"I swear on all that anti-freeping stands for - the next time, FR will go 404 - I promise!"
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
"I swear on all that anti-freeping stands for - the next time, FR will go 404 - I promise!"
Please define this statement. Thanks.
When I challenged you about 3 weeks ago, I fully expected to be banned. Thankfully, I was not and that expression of mercy was most appreciated.
Sir, I fully respect your right to run this website in any way that you wish. That has never been in question, and you have performed a difficult job extreamly well over the years.
If I get upset because some people have been banned, it is because Freepers have become family to me. And to loose a dear family member that I have learned to love and respect, it is not something that I accept lightly.
So JimRob, please excuse me for challenging you a few weeks ago. It was only done because Freepers are a diverse group and each of the opinions are important to me. By listening to all sides of an argument, I can make my choice out of knowledge.
And then when I tell Jim about it, he is so intent on keeping my identity a secret he acts as if he has no clue of what I am talking about.
That was sure a close call. Could have easily looked like this
Now I have no idea how many 'abuse' reports get generated on a daily basis, so I apologise in advance if this suggestion is just not feasible..
.. but if the intent is to 'observe' the moderators, then wouldn't it be a good idea for the observers to have access to abuse reports that did not result in post-deletions/bannings/etc? IMO, that would give them a better idea of how fairly (or not) the moderators are applying their judgement to various situations.
Just a thought.
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