You may not have noticed, but SoylentNews recently passed a few milestones.
Some background: As most of you know, there was quite a pushback to a forced rollout of beta on slashdot.org which led to a Slashcott. Some enterprising souls took it upon themselves to take the latest-extant version of slashcode from github (which was several years old) and bludgeoned it into some sort of working order. Uncounted days and hours were invested in trying to get things up and running. Ancient versions of Apache, Perl, Varnish, and the like were pummeled into submission.
This site went live with this story:
Welcome to the World of Tomorrow... Today! on February 17, 2014 at 02:07 UTC.
It has been nearly eight months since that inaugural story was published. By the end of this week we'll likely have published our 3,500th story. Of those, one of our editors just recently posted his 1,000th article. But it is the community that makes this site what it is, so it is with pleasure that I note we also just reached the milestone of having comment number 100,000 posted here!
There's so much more that happens "behind the scenes"... system migrations to new hardware; OS updates and patches; migration from old versions of underlying systems; implementation of UTF-8 (international characters); creating the SN Swag Store; implementation of subscriptions; and the cat-herding challenge of coordinating the efforts of all the volunteers who have made this happen. Further, we achieved a degree of independence with the incorporation of SoylentNews as a Public Benefit Corporation having been approved on July 4th.
Over this time, many people have donated their (limited) free time to making this work. Through hardware and software crashes, trolls, spammers, and all the other trials and travails that go with running a web site, we have carved out our own place on the internet. We're still learning and growing.
We always have a place for talented people, visit the Get Involved section on our wiki to see how you can make SoylentNews better. Or stop by IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and ask around in #Soylent or #staff.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to the creation and maintenance of this site, but even more so to those who have submitted stories, read and posted comments, and spread the word about SoylentNews. We could not have done this without you.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @03:18PM
celebrate! watch me dance like a spider over a flame
hooah! woo hoo! i slap myself again!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @03:26PM
And perhaps the biggest milestone of all: an actively emerging sub-community of trolls!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday October 06 2014, @03:33PM
I was banned from #Soylent for the tenth time last weekend!
Hooray!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 06 2014, @03:51PM
What did our court jester do this time? Generally speaking, if the specifics are too unspeakable? Although I can probably guess pretty well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @04:35PM
Jesters are funny.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Monday October 06 2014, @11:19PM
I find it odd that we have a relatively positive relationship with our itinerant trolls. Compared to some forums I've frequented, ours are more creative and (maybe?) better intentioned. I see a lot of hijinks but not as much directionless hate as elsewhere. Is it possible to respect a troll? I don't know.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Monday October 06 2014, @11:47PM
No. If you try, they eat you. [wikipedia.org]
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday October 06 2014, @04:17PM
I wouldn't consider the trolls a sign of success, at least not a conventional success. While I had high hopes for SoylentNews, my interest in the site has waned due to the administrators' plan to take the site beyond a Slashdot clone to a more general journalism site, with e.g. this summer's Ferguson shooting stories a harbinger of the stories to come. Considering that fundraising has stalled and similar comments pop up with some frequency, I'm clearly not the only person who don't think SN is going to take off.
However, the one strong motivation I have to keep visiting SoylentNews are the trolls, especially the systemd troll. I like his work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @04:39PM
There is no such thing as a 'troll'. There are merely different people with different opinions and different styles of discussion.
Some opinions you will agree with. Some opinions you will disagree with. Some you will be neutral about.
Some people comment aggressively. Some people comment timidly. Some people are in between.
The important thing is that all of these people can participate in the discussion.
So far, this site has bern pretty good for that. It isn't perfect, but it is still better than /., Pipedot, HN, and Reddit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @04:56PM
No, there are trolls. Denialists and people using brainwashing techniques like proof by repeated assertion are not "people with different opinions and different styles of discussion"; do you really want Geocentrists and Young Earth Creationists and people like them flooding every thread? Its impossible to have a discussion when one side is just plugging their ears going "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" and repeating the same fallicious arguments that have been torn apart time and time again.
I welcome real discussion, where you actually have to think, and consider new facts as they come to light, and actually build a coherent argument to support your premise (or accept that your premise can't be supported), instead of playing the "Spot the Logical Fallacy" game, but those propagandist shills do not belong here. They do not bring anything to the site, and are instead working hard to change the site into an echo chamber.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @05:41PM
That is not what a troll is. A troll is someone who says something to enrage you with no consideration whatsoever given to if they actually believe it or not. What you're describing is someone who disagrees with you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @05:57PM
No, there are trolls. Denialists and people using brainwashing techniques like proof by repeated assertion are not "people with different opinions and different styles of discussion".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @06:20PM
Yes, they really are. Troll has a very specific definition as far as Internet forums go and that does not fit it. If you want to come up with another word, fine, but trolling it is not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @07:03PM
And yet you just got trolled by someone doing that.
Kind of undermines your point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @07:35PM
I wanted to keep going, repeating it a few more times, but I got bored and I'm not really trying to troll. Brainwashing techniques like Proof by Repeated Assertion are not "different styles of discussion" because discussion isn't the goal, the goal is "force everyone to think the same thing I do and drive away everyone else", which fits under the "disrupting normal, on-topic discussion" part of the definition of "troll". While it may not fit under the rather specific, original definition of "trolling" (deliberately provoking people into emotional responses), denialists do fit under the expanded definition (disrupting discussion), because they aren't interested in discussion.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @09:36PM
Right, for clarity's sake then.
<dev hat>
For moderation purposes none of the above are considered legitimate trolling except the original definition. Not even denialists. Someone is perfectly within their rights as a human being to believe something foolish and even say so out loud without us ascribing trollish motivation to it. If you hypothetically mod something -1 Troll because of your criteria rather than the original, it is a Bad Mod. Bad downmods are something we're still brainstorming, reading feedback on, and having a staff meeting on later this month, so it's all up in my head as a precise definition. Expect them to eventually carry heavy consequences (i.e. not getting mod points again for a long time) but not before we've all had a good argue about the specifics and posted a thorough write-up on any changes.
</dev hat>
For discussion purposes, eh, it still looks to me like you're just hyperbolizing and categorizing nearly all disagreement with yourself. Are you interested in discussion? Are you trolling by your own definition? Is there in fact a way left to disagree with you without being labeled a troll?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @10:23PM
For moderation purposes, I agree, it has to be under the specific original definition of "provoking a response".. I'm not talking about the use of the moderation "-1 Troll" though, and there's more to words than just their first definition, something which you pedants can't ever seem to grasp.
If I may repeat what I said earlier,
Playing "Spot the Fallacy" is not discussion, and claiming that I consider all disagreement trolling is a strawman.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:21PM
When I'm moderating, denialists don't get "troll", they get "overrated". I mod insulting comments "troll" even if I agree with the sentiment.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 07 2014, @10:26PM
That's a pretty stylish hat, it suits you!
AC because otherwise it would be brown-nosing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @09:15PM
Nah, unless said troll elicits an emotional response it's a troll fail.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:18PM
Agreed 100%. The anti-Linux troll Hairyfeet snagged me with his "challenge" the other day, and he actually managed to piss me off. He's still trying, there was a comment message this morning, 5 responses, I didn't bother with his.
I need to take my own advice. [kuro5hin.org] Amazing, nine years after I wrote it it's still #2 in a search for "biters anonymous" and it was just a diary entry.
The trolls finally ran me (and apparently everyone else) off that site.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @09:56PM
Jesus Christ, it's a sad day in the history of the Internet when merely engaging in a pretty standard conversation is considered a "trolling".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Monday October 06 2014, @05:00PM
I disagree. A troll is someone who actively tries to provoke annoyance or outrage. I don't call that a style of discussion because the troll's interest is only in the reaction, not in the actual topic of the discussion. Trolling is a discussion style in the same sense that bullying is a management style.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @09:58PM
How the fuck is the alleged "troll" responsible for the emotions of whoever reads what has been written?
By your reasoning, the only person who can be a "troll" is the reader who can't keep their emotions under control. If a "trolling" happens, then it's solely the responsibility of the person who lost control of their emotions.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday October 06 2014, @07:27PM
There is no such thing as a 'troll'. There are merely different people with different opinions and different styles of discussion.
If that were true then the first responders of every single iPhone story on Gizmodo wouldn't be Fandroids.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 07 2014, @12:30PM
What do you really expect to happen?
Over 85% of smart phones sold in 2014 have come with Android. Only about 12% have come with iOS.
So, yeah, I'd expect the first comments in any smart phone discussion to be posted by somebody who prefers Android. They make up 85% of the population! 85% of the time they'll be the first to respond to such discussion.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TK on Monday October 06 2014, @03:18PM
Small, unmentioned update that I absolutely love: monospaced font is now significantly bigger, so I don't have to squint* at Arik's comments or *gasp* Ctrl+scroll.
Better laziness through science!
*Or skip over, as may be the case.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @05:12PM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @05:43PM
Good bloody question. We'll look into it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday October 06 2014, @08:48PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @10:44PM
Good show, chap!
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Tuesday October 07 2014, @01:08AM
And fixed. Also some other fixes showed up along the way. Replies will now go directly to the Post Comment form, but the story and parent comment will still be above the comment.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by elf on Monday October 06 2014, @03:19PM
I'd just like to say a big well done to everybody behind the scenes for putting an immense amount of effort to making this site what it is today, I am sure there is a lot more going on that most people realise.
with 100,000+ comments it would be nice to see a graph on mod ratings (-1,0,1,2,3,4,5) to see what distribution the comment ratings follow
(Score: 2, Funny) by grid on Monday October 06 2014, @03:24PM
I for one welcome our new Soylent Overlords
(Score: 2) by mth on Monday October 06 2014, @03:42PM
The milestone I'm really waiting for is for 5-digit UIDs to appear, so I can say "you must be new here."
Seriously though: thanks to everyone who helped; this site is shaping up nicely.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday October 06 2014, @03:46PM
You 4 digit kids these days, get off my lawn.
I do worry a little about glorification of comment numbers, last thing I want to see is a vertical flood of:
"hai soylent news chan look at this on my console
primary-database-server:/#
Whoever rolls dubs decides what I next type"
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @04:14PM
Ah you 3-digiters. Com'er and let me give you a hug!
Great job to the Soylent team. I'm proud to be a part of the start of something new and great.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @04:28PM
I'm so meta, I don't even have a UID.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @04:38PM
I would have modded this as "Funny as hell", if I hadn't commented and had mod points.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:58AM
An Anonymous Coward wrote:
Actually, at site creation, UID 1 is explicitly assigned to "Anonymous Coward".
Or, in other words, it all started with a nobody, and we've expanded from there! =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 07 2014, @08:43AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by martyb on Tuesday October 07 2014, @12:04PM
You can check it yourself (as a logged-in user) with the friend/foe system [soylentnews.org].
This reports: "Your Relationship with Anonymous Coward (1)"
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday October 07 2014, @03:52PM
I believe this was true originally, but as mentioned, AC = UID 1 in this version.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday October 06 2014, @04:29PM
I was a day late and dollar short I guess.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday October 07 2014, @08:34AM
Dude, it was fast. The first mention of the new site on ./ and i registered. I think you had to have been closely following the beta replacements to get in so early. Didn't this site start as a wiki of some kind? To track what was happening.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday October 07 2014, @03:54PM
Yes, before we launched the public alpha, altslasdot was pointed at the wiki (which is still in use for documentation and idea exploration).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by strength_of_10_men on Monday October 06 2014, @03:59PM
Also, is there a page that we can visit to see period traffic reports?
And thanks to the people behind the scenes that have gotten all this done. Bravo!
(Score: 2) by tempest on Monday October 06 2014, @04:31PM
It's slowed quite a bit. I joined when the whole fuck beta thing was still hot over there. Having a "new kid" UID, I sometimes take note of who's higher than me, even now UIDs are only around the mid 4k range. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing though. The reason I've stayed is because comments are worth reading again, and I don't think more people will necessarily improve them. There are also many hovering in Anonymous who post good comments.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @05:55PM
Max uid is 4767 as of this post. I take heart from the fact that while we may not have taken a hundred thousand users from the other site, we did take the best several thousand commenters.
Explosive growth doesn't need to come immediately. Server costs are relatively low and as long as they get paid and we keep in volunteers we can keep doing what we do until people notice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 06 2014, @08:01PM
I'm not sure if explosive growth would even be a good thing. Usenet started to decline when it experienced explosive growth (the infamous Eternal September).
A more moderate growth is probably better for the site.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @08:38PM
I couldn't agree more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @10:02PM
Growth or a large audience has never been a problem.
It has always been the introduction of unjust moderation that ruins sizable online communities.
This sort of moderation always ends up putting users, or even groups of users, in a position where they can censor other users. This results in the death of the community. It will turn into a rather toxic hellhole like reddit or Hacker News, where group-think rules the day.
At least the Slashdot and SN style of moderation limits abuse, to some extent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @10:28PM
Moderation is not censorship, no matter how many times you try to say it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @10:50PM
If it takes special effort to view a moderated comment, and this effort isn't also required for unmoderated comments, then it's censorship. Moderation is censorship.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @11:09PM
Bullshit. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 07 2014, @12:05AM
Your response is idiotic.
The problem is that it takes extra effort to view moderated comments. And you propose to fix this by adding extra effort? Come on. Cut the crap, Tork.
Moderation is censorship.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 07 2014, @12:52AM
Except it doesn't.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday October 07 2014, @04:03PM
If it takes special effort to view a moderated comment...Moderation is censorship.
I disagree:
Censorship is to delete (a word or passage of text), hiding information completely, blocking it from view. I see moderation as "filtering", which can easily be reverted either through changing one's default threshold (when logged in), manually changing the threshold per story (depending on number of comments), or clicking the "plus" icon.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 06 2014, @10:39PM
A large audience is not a problem. But too rapid growth is. Case in point: Usenet.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Monday October 06 2014, @09:57PM
we did take the best several thousand commenters
If' I'm counted as one of the better commenters on /., that's pretty sad
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 07 2014, @08:48AM
I take heart from the fact that while we may not have taken a hundred thousand users from the other site, we did take the best several thousand commenters
Do you have any evidence of that? I tried reading this site exclusively for a couple of weeks and commenting in at least a couple of stories a day, but the discussions were always fairly boring. In particular, I hardly ever saw replies to my comments that I wanted to reply to, so there was no discussion. After a while, I went back to reading both. Stories show up in the other site first, so I tend to comment on them there (where there's likely already some interesting discussion). This doesn't seem to be uncommon - I've not noticed any decline in the quality of comments on Slashdot (actually, I'd say it's gone up slightly in the last six months), but I've not seen much interesting discussion here. Maybe one in ten stories has interesting comment threads.
Perhaps if you want to promote discussion you should have a policy of not posting things that have been on Slashdot already. Hugh Pickens' recent ramble was posted here and there verbatim for example (avoiding anything he wrote would be a good reason for favouring this site, but I digress). By the time it was posted here, there were already over 100 comments on Slashdot. What do you think people had to add here?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:42PM
Pickens submitted that to slashdot, pipedot and here at the same time. I certainly don't care if the story is also elsewhere and don't expect the editors to run to slashdot to make sure it isn't posted there.
And there was a /. story yesterday (day before? I was a little loaded last night) that was here 2 days earlier. So what? I'd far rather see S/N's 30 good comments out of 40 than /.'s 30 good comments out of 400.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:35PM
I'm not sure I want explosive growth. Mindless drivel from noncompos [bookre.org] who don't know a subroutine from a capacitor or Ohm's Law from the second law of thermodynamics has me going there a lot less than I used to. The comments are what make this site!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:42PM
Amen to this. Back in the early days of /., I learned so very much from the community discussion. It nearly literally saved my life because I was in a tight spot in my career and /.'ers helped me get through with their technical advice and wisdom. As such I was very committed and very loyal to that community until it became painfully obvious that there was no there there anymore.
I want SN to achieve financial sustainability, but I don't care if it never achieves the "big time." I have begun to learn and thrive from the insight of the community here, again; I respect them as highly motivated, skilled colleagues, and hope I too can bring something to this brocade of excellence.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:27PM
You must be new here, #2848!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday October 06 2014, @03:46PM
Or just shut down the web site and have an IRC channel for discussing the news. That's fine too, if that's what you want to be running, but please pick one.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 06 2014, @03:49PM
Might be humorous to try a gateway where you get an article for todays date titled "IRC log for 2014-10-06" or whatever, and then very hour, the previous hour IRC log gets dumped into a post.
Could be automated. Might or might not be worth it. Might be funny to watch ethanol fueled get banned yet again, if nothing else.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday October 06 2014, @04:32PM
if we did this I'd have to stay OUT of the main channel.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @06:22PM
If we did this I'd be banned from the main channel. I use the word "fuck" as punctuation on IRC.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday October 06 2014, @08:37PM
and it's not like the green site didnt have IRC back in the beginning. and I'm sure that that was chock full of expletives since it wasnt logged at all.
anyway - this is the internet- you don't succeed by just doing one thing.
sometimes it's doing lots of things and figuring out what you really suck at.
Sometimes it's about having a way to speak instantly with the people running the site.
Sometimes it's a WIKI or GitHub..
sometimes it's about shutting up and sometimes its yelling really loudly.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday October 06 2014, @09:29PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:46PM
Nobody cares if you say "fuck" but if you say "Forgswaggle" [soylentnews.org] that old woman might wash your mouth out with soap! (Yes, that is a science fiction short story about swearing).
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday October 06 2014, @04:31PM
Raven - IRC is very spotty. sometimes we just talk about nonsense. Sometimes it just a place to hang out and discuss site issues or bitch about work.
The logs are even publicly available. if you can get through them.
Rarely we talk about news; but if we do it's likely news that isnt on the site - non tech news. The site is for the actual site content.
IRC IS a good place for us to know each other. more like a bar and less like a forum. IT's were we find new editors and programmers. so there is plenty of room for both to exist.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday October 06 2014, @04:46PM
thats pretty much the whole point of irc - its a place to socialize and converse, not to debate or have serious discussions.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 07 2014, @08:41AM
IT's were we find new editors
And that's part of the problem. You find editors from among people who frequent something that is not the site, whereas offers to help from people who frequent the site are ignored. And then you wonder why discussions here are pretty lifeless.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @08:43PM
Or just shut down the web site and have an IRC channel for discussing the news. That's fine too, if that's what you want to be running, but please pick one.
Why? IRC and web forums are like email and phone calls, both have their uses.
(Score: 1) by mattwrock on Monday October 06 2014, @03:51PM
Since you gained "independence" on July 4th. Watch a funny take on a cult dialogue: ahref=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKNKP2c2Xwrel=url2html-31597 [soylentnews.org]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKNKP2c2Xw /> (YouTube).
Ones and zeros everywhere... I even saw a 2 - Bender
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @05:59PM
Hate it when I do that. For those too lazy to copy and paste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKNKP2c2Xw [youtube.com]
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @04:23PM
I went back to /. yesterday for the first time since Soylent went live and I wish I could take it back. I was looking to see if there's been any coverage over there for stuff with gamer gate, Intel pulling ads and how the IT community is starting to take sides. It was horrible, I couldn't find anything on the site. I tried to make a submission about Git removing the GG repository and couldn't figure out if I had done it right.
Read one article that was a bunch of people screaming, "WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE, THAT'S NOT EVIDENCE, READ THE LINK, GOOOOOOOGGGGGGLLLEEEE!!!!" followed by what must have been a hundred "clean my PC" spam messages.
Guys, we dodged a bullet moving here. Once again thank you Soylent team, you saved us.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday October 06 2014, @04:43PM
In what way does the IT community taking sides?
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @05:05PM
Stories are in the submission queue.
Linux dev refusing to update Linux kernel for Intel fixes, because of Intel pulling ads from Gamasutra, speculated because of the GamerGate letter writing campaign. (As pro-GamerGate, I actually doubt that's why they pulled the adds)
Github disables GamerGate repo based on false allegations of GamerGate being a hate movement.
Just found this on a Reddit site where the twitter account that asked Github to remove the GameGate repo admitted to lying.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nexxylove/status/518203296784207872 [twitter.com]
Archived: https://archive.today/1vuWC [archive.today]
I don't really think this is the place to have the discussion, we'll have to wait for the editors to post the stories. One of mine was accepted so it should be popping up soon.
I apologize in advance for being a poor writer/submitter. Best I normally do is System docs, no one reads those anyway XD
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday October 06 2014, @05:19PM
Seems those people left the motto of accomplish things and leave sandbox political infighting to the cavemen.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @05:39PM
Pretty much that.
Anyone know where we can submit feature requests? Thought there was a link on the main page... somewhere in the wiki maybe?
Had an idea for a SN feature enhancement. Submitters should be able to update/withdraw their own submissions until the story is picked up by an editor. One story I submitted I read over a few times and decided it was pretty poorly written. I wanted to with draw it, but it sat in the queue for over a week and was deleted anyway. Felt sorry I wasted someone's time with it. Now being that gamer gate is a developing things I have two stories in the queue, one that has recent developments that would be nice to add to.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday October 06 2014, @06:00PM
V- dont worry about sending in content that's poorly written; just send it in.
the editors have and can help any worthwhile content get up to snuff. there's even a wiki to help. http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/Story_Style [soylentnews.org]
the real issue here is games gate. there is really no way to talk about it without ether sounding like a misogynist or a white knight.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @06:11PM
Non-major feature requests and bugs go here: https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues [github.com]
Things that would take a two month release cycle or more go here: http://sylnt.us/suggest [sylnt.us]
At least that's how we prefer it. We're not going to shoot down a good idea because it's in the wrong place.
As for the idea, we could probably do up a quick delete button out to the side but that or editing isn't likely to happen because of the race condition where an editor may have your story up for editing at the same time you're trying to interact with it. Personally, I'd say just leave it to the editors; that's why they make the big bucks after all. Bastiches make three times what us devs do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @06:56PM
Thanks, fair enough to both responses I've received :)
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday October 06 2014, @04:53PM
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday October 06 2014, @05:07PM
I'm with you an wondering how the my clean PC posts are made, but I'm glad they aren't here. Scroll through 20+ comments before you find something relevant, then another 20+ comments to find a relevant replay.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @06:14PM
Sorry to disappoint. I'll ask paulej72 to ease up on the filters and let some spam through. Honestly, knowing what I do of slash internals now, I'd say slashdot is getting paid to allow those through or simply does not care at all; they're too easy to block.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday October 06 2014, @07:28PM
No, these are not the real MyCleanPC ads. They are the parodies of MyCleanPC ads where, for example, the viruses on a man's computer drive him mad and he kills his wife and children. So, the conclusion must be that Slashdot doesn't care. But how well do you know Slash internals? I thought that Slashdot had been developed a closed-source version of its software for years now.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 06 2014, @09:00PM
Just a guess, mind you, but I'd stay we're still > 66% the same. If I were betting, I'd be giving 10:1 odds saying that the spam filtering algorithms haven't significantly changed at all, though the db stored regexs used against specific bits of spam are probably extremely dissimilar.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by archfeld on Monday October 06 2014, @08:11PM
Agreed, I still post occasionally on Slashdot because I have some friends and many acquaintances there, but I've been trying to get them to move here with some success, but as things get worse at Slashdot I'll be going there less and less. Sadly I've been a longtime Fark resident as well and it has descended into a massively sponsored PC house of utter fsck'n feces, any chance on a snarky headline channel ? *wink*
Thanks to the folks working behind the scenes turning this place from a house into a nice comfy home...
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 07 2014, @02:57PM
Same here. I check both sites regularly and post my journals on both sites, but there are few stories over there that I click on. Usually over there I'll look at "messages". If someone is on my friend/fan list I'll read their journals, but usually then scroll through their main page and click on nothing.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 07 2014, @08:54AM
Perhaps it's because you were away for so long. There were several 'gamergate' stories on Slashdot and now everyone is heartily sick of it (the article about Intel pulling the ads was a week or two ago). Some gamers on one side and some feminists on the other started behaving like children and then lots of other people took sides. Intelligent discussion is limited, mostly it's knee jerk reactions attacking one side or the other. The last thing the world needs is more coverage of it.
If you're seeing the MyCleanPC things then I can only assume that you're reading at -1 - I've not seen one for months. And, to be honest, I'd take the Slashdot trolls over the average article here that manage 3-4 posts before they scroll off the bottom of the screen.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday October 07 2014, @12:35PM
Admititley I'm pro-GamerGate, I think coverage is important to this issue because at the moment the only ones covering it are the ones spinning a narrative, which is being picked up and parroted in the main stream. As a gamer, for nearly 30 years and who is actually nice, I'm quite tired of being bullied and harassed by people that think gamer means cis-white-male misogynist troll. That's actually a very small, but vocal, subculture.
What I'm seeing is game journalists, who were the popular kids and jocks in school, are just continuing on with their hate of those actually smarter than they are. Most of the game journalists I have read readily admit they don't even like games. WHY WOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT THEM THEN?
So coverage is important because we need to stop this constant "gamers are evil" that gamers have until recently just ignored. The only way that's going to happen is if gamers actually have a voice in the matter, which can only be done through blogs/YouTube/social media and sites that allow uncensored discussion.
.......................
I actually think I have you in my friends list on /., I wonder what you did to deserve that?
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Tuesday October 07 2014, @10:53AM
It's actually a good thing to post on Slashdot once in a while. Put a link to SN in your sig and post it a bit over there - good way to get the word out. I can only imagine some people aren't even aware of the slashcott, believe it or not.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday October 08 2014, @01:14PM
I've been thinking about reviving my account over there mostly for this reason. I find it hard to do so because I screamed pretty loudly when we forked (even had my account temporarily locked because I posted so much), participated in the boycott, and now I'd have to wade through a bizillion worthless comments to find one worthy to post to.
If I do that, I'll spend my limited time focusing on posting here first. I try very hard to post quality comments. (Not always successful, but I try). That takes time to do. Anything left over after I've made my rounds here (and probably at Pipedot), then I'll think about commenting over there. Maybe. I'm still pretty pissed at Dice. I just loathe the idea of giving them my time and effort. I'm not discouraging anyone else from doing so, but it's a bitter pill for me to swallow.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday October 08 2014, @01:51PM
So think of it like this: every post to /. that provides some attention to SN weakens Dice's brand and pisses in their swimming pool.
Incidentally, I am seeing other /. posts with reference to SN in the sig and they're almost always voted to zero. Not sure if there's some evil moderation going on over there or if the posts are just low quality. I'd hate to think they're intentionally downvoting anything with a link to the competition in it.
I'm really appalled by the quality of the comments on /. these days, by the way. It's really juvenile, gutter, lame, perma-trolling. It's turning into Reddit, unfortunately (a good site for entertainment but not that great for useable information).
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 06 2014, @05:04PM
I remember the one-millionth comment on the other site. It was hilarious.
Can anyone find the link to the 100000th SN comment?
(Score: 5, Informative) by skullz on Monday October 06 2014, @05:17PM
Looks like that belongs to botfap: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=100000&sid=4153 [soylentnews.org]
Discussing Firefox, Tor, and the like.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AnonTechie on Monday October 06 2014, @08:03PM
Congratulations are in order to all those involved in getting us to this point. I hope many more will contribute to SN and take it further along.
Best wishes,
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."