Free Republic still has one of the best forum designs, in my opinion. It's simple and easy to read, unlike the Reddit design, which theDonald copied, in which the top post gets most of the replies and goes quickly off the rail on some irrelevant tangent.
The other thing FR does better is that threads are ranked according to actual popularity, rather than being lucky enough to get stickied by a mod.
That said, the mods at FR are biased against sources they don't like. I quit ten years ago, when my Alex Jones links kept getting deleted.
A few things have killed FR IMHO, the cantankerous ignorant old fart crowd that is always bitching about 'blog pimping' coupled with the psychopathic moderation of the 'breaking news' forum have made FR less informative than it once was. There was a time when news was on FR practically before it was posted anywhere else. You could get by with it being your only news source and be completely informed. Unfortunately, that isn't true anymore.
The FR software is great, but John refuses to add any features to the site. They took away polls when they didn't like who was winning them and they refuse to put in any kind of like or upvote system. Taking away polls did enormous damage to the site. It used to be, back 10-12 years ago, you could tell when someone was targeting the site with propaganda. Like you'd see a whole bunch of people wanting Mitt Romney in 2008, yet he would consistently only get 5% in all the polls. When you take the polls away, you take away the ability to make the distinction between reality and propaganda. Though now the site has dwindled so much in traffic that I doubt anyone cares to propagandize those of us who still use it...lol
There was a time when news was on FR practically before it was posted anywhere else. You could get by with it being your only news source and be completely informed
You're absolutely right. When something happened, I'd go to FR and there were already several threads going. It was the place for breaking news coverage. I miss that.
I wish that were true. If it were, Free Republic would still be prominent.
Free Republic still has one of the best forum designs, in my opinion. It's simple and easy to read, unlike the Reddit design, which theDonald copied, in which the top post gets most of the replies and goes quickly off the rail on some irrelevant tangent.
The other thing FR does better is that threads are ranked according to actual popularity, rather than being lucky enough to get stickied by a mod. That said, the mods at FR are biased against sources they don't like. I quit ten years ago, when my Alex Jones links kept getting deleted.
A few things have killed FR IMHO, the cantankerous ignorant old fart crowd that is always bitching about 'blog pimping' coupled with the psychopathic moderation of the 'breaking news' forum have made FR less informative than it once was. There was a time when news was on FR practically before it was posted anywhere else. You could get by with it being your only news source and be completely informed. Unfortunately, that isn't true anymore.
The FR software is great, but John refuses to add any features to the site. They took away polls when they didn't like who was winning them and they refuse to put in any kind of like or upvote system. Taking away polls did enormous damage to the site. It used to be, back 10-12 years ago, you could tell when someone was targeting the site with propaganda. Like you'd see a whole bunch of people wanting Mitt Romney in 2008, yet he would consistently only get 5% in all the polls. When you take the polls away, you take away the ability to make the distinction between reality and propaganda. Though now the site has dwindled so much in traffic that I doubt anyone cares to propagandize those of us who still use it...lol
You're absolutely right. When something happened, I'd go to FR and there were already several threads going. It was the place for breaking news coverage. I miss that.