on the bottom 10 on that list combined.

Anyway, FR statistics are not easy to find, i.e., they are completely hidden for a few years now. Sure wish someone would give us all a glimpse into the real numbers here.

[N. Theknow]

Apparently politics on the internet is overwhelmingly Leftist. Who knew?

With that many Left-Moon-Wing-Bats, how come Howard Dean got trounced and Err America is drowned out by white noise?

[bnelson44]

Just know that you’ll catch hell from the locals if you aren’t ultra-conservative or libertarian. You’ve been warned. ...

As most people know, I am not ultra-conservative and definately not a liberatarian. I have found myself welcomed here.

[M1Tanker]

Looking at the site which did this ranking, it is no surprise that FR and any other conservative site got slammed. I am surprised that ANY conservative sites even made it. The fact that so many (more than zero) made it to the list is impressive since.

The list writer also forgot the huge following of milblogs (ala tankerbrothers.com, asoldiersmind.com, blackfive, and many others). But then, the left TRULY does not want to hear from those sites!

Obviously, Internet traffic was not a discriminator, nor was the logic of the posts. FR beats DU hands down every time (even with the people we have trolling the putrid waters at DU).

[CougarGA7]

Taking the top 4 on the list the only one that has more traffic than the Freep is daily kos. Bartcop and whistle blowers is lost in the noise down at the bottom of the screen.

[subterfuge]

“If you’re not ultra-conservative and you’re aching for a fight, you’ll find one here.”

Yes. Along with those pesky facts, logic and truth. You absolutely will not find that on most of those other sites.

[OneLoyalAmerican]

BRAVO SIERRA alert!

Blue=Freerepublic.com Bolshevik Red=Dummieland

[JerseyHighlander]

http://www.freerepublic.com/usage/awstats/

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/weekday-report?r=s

[trisham]

The reviewer forgot to mention the liberal use of the F-word and other ugly words over at that site....and the hateful attack mongers and tin-foil hat wearing activists over who live there. Odds are the Reviewer is a duh-er.

***************

You're probably right.

[airborne]

Looking at the link, it appears to be a left leaning site itself.

[mmichaels1970]

YOU SHUT UP!

just kidding ;)

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Blue=Freerepublic Urine yellow=Huffies Bolshevik red=DUmmies

[wagglebee]

Alexa Ranking:

FreeRepublic: 5679
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=freerepublic.com

DemocraticUnderground.com: 14536
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=democraticunderground.com

[MovieMogul]

Whats fun is watching site operators whine about Alexis ratings being ‘inaccurate’ til it suddenly shows a one day ‘surge’ then Alexis is touted from the rooftops of the site that formerly laughed it off.....I heard about that recently in a forum of kooks, and I’m still laughing over it.

Eh, it's that way for a lot of things. TV show execs will dismiss Nielsen ratings as being "antiquated" or "inaccurate" unless the same Nielsen ratings show them in the top-10 or -20.

I've been active on the "Studio 60" boards on IMDb all season. The same people who touted the Nielsen ratings the first week of the season (when the ratings were pretty good) are the same exact people dismissing the ratings for the last few episodes (which were pretty dismal.)

It's just human nature to be that way. It's a bit hypocritical, I grant you, but site operators aren't the only ones that do it. It happens in the "real" world, too.