You need to click "Abstimmen" (or How to freep a SPIEGEL poll)

[Vernunft II]

Funny article about Freerepublic.com and their (failed) attempts to freep polls here.

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,289615,00.html

[La_Serpiente]

1. Are US Politics covered heavily in Germany?

[Vernunft II]

4. Yes, they are. There´s hardly a day without something.

You can safely assume that the average german knows more about the dem candidates than the average american. US politics always have a huge impact on the rest of the World so we like to stay informed of what´s going on.

[DRoseDARs]

2. How about a translated version for non-German speakers...like this one.

http://www.systranbox.com/systran/box?systran_lp=de_en&systran_id=SystranSoft-en&systran_url=http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,289615,00.html&systran_f=1078820937

Edit: Hmmm...seems only the top portion translated. :argh:

[pnorman]

3. There was a similar discussion on another thread about translations.

For reason's yet undetermined by me, right-clicking on a webpage gives me a "translate into English" option. I'm still not sure if even KLUNKY translations violate DU guidlines on copyrighted material, so here's just an excerpt:

>
>
"Freep this polling!"

The mass however comes over Free Republic. The Website professes itself long openly to it, with enthusiasm "freepen". An inquiry with keyword "Freep" over the suchmaske of the side reveals, how much honorary enthusiasm is able to set Free free Republic: In the morning 8 March communicates Free Republic the cause list of John Kerry and calls Freeper to appear with a digital camera locally in order to make "more realistic" pictures from the appearance to.

Also called to actions against other "Democrats", above all however again and again for the manipulation of ONLINE co-ordinations: "Freep this polling!".

The goals of the calls: Tunings to the gay marriage (56 per cent against it). Also tunings to the question whether the "9/11"-Wahlwerbungen von George Bush is tasteless or not, brings clear results: times there is 78 per cent, which cannot find that at all, times 85 per cent - even with CNN there is still 72.

Normally mass protects against Vote manipulations. The large web pages protect their tunings with Cookies, which are to make a repeated selecting at least toilsome: Between two tunings each mark the Cookies must be deleted. Otherwise only the number of the readers for the reliability of a Votes, that take part in it, stands. An imperfect protection, but with Votes, in which several thousand humans participate, becomes the manipulation at least the agony.

Freeper: On the way to the Mainstream?

The Freeper however shows that they can oppose "more normally" web page visitors at any time to the mass their own mass: From MIRROR ON-line ONE over CNN and "Times", various fernsehstationen up to MSN Australia and naturally innumerable smaller newspapers does not get anybody in the Web more an honest Vote, if the Freeper on the way is.



"Free Republic": Disturb, manipulate, demonstrate for the right thing
Those manipulate even most trivial tunings: In the last week it was important them to be documented the influence of their country by the fact that they the tuning of of a South African Website over it, whether former president had voluntarily left Jean Bertrand Aristide Haiti, going by manipulated that 68 per cent with one times the opinion was, the USA would have out-pushed it.

In a tuning over the greenhouse effect meant 86.5 per cent, exist or is not completely natural either at all. On 2 March Free Republic called in addition, a tuning at primary schools in the State of New York "freepen", because up to this time the majority of the basic pupils showed "democratic" choice tendencies.

Only to the large American newspapers Free Republic does not dare any longer near: 1998 had already brought the "Los Angeles Times" and the "Washington post office" Free Republic because of copyright injuries before court. Only in June 2002 it succeeded to "Freep" operator Jim Robinson to achieve an agreement out of court which come down to a waiver: In the future may be quoted on his web page neither from the plaintiff newspapers nor out with them connected media.

That did not harm the "Freep Movement", which inserted a longer popularity break after the failure of the impeachment proceedings against Clinton,: At the latest since catastrophic 11 September and the radicalization in the political discourse of the USA, introduced thereby, "Freep" is stronger than ever before. The movement looks for ways in the Mainstream: Since the Gulf War "Freeps" engage themselves also as completely normal demonstrators for the good thing - for Bush and for the war. With John Armor, announced Free Republic on 2 September 2003, tries now "one OF our very own" into congress of US to be selected for the first time. Armor would make its forum forums-Nomen the Omen: So far it appeared there only as "Congressman BillyBob".

HAVE FUN!

pnorman
STAND UP, KEEP FIGHTING http://shows.implex.tv/wellstone

[gandalf]

5. Why don't the poll-sites make an IP-check

that would inhibit to vote several times within a short time span?

[ze_dscherman]

7. No use with freeping

This is explained in the article. Big sites use cookies to protect themselves, but thats of no use with the freepers "lemming approach". They spread news about sites to freep via forums and blogs, and lot's of them follow the calls.

Yes, they are obviously good at this!

[gandalf]

8. But

I assume that even though there are more freepers than optimal, most of them vote several times. They can erase their cookies, but if an IP check were made, they could not vote several times from their office (assuming their company has only one IP address that is visible), and the people using a dial-up connection must dial-up for each vote in order to generate a new IP address. That would be much harder than simply to erase the cookie.

[Lizz612]

9. Thats true

But my entire dorm has the same IP address. That would mean that only one of us could vote, not that that would change much as I'm the only one that would.... never mind.

[ze_dscherman]

10. Dynamic IP's as well

IIRC, most providers for dial-in internet access assign IP's dynamically, meaning you get a new one each time you get into the net. That's why law enforcement wants them to keep files on assigned IP's, otherwise it would not be possible to track down who used a certain internet service at a given time.

I don't know for how long a dynamic IP number is blocked from reuse after being assigned once, but obviously someone checking for this would need to know each providers policy on this.

[pnorman]

12. Somewhere I've got something I copied from DU

It was taken directly from the Freep page and mentioned Perl scripts that would defeat normal safeguards and let them cast multiple votes. I'll try to locate it later on.

pnorman
STAND UP, KEEP FIGHTING http://shows.implex.tv/wellstone

[ze_dscherman]

6. Link to a thread in "Editorials", with English translation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x38802

[Robb]

11. LOL!

Ich freepe, du freepst, er/sie/es freept... wir freepen? :D

[ze_dscherman]

13. Germlish

Flexing Germlish verbs is a PITA.

Although "aktualisieren" would be the right translation for "to update", the English word is very common in the context of software.

So it goes like this:
Ich update
Du updatest
Er/sie/es updated
Wir updaten
Ihr updated
Sie updaten

So far, so good (as a German would say).

But: Ich habe die Software upgedated / geupdated? Any way you flex it, it sounds really awkward.

Google finds 21.500 upgedated, but 69.800 geupdated.

[enki23]

14. ihr freept?

.