Your Attention Please [Breaking News and WoD Flamewars]

[Admin Moderator]

Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.

Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible.

We are in one of the not-very time periods.

Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it is

1. Something the networks would interrupt their programming to say,
2. The networks would interrupt their programming to say if they weren't overwhelmingly liberal,
3. Something that honestly would (not should, would) be of interest to majority of self-described conservatives
4. Official chapter announcements

Or things along those lines. Don't consider that a list of rules, but of guidelines. But act as if the guidelines matter, please. And flame the heck out of people that don't. And provide appropriate feedback to people who don't.

Some things that are never breaking news: Stories that have been posted before, stories that are over a day old, opinion vanities, freep this poll, or anything from the op-ed section of any newspaper.

Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):

1. Post a copy of the article to the Smokey Backroom
2. Ping your flamee to that copy.
3. Go to town over there and keep the crap off the main forum.

Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it. The WoD flamewars overwhelm the latest posts page with a neverending sequence of posts that are just mindless insults. Please, spare us, and don't try to put it on the moderators to determine who fired the first shot. There are rarely clean hands here, and no matter what we do one side or another is going to complain.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Freeping. I expect no fewer than 500 taunts at us in the keywords here before this is over. Thank you, and God Bless. ;-)

[Eagle Eye]

He he he. The AdMod does watch over us all.

Do you know the bit he does "If they mated..."?

A JBT stoned out of his mind or Darryl Strawberry with a Bad Attitude?

[Admin Moderator]

Somehow, I don't think that you quite grasped what is being asked of you by this thread. Either that or your answer was no.

[Eagle Eye]

Flames? Those were the nicest things I could say.

[CWOJackson]

I hope I just called you a drugged out old hippie in the smokey backroom. Kind of cumbersome but I think it worked. I guess I'll know as soon as you ban me.

A little extra work for being uncivil but it's worth it.

[FreedomPoster]

>>So, if I'm watching Fox News, and they interrupt with a breaking news alert that there is a car chaase in East Podunk, I can put it in breaking news? Cool!

That was my exact thought when I read that line. The Mods should have made an exception for FNC "breaking news", which seems occur whenever someone breaks wind (I like FNC, I just don't like this aspect of their operation).

[jmc813]

WOD Ping. Please respect the wishes of the moderators. All of us (pro and anti-WOD) are lucky to have such a great forum to debate on. Thanks again, Jim.

[toothless]

That was my exact thought when I read that line. The Mods should have made an exception for FNC "breaking news", which seems occur whenever someone breaks wind (I like FNC, I just don't like this aspect of their operation).

I just ate some beans, there should be some 'breaking news' in a couple hours.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Sorry, I learned my lesson on debating rationally here - for a lot of folks, it's more about sticking it to the other guy and winning technical points than than about the issues at hand.

I'm sorry to hear that. The influx of rational debate would be beneficial to everyone.

[jmc813]

Can I also make one more request? One of my biggest FR pet peeves is when people list every single state in their threads topic list. When I look at a list for New Jersey threads, I don't want to wade through threads about something going on in California.

[MrLeRoy]

Please respect the wishes of the moderators.

Statist!

[jmc813]

Where in Podunk is the car chaase? Does it involve hostages? Will some hysterical FReeper post a "FREEP THIS POLL" concerning the chaase?

Believe me, you've GOTTA SEE IT!!!

[MrLeRoy]

I just ate some beans, there should be some 'breaking news' in a couple hours.

Don't light a match or there'll be flaming.

[CounterCounterCulture]

So are you an authoritarian Statist who desires to rule with an iron fist and shred the Constitution or a Soros worshipping, libertine doper/pedophile/hippy pornmonger?

That about sums it up the WoD threads.

Actually, they both sound so cool, wonder if I can be both?

[Hemingway's Ghost]

"Talking behind peoples' backs"? What is this, grade 3?

You never answered my question, so I figured your lack of response was all the answer I needed. It made sense to me and several others. Care to address it now?

Tootsy? That's about what I've come to expect from you. What a proud, shining moment for you.

[Eagle Eye]

That about sums it up the WoD threads.

Maybe that should be a new poll in the margin on the New Posts page.

WoD threads are how my fingers get exercise, we can't lose those.

[CWOJackson]

Naw, the proud shining moment for me came while I was drinking my morning coffee and reading the paper. Sure enough, dope is still illegal.

[bvw]

To a Roosevelt Democrat or a Nixonian Republican -- which pretty much represent the interpretation of the Constitution since the 1930's -- you are obviously correct. The "enumerated powers, limited government" aspects of the Constitution are by those groups, ignored, irrelevant. To those groups, the Federal Government has any power as long as some reason can be had for it.

However, as your very short, squid, bow-shot of a attempt before showed -- Courts that operated closer to the Founder's intent, to the very words of that charter, would never have sustained such unlimited and uncharted excercise of power, excepting only the greatest of dangers to the nation -- example being the suspension of habeus corpus in the Civil War.

[Willie Green]

I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.

Since we're in this cycle once again, it seems an appropriate time to renew my humble request that more countries and/or geographic regions be provided on the "Topics List". We have all the states and some foreign nations, but there are many others that could be added due to the frequency of news items posted. We don't necessarily need Lithuania or Estonia on the list, but there are plenty of other hotspots that are noticeably absent. Thank-you.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Dull response and still no answer.

[jayef]

Sure enough, the War on Drugs is still an utter failure.