Does FR freep their membership?

[Old and In the Way]

I've seen the growth of FR over the years, but suspected that there was a lot of bogus memberships....the same posters seem to show up on all the threads. Compared with DU (at less than 1/2 of the stated membership), their initial thread posting seems positively static.

Anyway, here's a link to a board where someone has taken the time to analyze FR stats. Seems that a lot of posters actually post a day before their registration date becomes active. Lots of poster either sign up and don't post or their accounts aren't listed. Hmmmmm

http://www.clownposse.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5065


very interesting.....much conjecture that the RNC is pulling the strings, apparently Jimrob has been purging immigration hardliners that criticize Bush's policy.

[benburch]

1. The Clown Posse folks seem to have caught on to the scam early on.

Free Republic raise what I think of as a totally unreasonable amount of money for what little they offer their users. I know Skinner has defended them, but compared to the level of service and continual improvement that DU has been blessed with, Free Republic is a total rip-off.

[benburch]

4. Here is a thread on their fundraising from a while back...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4948334

title: Free Republic says it needs $72,000 this quarter to operate. Sniff Test!!

Lets see if this makes any sense?

Some numbers;

I can get 2000 GB Bandwidth (That is 2 TB) on a 100 MBit line to a major backbone hub, served by Debian or Redhat or (yuck) Windows with two 80 GB drives, Dual-core Athlon 2600 processors and 2 GB of Ram for $300 per month.

He dumps (estimated) 98% text out of that site. Most graphics are hosted elsewhere by users.

Assume he has 20,000 users a day, each reading a LOT of text, say 100KB, that is just over 2GB Bandwidth a day, or 60 GB Bandwidth per month.

If he had 200,000 users per day, each reading 100KB of text, that is 20 GB Bandwidth per day, 600 GB Bandwidth per month.

If he had 600,000 users per day, each reading 100KB of text, that is 60 GB Bandwidth per day, 1800 GB Bandwidth per month.

And even at that extreme he would not need more than the $300 server solution I outlined elsewhere.

Now, about how many visits does he get per day?

Alexa puts his "reach" at 600 per million internet users. A good source puts the total number of internet users worldwide at 600 million.

So that means he gets 360,000 hits per day, well within the limits above.

Now how many unique users does he get?

Alexa puts unique FR users per million at about 62 (reading off the graph) so that means he gets a total of 37200 unique users per day.

All in all, my $300 solution covers this nicely!

And he dares tell his sheep that he needs $72,000 a quarter???

[DBoon]

2. interesting quote

quote:
The membership statistics of FR are inflated to inflate the apparent importance of FR. All stats but signups were discontinued as membership doubled, tripled, quadrupled -- and the other stats stagnated, reflecting little increase in quantitative posting activity.

[benburch]

3. Maybe they needed to justfy gettng money from the GOP...

and GOP related think tanks and benefactors?

I've often wondered if they are not being slid money under the table. Republicans, after all, don't like paying taxes.

[MADem]

5. Well, if you judge by their little rallies, the organization consists of

twenty fatsos and forty portapotties....

[benburch]

7. And some women...

who are the antidote to Viagra.

[Breeze54]

8. LMFAO!!

What?? No showers???
:rofl:

How can anybody even go there and bother to look??
:puke:

[benburch]

9. They seem to be allergic to soap and water.

Really it is disgusting.

And nicotine-stained teeth and fingers. EWW.

[Old and In the Way]

11. I thought that was illuminating too.

I think they needed to stop publishing the real board activity because it wouldn't support the membership statistics. I think the reality is that as the membership grows, less real participation is happening.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. RNC has paid posters. Over on Salon there are people who post 24/7.

That means there are at least 2 people posting under the same ID. I call these the Committees. And then there will be a poster who only does certain topics, like managed care related issues, and she will pretend to be an ordinary housewife but she will display a surprising knowledge of how reimbursement structures are set up--so you know she works for an HMO. I think of these as the PR posters. They usually lack passion.

Some people's job is to disrupt threads only when a certain topic gets mentioned. They move in, bring up lots of extraneous bullcrap, and when it is derailed they leave.

Of course, there it is easier to track disruption since you have a living record, so you can scroll back and uncover some ones mo. Here disruption is more likely to be lots and lots of crazy threads that get tossed.


BTW: there is a hard core conservative contingent over in Social Issues in Salon. I never go to the Free Republic so I do not know if they are identical. Does anyone have an opinion? It is fun to go over there and argue with them sometimes.

[Old and In the Way]

10. I see the same trend, too.

Every liberal site seems to have it's own designated Bushbot. A good example is ThinkProgress. They have 3 or 4 idiots that post there regularly. I think the RNC makes a conscious effort to have their paid posters cover all the major outlets.

[DBoon]

13. I bet they do this on Slashdot too.

and othe boards.

I have noticed on Slashdot when a topic that is vaguely political is posted, all the posts within the first hour or two are solid talking points. This is particularly apparent when the topic is global warming. Gradually the moderation system works out and a more balanced viewpoint emerges, but in the mean time a lot of energy is wasted refuting bogus talking points.

I have this vision of maybe 20 people in a office somewhere paid to do nothing but monitor Internet discussion groups to post canned RNC propaganda.

[TheBaldyMan]

12. I think FReepers have been DUed, I'll explain

your average DUer would be kicked in seconds of posting. In fact getting kicked in the shortest possible time used to be a popular sport at one time. I don't know if it still goes on but it has to be admitted that FReepers are not for free speech.

As the clownposse article says; there seem to lots of 'ghost accounts' that have 5 postings or less. Sounds like lots of little victories for FReep speech.

edited for typos:

[snowbear]

14. Does rimjob.. Jimbob.. whatever the hell his name is..

Live off of his freeper site income?

I realize he's wheelchair bound, but is the man gainfully employed or does he just rip-off his koolaid drinking fools for a living?

This is what the SOB has on his site right now:

[benburch]

15. Yes. And so does his son.

And they live quite well off it, too!

[Hawkeye-X]

17. Hey Ben.. check this out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4948334&mesg_id=4949353

and..

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/budget

I was comparing from the FR's last quarter.. they've increased Programming & Sys admin by another grand.

Definetely ripping the Freepers off!

[stepnw1f]

20. So He's Mentally and Physicaly Handicapped

which doesn't make him a bad person, but his actions make him morally equivalent to black mold, if that were to be possible.

[Contrary1]

16. And according to this, they are operating in the red:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Free Republic Monthly Budget

Once we get our monthly donations to the point where they will cover all of our expenses, we will not need to have fundraisers.

Est. Recurring Monthly Contributions $10,368.00

Monthly Expenses
Bandwidth and Colocation $2,700
System Administation and Programming 5,000
Administrative and Taxes 9,500
Legal and Accounting 1,000
Bank Fees, Credit Card Fees, Processing Fees 800
Equip, Maintenance and Repairs 300
Office Expenses, Rents, Insurance, Telephone, ISP, Supplies, Misc. 2,500
Travel Expenses 800 -------------------22,600.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Est. Monthly Shortfall ($12,232.00)

Est. Recurring Monthly Contributions
This is the amount contributed by the monthly donors only. It does not include one-time donations.

Est. Monthly Shortfall
Amount needed in one-time donations per month or additional monthlies need to meet budget needs.

[Hawkeye-X]

18. Compared to last year's FR's budget

Which you can see on post #17, they added another grand to System ADmin and Programming - still ripping people off on that low-rent POS software they use, vs DU's heavily customized, competent and wonderful forums they use.

[benburch]

21. I run White Rose on a tiny fraction of that.

And I certify to you that I use far more bandwidth than he ever could.

[Old and In the Way]

19. That works out to $1.50/year per member

And they can only get 1/2 that amount. I guess the value proposition just ain't there.