MFE - Mass FReeper Exodus - When a large group of FReepers opus and leave the Forum. There have been three MFE's in FReeper history.
The Night of the Long Knives - After the MFJ, tension between the GOP supporters and the Libertarians began to grow when some of the pubbie supporters led by Mojo, navigator, Don Morgan and Clintons a liar, decided that the Forum should be a tinfoil free, republican only news site and began to search out the libbies, led by One Who Knows and Daus, and flame them on every post. It ended up in a weeklong flame war into which a large number of Forum participants were pulled. People that had been cordial in discussion and debate were suddenly at each other’s throats as every perceived attack added insult to injury. It culminated in Jim removing the accounts of the libbies (Jim did this not to choose sides but to separate the combatants until things cooled down). One Who Knows wrote an exit article proclaiming all the deficiencies of the Forum titled "My Opus". This is where the phrase was coined. The libbies formed the first Forum spin off "Constitutional Restoration". Eventually, Jim restored their accounts and many came back, but not before a large amount of agonizing reappraisal on both sides.
DITHF - Main story noted above. A small group of patriotic military supporters, led by Clintons a liar, were duped into believing the aggrandized stories of a supposed Gulf War soldier, going so far as organizing fundraisers and sending gifts to wives and families. Other posters, knowledgeable in military matters, questioned the veracity of the claims and were immediately attacked by the pro DITHF crowd. They had their motives, patriotism and reputations openly and repeatedly attacked. The anti-DITHF group, led by sneaky pete, brought in a veteran investigator, prominent on the Tail Hook Scandal to check out and finally refute DITHF. Apologies were demanded but some of the pro DITFH refused, saying they were mislead and were only trying to show support for the military. The anti group then demanded that certain leaders of this scam be removed from FR. When that didn't happen, many people left FR and started what is believed to be the first virulent anti FReeper group. Some people believe that without the DITHF scam, antiFreeping may never have begun.
The May Massacre - Lucianne Goldberg was a beloved and frequent visitor to FR in late '98 and early '99. At one point, she became disenchanted with the wide-open discussion allowed here and decided to start her own tightly controlled discussion board. Around that time, a handful of FReepers who had been involved with FR, also became disenchanted over the anti republican bent of many posts. They began to collect eddresses from this site, navigators "The Alley" and from a mail list developed for the House Managers Dinner and Rally. When Lucianne launched her own site, it was accompanied by a smear campaign against the Forum, including an article in Salon in which Lucianne was quoted calling Jim a "mean shit" and navigator called the Forum "a stinking mackerel in the garbage can of the Internet". They used the mail list they had been generating from the Forum to repeatedly spam FReepers urging them to leave FR and go to Lucianne's new site. Many left, but many have returned. Ciao Palo and the FReeples!
LOL! Outstanding contributions, and should be kept as a part of the Lexicon of FR from now on. =)
I remember a lot of hard feelings over the DITHF fiasco. I didn't recall, though, exactly how his deception was discovered. Thanks for the additional details.