What is Floort?

Floort arrived on this net after I became frustrated when banned from several news aggregators for daring to post my opinion. It seems as though those sites want links to the original source, not to your blog where your opinions reside. I thought to myself, "that seems odd, they want to steal traffic away from the news source and build a community. Isn't that stealing? Shouldn't the comments discussing a NY Times article be at the NY Times?"

I was surfing the web in August 2007 and found a similar site and though to myself "Gee, I can build that" so I started working on a site right away. It wasn't until October that I decided upon the name Floort. It came as a result of searching through a thesaurus and determining what domain names were still available. Floort was selected becuase it sounded like 'Flirt' and thus suggested provocative imagery without the sexual overtones. Floorts are supposed to entice others to react. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was available as a domain as well.

Since official launch in December of 2007, Floort has shown tremendous growth due to Apple selecting it as a Staff Pick for iPhone Web Apps and of course, the steady use by its loyal users.

A Few Rules

Floort is a public site but it will be monitored for ethical and moral guidelines. This isn't because the owners are prudish. It has only to do with financial viability. Here are the few rules:

You may post any opinion on any subject - even if it is an unpopular opinion
You MAY NOT post questions as your main floort. You may ask how others feel in the body of the Floort, but not in the main Floort itself. For example, "PS3 vs WII?" is not a valid Floort whereas "I prefer PS3 over WII" is. Then, in the explanation you may ask how others feel. But we want to know your opinion right up front! This is the most important rule because it is what defines the personality of Floort as a website.
You may not directly insult or attack another member. Attacking groups is OK (ex. Liberals are losers) as long as you keep it in the context of your opinion
Teenagers are welcome but we will not tolerate Floorts about bodily functions or pre-pubescent sexual fanatasies. Please find another place for these releases.
Text messaging lingo is cool, but please use full english words here. Very poor spelling will cause a Floort to be deleted
All Floorters must know the difference between There, Their and They're. If you don't, look it up!

If a Floort mystically disappears, you have probably broken one of these rules.

Examples of Floorts

We cannot tell you what to write as that would defeat the purpose of Floort. But we do offer these guidelines. This is important because if new users are casually browsing the site, they need to instantly get a sense for the information that is here. It is is gibberish, they will quickly go away.

The goal of all your Floorts is to stimulate a reaction in the audience so they will want to respond by voting and commenting.

Example:

Let's say you saw a news story that Barack Obama had a preacher that was somewhat controversial and you didn't like that preacher and wanted to Floort about it.

Bad Floorts: Questions and vague statements

"Is Barack a Racist?"
"Can we trust a man who follows this preacher?"
"Barack vs McCain"

OK Floorts: News-like and accurate, but boring

"Obama's Preacher hurts his chances"
"Presidential Race Tightens on news of Obama's preacher"

Good Floorts: - provocative and conversation-stimulating

"I think Barack Obama is unfit to be President"
"Obama shows bad judgement by staying with church too long"
"You can't trust a man who follows a lunatic preacher to be President of the United States"

Discuss Floort

I've decided that it would be a good idea to discuss all things Floort AWAY from floort so as not to distract from the business at hand. If you'd like to participate in discussions about Floort, it's features, bugs, ideas and such, please join our public Google Group.

If you're enjoying Floort, please consider donating to help keep the site going.