freep, freeping

[Aaron Dinkin]

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004, Clai Rice wrote:

> Just ran across this word and don't see it in the ADS
> archives: to freep, freeped, freeping. Also freepers.
>
> Looks like it means "to influence online polls by voting
> many times" or an organized attempt to do such. An article
> from the June 4, 2004 Grand Forks Herald, "Online activists
> defend freeping's ethics", says that the practice is named
> after the FreeRepublic.com whose members have been
> practicing this for some time.

In the political blogs I read, "freep" has the meaning you cite - 'skew
online polls, either by (one individual) voting multiple times or by
sending large numbers of like-minded people who otherwise wouldn't have
known about the poll to flood it with votes' - no matter who is doing it;
but the noun "freeper" doesn't mean 'one who freeps'. "Freeper" can only
mean 'a member of freerepublic.com (whether engaged in freeping, as
defined above, or not)'.

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom