JimRob & John Robinson - GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER - or the Nut Roots will take down Free Republic

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

This is what the Nut Roots are doing to WGN-AM in Chicago:

Obama vs. WGN-AM
The station is coming under attack for offering airtime to controversial author.
by John McCormick and Steven Schmadeke | Tribune staff reporters
September 16, 2008
chicagotribune.com

Chicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author. It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.

Monday night's target was David Freddoso, who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.

Excerted

Obama mobilizes rapid response on Web
Campaign targets media when attacks aired By John McCormick | Chicago Tribune reporter
12:32 AM CDT, September 17, 2008
chicagotribune.com

Much of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network.

Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.

It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat.

chicagotribune.com

If you guys in the Robinson family don't get your act together, and get it together soon, then the Nut Roots are going to take down this site, and take it down hard, for the next two months.

You need to do several things to the Free Republic infrastructure and have them in place no later than about October 1; among them:

1) Mirror Free Republic to at least two other physical locations around the country - one on the east coast [Washington/NYC/Atlanta], and the other maybe more central [Texas has some large colo's with backbone connectivity].

Right now, I am seeing only two IP resolutions for "www.freerepublic.com" - 209.147.64.200 & 209.147.64.201 - and traceroutes have them [predictably] on the same physical network [I imagine that they are sitting right next to one another in the same server rack]:

[n - 2] mg-1.a01.mlpsca01.us.da.verio.net
[n - 1] 128.242.105.82
[n]     209.147.64.200

2) Turn off as much of the relational structure at Free Republic as is possible, and return to a strictly flat file structure for as much of the content at Free Republic as is possible.

The current relational structure is hopelessly broken, and the negotiations between the caching frontend and the relational backend are breaking down multiple times a day.

Again: THE RELATION STRUCTURE MUST BE DISCARDED - THIS IS IMPERATIVE.

[Furthermore, it is vastly easier to propagate a flat file structure to multiple physical sites around the country; trying to propagate a relational structure, in real time, with relatively limited funds for bandwidth, is essentially impossible.]

3) As things really heat up in October & November, I'd consider banning [temporarily] all non-political content, and instituting an aggressive policy of putting on probation the accounts of users who post lengthy, inane, unfocused, meandering, off-topic soliloquies - concentrating instead on promoting the work of people [like Kristinn] who are doing original investigative reporting and who are presenting their results in simple, straightforward, declarative arguments.

Along those lines, I'd move aggressively to upgrade the quality of the moderators who are policing the content at Free Republic - the quality of the moderation is utterly unpredictable from hour to hour - one hour there will seem to be a moderator who "gets it", and the next hour, it's as if that moderator's shift suddenly ended, and we have an utterly clueless moderator in charge of things.

I don't care if you're worried about hurting Granny's feelings if you tell her that she can't moderate for the next two months - we have to get some moderators in here who are up-to-date on current events and who understand the difference between original investigative reporting [regarding e.g. DEM/Obama treason & Bolshevik/Gramscian subterfuge] and the kinds of "Pray for my Kitty who is having feline leukemia chemotherapy tomorrow morning" threads which seem to waste so much CPU time & bandwidth at this site.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

This is no ordinary election. Anyone can see we are moving towards some kind of cold civil war. As the battle escalates, removing the voices of the ‘enemy’ from the public discourse will become an important priority (primarily for the left. Conservatives are not afraid of the nut roots' blather). If you think that talk radio and Free Republic are forever, think again. The enemy, if he wins, will spare nothing to shut down opposing voices, the Constitution be dammed.

[Billthedrill]

Might I gently suggest that a demand to "get your act together" is more than a little rude? Jim and John have been at this for a very long time and FR has already survived a number of organized DOS attacks of which I'm aware and probably more of which the Mods are aware.

Are you seriously suggesting that they re-architecture FR from MySQL to flat-file in the middle of heavy user demand and with a peak anticipated some six weeks hence? It may be that one needs a little more thought.

Me, I'm wishing them luck getting the new gear online in the meantime. And clicking on THIS LINK is always in order to help cover costs. And please, don't cop a 'tude with our gracious hosts. Thanks.

[oh8eleven]

I’d be in favor of banning all of the cat threads completely.

[Publius6961]

Is there an alternative ip for FR?

The short answer is essentially "No."
The emergency site on Yahoo is so hopelessly arcane as to be useless to most users of Free Republic. Ever try to navigate a straightforward thread on that site?

Few Freepers are computer wonks or spend their 24/7 lives on the various flavors of internet access. Most of us have a life, such as it is.

[netmilsmom]

And is everyone part of the Yahoo Group?

It’s the first place I go when I can’t get in. Someone updates there quickly.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freerepublic2/

And when all else fails, go to Free Dominion, our Canadian sister site. Most times they have already put the tea kettle on and brewed some coffee knowing how we are suffering without FR. Many FReepers are also on Free Dominion.

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/portal.php?sid=63ef597fd8878620705d9d9e6d7027dc

[Quix]

they have their act together already.

- -

INDEED.

Though I sometimes wonder if they are too protective of FREEPERS $$$-wise.

[Miss Didi]

I am not the only one having problems getting onto and posting on FR?

No...I, too, keep getting errors every time I click onto a thread or when I'm posting. And when posting, I have to copy the text because if I get an error and then hit "back," I get "page expired" and then it takes me forever to get back to where I was.

[Dacula]

You know, I don’t need a Freepathon to send money.

I am going to get a check out today

[Publius6961]

If you need more dough say so and get the money, make the upgrades. Many of us are already seeing FR crashing mulple times per day, or at least slowing down.

I couldn't agree more, and specifically I would support a separate "Mirror sites" fund; yes, with my checkbook.

Any suggestion that this thread be "Zotted" couldn't aid the enemy more...

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Are you seriously suggesting that they re-architecture FR from MySQL to flat-file in the middle of heavy user demand and with a peak anticipated some six weeks hence? It may be that one needs a little more thought.

Leave the old relational servers online, in READ-ONLY mode, to serve as an archive of the older threads.

Then bring online a new family of flat file servers to serve up content as quickly as possible for the next two months [or even longer than two months, if we get something like the 2000 Florida recount debacle].

But the relational crap has got to go, and the single point of failure in that one pipe, in the vicinity of 209.147.64.20*, has got to go - we need mirroring so that the Nut Roots can't shut down the pipe.

[Obadiah]

... Rooting out "sleepers" who may have signed up a year or two ago in anticipation of this election cycle...

Here, here. How about all the "new" people who apparently have signed up years ago who are now posting and come out only during national election time. Honestly, I don't know half these people who are suddenly appearing who have a sign up date of years ago.

New people, or casual posters are fine - and welcome - but I too question whether or not we have a whole boatload of sleeper trolls around here.

[Tanniker Smith]

sigh


more animals

[SoDak]

I agree. Now is as good a time as any to pony up a little cash.

[UCANSEE2]

“I have noticed recently a good bit of timeouts”

Just wait until the election gets closer. It’s really slow then.

---

” and double postings from timeouts lately,”

Double is nothing. I’ve seen three or four in a row.

---

” and suspect we’re getting DOS attacks right now.”

Have for a long time. From tons of sources. The lib hackers currently being in panic frenzy has a lot to do with it getting more intense. But, it’s not just FR.

The Libs may be dumb, but any box of pet rocks can see that you can make tons of money, and control people’s desires and emotional levels through the internet, supported by the already entrenched MSM.

Obama has a vast network of ‘paid’ network nuts, as well as a ‘groupie’ squad who get their ‘commands’ from Obama through psychic thought transference. (or Osmosis)

Besides, Mr. Robinson is pretty busy these days, and IIRC has a plan in effect to deal with the increasing load during the upcoming election.

Anyone who really wants to help, can just put their money where their screen is.

What strikes me is that they cannot confront us openly.

They must strike underhandedly, to win.

Tells me a lot.

[RedRover]

We must also keep the “my parrot called 911” threads.

[netmilsmom]

>>Within an hour, after many FReepers got on the beta site and the main site began to come back to life, the beta site was nearly as slow as the main site.<<

I didn’t find that at all. The Beta was snappy. I couldn’t get in on the main site ALL day.

And like I said, this is a back up. Just like the Yahoo group or Free Dominion. Not meant to be a solution.

[Publius6961]

I have noticed recently a good bit of timeouts and double postings from timeouts lately, and suspect we’re getting DOS attacks right now.
We’re be probed. Make no mistake

YA THINK??!!??

[A CA Guy]

So based on #3, no libertarians?

[Galleta]

LMAO!!

[savedbygrace]

Good to hear that it didn’t slow down for everybody. It definitely did for me, and at least one other FReeper that I heard from.