Talk:Free Republic

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Contents 1 Disputing Forums section, Format and Policy, as well as Controversial aspects 2 Founder's Statement 3 Is this a citeable source? 4 Official Stances 5 PROVOCATEURS 6 Robinson Democrat 7 Deleted 'Gathering of Eagles ' as OR 8 Model Article 9 Arbitration Committee decision 10 Tony Snow

[edit] Disputing Forums section, Format and Policy, as well as Controversial aspects

I have edited this artice 4 or 5 times in the last 2 days to reflect the new registration policy at Free Republic, and each time, within moments, the changes have been deleted.

In the "Forums" section, under "Format and Policy" it should read "Free Republic forums are open to moderator approved registered users for discussion about political events, some conservative principles and the elimination of some government corruption and abuse. Free Republic has an official policy which requires the removal of blatantly violent, racist, or bigoted postings.

Users now must have their first comment or article approved by a moderator before they are allowed to contribute to the forum. If their first comment is critical of the Bush Administration or the Iraq war, their comment is not approved and their account is banned. This also means that only some conservative principles and some government corruption and abuse are open to discussion.

In the Controversial Aspects section, the last sentence, "Free Republic's registration process has since been altered and now new registrants are subjected to having their first post(s) moderated before being allowed full posting privileges", should also make note of the fact that if a new user's first post is critical of the Bush Administration or the Iraq War, the comment will not be approved and the new user account will be banned.

I posted supporting link to another forum where this practice was being discussed by several users. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Critter183 (talk • contribs) 16:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

The content you are trying to add is not sourced. Do you have a citation for the information? You can't put a disputed tag on the article if you are discussing uncited/OR material. Blogs are not WP:RS --PTR 17:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Shall I go register a new account and submit a post critical of the Iraq war, taking screen shots at every step, and then a screen shot of the banned account afterward? Will that be sufficient sourcing? Critter183 17:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately that would be WP:OR. You need to cite using the guidelines in WP:RS and WP:V for your content to not be reverted. The main reason it's being reverted is unsourced criticism is routinely removed. --PTR 17:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your informative response, and I can see the need for having to cite reliable sources, but this article contains misleading information. The citation for the misleading information is misleading itself. It is not from a reliable source, it is from Free Republic itself, a biased source. It does not reflect the true nature of the registration process. Registered users have to be approved and their first posts checked by moderators before they can be approved. If the comments do not adhere to the unstated policy of not being critical of Bush or the war, the comments are not posted and the account is banned. That one has to censor his remarks to get past the moderators should be a very prominent fact in this article.Critter183 20:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If you find this new moderation policy detailed on FR itself (hopefully by JimRob), you should be able to include it. Note that this article uses FR as a source for several things, such as '200,000 registered users' - FREE FaAfA ! (yap)

FAAFA is right. If it's listed as their policy it can be included. If it is written up in an article meeting WP:RS and WP:V it also can be included. If it is common knowledge or personal experience, it can't be included since that would be be WP:OR. --PTR 15:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Founder's Statement

The paragraph inserted is only a part of the founder's statement. I think the whole thing is too long to be inserted but shouldn't there be a mention that it "reads in part..." --PTR 16:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree. This has bothered me. It's an edited down "founder's [owner's]statement" at best. I would be inclined to include the whole statement in context, or delete it entirely. Would Tony Soprano's statement regarding the goals of Barone Sanitation be useful in an encyclopedia article on the activities and importance of the company?

It certainly would not be admissible to prove anything in court.Eschoir 21:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

More thoughts: what differentiates this "founders statement" from any of a thousand other statements, including the Bush is a cokehead felon statement? It went through no ratification process - it's just a post, ad libbed.Eschoir 21:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a citeable source?

I found a pretty good example of the type of censorship that currently exists on Freerepublic, and which I feel should be included in this article.

http://www.rationalreview.com/content/24090

Would that be a citeable source? You'll see that the author's post on FR was removed and his account banned for a roundabout criticism of the Bush administration.

Also I have been privately threatened with being banned from wikipedia for "vandalism" if I persist in trying to see the truth about Freerepublic included in this article. I don't think the threat is from wikipedia, but from a user.

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did to Free Republic, you will be blocked from editing. Justin88 16:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Critter183 12:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Critter. Blogs are not usually considered WP:RS. This is the paragraph in regard to using blogs:

Personal websites, blogs, and other self-published or vanity publications should not be used as secondary sources. That is, they should not be used as sources of information about a person or topic other than the owner of the website, or author of the book. The reason personal websites are not used as secondary sources is that they are usually created by unknown individuals who have no one checking their work. They may be uninformed, misled, pushing an agenda, sloppy, relying on rumor and suspicion, or even insane; or they may be intelligent, careful people sharing their knowledge with the world. Only with independent verification by other sources not holding the same POV is it possible to determine the difference.

If you want to discuss this with someone, you might want to check with an admin listed as an editor on WP:RS like jossi, Blueboar, Crum375 or SlimVirgin. Look in the history of the edits on WP:RS. --PTR 18:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I thinkn justin is BFP Eschoir 21:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Official Stances

What makes them official? This site is wholly owned by one guy. There is no legislature. This is a snapshot of the current fashion of his thought. Formerly he was anti-Bush and pro-Keyes and pro-legalization (proposed settling the LAT v FR litigation by assembling the litigants around a pot pipe and toking). Get rid of the Official Stances unlesss their officialness can be sourced. Eschoir 21:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PROVOCATEURS

Here is the whole quote excerpted by ? about provocateurs:

Some of the articles posted on the site came from racist or antisemitic web sites. Conspiracy theorists also made use of Free Republic. Leftists began to infiltrate the site, posting articles or posing as conservatives to act as agents provocateurs. "Vanity posts" became more frequent, and flame wars among members became more intense, as the site split into factions during the 2000 presidential election. Overall, civility degenerated. Some members became concerned that Free Republic had become a virtual hangout for kooks. Matters came to a head in early 2000 when Robinson (or "JimRob") speculated on George W. Bush’s connection to the airport in Mena, Arkansas where drug and gun-running allegedly took place during the 1980’s. Matt Drudge then dropped Free Republic’s link from the Drudge Report, and Goldberg took 2.000 members with her to start her own Lucianne.com.

Robinson decided to clean up his website and, like any good sheriff, deputized a posse of site moderators to remove offensive posts, threads, and articles and to ban those who posted them. But they did not stop there. Soon, they had banned the posting of any articles from certain websites that they deemed taboo, such as VDare.com ("too divisive"), LewRockwell.com, DixieNet.org (the League of the South’s website) , and the Free State Project’s website (www.FreeStateProject.org)

It would be easy to conclude that Robinson and his monitors simply went overboard in an effort to clean up the excesses of Free Republic, but there is more to it than that.

Because of its significant growth, Free Republic costs $240,000 annually to maintain. As a non-profit, Free Republic depends on donors, large and small, for its survival. No doubt the embarrassment of being dropped from the Drudge Report and Goldberg’s public break with the site concerned Robinson, and lie feared that funds might dry up if his site were perceived to he on the fringe. In addition, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times sued Free Republic for copyright infringement. The case was settled out of court. It was only natural for Robinson and his site administrators to want to look good for prospective donors.

With so many posters banned, the diversity of thought on Free Republic has been reduced to the musings of neoconservatives, Zionists, Republicans who act is if Free Republic were an annex of GOP headquarters, those who consider George W. Bush a demigod and offer daily prayers to him, and other sycophants and cheerleaders, Robinson has made it clear where he stands: "I see that the only Party capable of blocking arid defeating the evil Democrats is the Republican Party. I see that many races are so close hat as little as a one percent siphon of conservative votes to a third party could be the difference between success and failure. I see allowing a Democrat to remain in power when it could have been prevented as a triumph of evil."

Since the link to Chronicles doesn't get to the article cited, only a FR thread, Chronicles doesn't archive the article, and since the quote is misleading, I propose two solutions: 1) eliminate the quote OR 2) include the bolded text in the article along with the original quote.

I will so edit after a one week waiting period for editorial comment. I will then edit the "official stances" and "founders statement" as well.Eschoir 23:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Mooted already. Eschoir 23:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robinson Democrat

Prodego, is there a sourcing problem on the Democratic affiliation of Mr. Robinson? It is an admission, against interest, and I would think it admissible. What's the problem? Eschoir 02:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that you shouldn't cite Free Republic about itself in all but the most simple cases. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources, we should only publish what has already been published. If you can find a reputable third party cite about that, feel free to included it. It may not be entirely relevant, since it isn't about FR directly, but it should be close enough. Prodego ^talk 02:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand. That being the policy (and I support it), then Founder's Statement and Official Stances have to go. Besides being of dubious relevance, they are citations to the subject of the article about itself.

Do you agree? Eschoir 03:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No. Founders statements and published policies are simple cases relevant to the article about free Republic. Robinson's one-off statement that, as you said is "against interest" and therefore not as readily obvious as being simple, is more complicated and would require a better source. It's a form of Original Research. --Tbeatty 03:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Not simple to me. The Founders Statement is somebody's 91 word excerpt of a 568 word diatribe, first of all. Here is the original post verbatim:

"I posted the following statement to our front page in response to the criticism I'm receiving lately as to not being fair and balanced and perceived mistreatment of trolls and assorted malcontents. Got news for all, I'm NOT fair and balanced. I'm biased toward God, country, family, liberty and freedom and against liberalism, socialism, anarchism, wackoism, global balonyism and any other form of tyranny. Hope this helps.

"Statement by the founder of Free Republic:

"In our continuing fight for freedom, for America and our constitution and against totalitarianism, socialism, tyranny, terrorism, etc., Free Republic stands firmly on the side of right, i.e., the conservative side. Believing that the best defense is a strong offense, we (myself and those whom I'm trying to attract to FR) support the strategy of taking the fight to the enemy as opposed to allowing the enemy the luxury of conducting their attacks on us at home on their terms and on their schedule.

"Therefore, we wholeheartedly support the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes on known terrorist states and organizations that are believed to present a clear threat to our freedom or national security. We support our military, our troops and our Commander-in-Chief and we oppose turning control of our government back over to the liberals and socialists who favor appeasement, weakness, and subserviency. We do not believe in surrendering to the terrorists as France, Germany, Russia and Spain have done and as Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton and the Democrats, et al, are proposing.

"As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, pro-gun, pro-limited government, pro-private property rights, pro-limited taxes, pro-capitalism, pro-national defense, pro-freedom, and-pro America. We oppose all forms of liberalism, socialism, fascism, pacifism, totalitarianism, anarchism, government enforced atheism, abortionism, feminism, homosexualism, racism, wacko environmentalism, judicial activism, etc. We also oppose the United Nations or any other world government body that may attempt to impose its will or rule over our sovereign nation and sovereign people. We believe in defending our borders, our constitution and our national sovereignty.

"Free Republic is private property. It is not a government project, nor is it funded by government or taxpayer money. We are not a publicly owned entity nor are we an IRS tax-free non-profit organization. We pay all applicable taxes on our income. We are not connected to or funded by any political party, news agency, or any other entity. We sell no merchandise, product or service, and we offer no subscriptions or paid memberships. We accept no paid advertising or promotions. We are funded solely by donations (non tax deductible gifts) from our readers and participants.

"We aggressively defend our God-given and first amendment guaranteed rights to free speech, free press, free religion, and freedom of association, as well as our constitutional right to control the use and content of our own personal private property. Despite the wailing of the liberal trolls and other doom & gloom naysayers, we feel no compelling need to allow them a platform to promote their repugnant and obnoxious propaganda from our forum. Free Republic is not a liberal debating society. We are conservative activists dedicated to defending our rights, defending our constitution, defending our republic and defending our traditional American way of life.

"Our God-given liberty and freedoms are not negotiable.

"May God bless and protect our men and women in uniform fighting for our freedom and may God continue to bless America.

"Jim Robinson"

Is it simple to call the 91 word excerpt "The Founder's Statement"?

The Official stances are additional edit jobs. A link to the home page would be more than adequate in-kind contribution to the site's publicity.

And what is Free Republic calls itself "the premier on-line gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web." According to Free Republic, as of January 2007, over 200,000 users have registered doing there? Free Republic as I understand the Wiki ethos is not to be the source of information about its own article. Eschoir 02:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that Billy H put the wikilinks back in the founder's statement. Someone else had deleted them asserting that quote material should never include Wikilinks. Is that correct or not? Why do people like to wikilink things like 'striper lakes' (which is about fishing!) that are never likely to be linked? Is that proper? Thanks - FaAfA yap 06:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted 'Gathering of Eagles ' as OR

Today's FaAfA factoid....

'Aloha' means hello AND goodbye!

I deleted the Gathering of Eagles subsection as unsourced OR. Neither source even mentioned Free Republic and the link to the site itself is dead. Wasn't that event spearheaded and orchestrated by Move America Forward or Right March, not FR, anyway?

Aloha - FaAfA yap 21:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Take care, and I guess we'll see you next year. - Merzbow 21:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Aloha! --BenBurch 01:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Model Article

I looked at the McDonalds article as a model for wiki objectivity on commercial operations. I propose its neutrality at least at the top of the article would be something to emulate here. There are no "founders statements" or other self-serving fluff in that article. Just facts.

Need I remind you Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information? Eschoir 01:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee decision

The Arbitration Committee has rendered a decision affecting this article. As noted above, this article has been placed on article probation. It is expected that the article will be improved to conform with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, that information contained in it will be supported by verifiable information from reliable sources. The article may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user. Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review. The complete decision can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic. This notice is given by a clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 21:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tony Snow

the paragraph on Snow doesn't appear to be supported by the footnotes. This is all I get from the two footnotes.

White House Press Secretary and former Fox News commentator Tony Snow was a poster on the forum in 2000.[13] [14]

Eschoir 23:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

And THAT's not even true. He e-mailed a poster in 2000, according to this http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39bbe0eb64b6.htm Eschoir 02:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)