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posted by janrinok on Monday October 19 2015, @07:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the your-voice dept.

Right, so we're pondering on adding new nexuses to the site for the next upgrade (planned for December but could end up being later depending on circumstances). Why bother adding new nexuses? Primarily so you can easily filter them out from your settings page. For example, say we had added a Games nexus. Not interested in gaming? Preferences->Homepage and put a dot in the far left (X) radio button next to Games and you will not see anything from the Games nexus on the main page. Mind you, we don't have nexus functionality built into the rss/atom feeds, yet, so they'll still show up there.

Keep in mind you can also browse nexuses independently, so you catch stories only from that nexus. Independent rss/atom feeds are coming sooner or later as well. Nexuses aren't entirely about what you don't want to see.

As of now we've got Games and Liberty on the table as new nexuses to go with Breaking News and Meta. Including more or less duplicating some Topics, what nexuses would you lot like to see go live? Last note here, any nexus we create will be fair game to sub stories in that category for. Don't suggest sports unless you want to give the green flag to subs on NASCAR.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @09:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @09:55PM (#252073)

    There's a not-completely-insignificant cadre who grouse about stuff related to wages|workplace conditions|big layoffs...
    A nexus for Labor or some such descriptor would allow easy filtering of that.

    Of course, since it seems that those folks can't resist clicking those items and commenting about how unworthy the subject is, it could be a complete waste of time.

    ...and I have noticed how anything I submit that mentions the World Socialist Web Site is rejected faster than about anything that hits the queue.
    Flooding in South Carolina Points Out Shameful Condition of USA Infrastructure [soylentnews.org]
    Workers Strip and Beat Up Air France Bosses Who Had Announced Plans to Lay Off 2,900 [soylentnews.org]

    I thought for sure that the 1st of my (3 so far) submissions of that ilk would certainly make it to the front page, so I didn't keep a record of it.
    I guessed wrong and now I can't find any reference to it to supply a link. 8-(

    -- gewg_

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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @10:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @10:49PM (#252089)

    It's a plot. The intelligentsia, duped by the puppetmasters of global capital, are suppressing the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat by denying them even the exposure of discussion, let alone equal space to air their grievances. Chomsky is the modern counterpart to Marx, who analytically proves the intellectual cowardice and savagery of the methods of the ownership class as they go about their brutally extractive abuse of the international worker. In the Middle East the brothers and sisters of sweat and exhaustion are still distracted by the old lies of religion, as Marx outlined with the help of Engels, but in the capitalopressor castles of Europe and North America, where the new robber barons blind the masses with fairy tales about democracy, human rights and soft socialism while weeping crocodile tears about having to pay taxes, rather than, as they realise all too well, swinging from every lamppost while the crows peck out their eyes, they have created a fresh breed of lickspittles they foster with promises of opulence. These running dog bootlickers conspire, however clumsily and with a childish petulance, to silence your every word regardless of how loudly you declaim the truth we all know viscerally to be an uneradicable manifestation of the human condition. Fear not, the inevitable march of history will consign them to the slaughterhouse of history, and you will ultimately be vindicated once their tissue-thin lies are revealed, though your heroic stand may only bear fruit after you, too, have fallen to be memorialised by the workers' flag of blood red.

    Forward, the Revolution, Comrades!

  • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:45AM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:45AM (#252124) Journal

    That's a good idea. I think we'd need to define the difference between the proposed Liberty nexus and a Labor nexus. I can see ambiguities. Myself, I've entered the murky depths that separate the bleeding-heart libertarian perspective and the socialist perspective.

    Proposal: the Liberty nexus should concern itself with government intrusions into liberty (censorship proposals, patents gone mad), and the Labor nexus should concern itself with capital interests intruding on liberty (by way of the inherent monopsony of the “market” for labor in a work-or-you-starve system). Note that “patents gone mad” might be Labor nexus, but “patents gone mad” are enforced by the government on capital, so Liberty nexus for that. Unreasonable working hours and insufficient wages (particularly in IT) would fall in the Labor nexus, because those are enforced by capital owners.

    The real test is DMCA issues. Liberty or Labor nexus? Perhaps a new Technology or (Imaginary|Intellectual) Property nexus. Probably the former. OTOH, am I making it too complex? Should I return to my earlier precedent that imaginary property issues are Liberty issues? Perhaps not, because the DMCA primarily impacts the working class.

    So, we might be able to derive two tests to differentiate the Libertry and Labor nexuses. Who is enforcing the problematic restriction (government or capital)? Who is primarily impacted by the problematic restriction (capital or labor)?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:58AM (#252128)

      You have some good thoughts. Just a couple of nitpicks.

      Work-or-starve isn't what we have, at least not in the USA. You can actually be at the bottom of the barrel, and not starve (although your nutrition probably won't be the best). Yeah, I've been there. There are ways to manage, many of them run by the evil, evil goobermunt.

      However, more importantly, that doesn't make it a monopsony. Needing employment doesn't turn all employers into the same market actor. A proof of this was an interesting case in South Korea, where married women are almost unemployable for cultural reasons - and then a big company (I think Goldman Sachs, but I may be wrong) realised this fact, and started scooping up talented, educated, available, bored married women who wanted actual careers. And they started kicking nine kinds of ass because it isn't a monopsony.

      A lot of what you mention (such as the de facto boundaries of the DMCA issue) aren't legislated so much as regulated. Right now in the rich world, bureaucrats swing big dicks when it comes to their influence on daily life, but aren't elected. That may come under your suggested liberty heading.

  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday October 20 2015, @09:21AM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 20 2015, @09:21AM (#252218) Journal

    Gewg_ - your story regarding the Air France bosses was 9 days old (5 Oct) before you even submitted it. Those who committed the assault have been arrested. A quick search on DDG reveals more than 20 news outlets worldwide covered the story at the time it happened. It's been news, has run its course, and is now over. Why should we resurrect that particular story, and why would it be of special interest to our community?

    We are averaging about 16 stories a day at present - one every 90 minutes or so, and that is taking a significant amount of editorial effort. We aim where possible to vary the topics and the submitters, but we also try to select the best stories to reach the front page. One advantage of nexuses is that the editing process will, I believe, be slightly different - although I confess to not being certain of what exactly that process will actually be! Suffice to say, we hope to improve the throughput of stories by having more people able to edit and post. How we maintain standards, prevent a nexus from being abused, and avoid the legal pitfalls is much less clear.

    Your submission would be a perfect candidate for an SJ nexus if we had one. Then I could ignore it...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @10:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @10:54AM (#252237)

      France is a place that often blazes the trail.

      In 1789, they rounded up their idle rich and chopped off their heads.

      They currently have a 35-hour workweek with no reduction in weekly earnings relative to what they had been earning.

      Meanwhile, the Volkswagen workers in Tennessee allowed themselves to be buffaloed by slimy politicians and Capitalists and voted against unionizing.

      Keeping an eye on what the Working Class is up to in France is worthwhile IMO.

      ...and no one else submitted anything about South Carolina getting clobbered.
      USA's infrastructure hasn't made a quantum improvement since that storm either.
      Some current presidential candidates have been mentioning jobs and infrastructure in the same breath.
      No one among the editors thought that submission was timely and relevant?
      ...or was it the source that was rejected?

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday October 20 2015, @01:28PM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 20 2015, @01:28PM (#252281) Journal

        Not the source - I don't care about the source very much as long as it is credible. I live in France but I get my news from all around the world. But this was an old story. We in Europe have had better working conditions than, say, the US for many decades but I don't think that justifies a specific story about it - because it is old news. In many jobs, if we work longer than the accepted working day, we expect to be paid extra for it. If we work during our holidays, we expect to be paid for working.

        Meanwhile, the Volkswagen workers in Tennessee allowed themselves to be buffaloed by slimy politicians and Capitalists and voted against unionizing.

        ...and no one else submitted anything about South Carolina getting clobbered.

        USA's infrastructure hasn't made a quantum improvement since that storm either.

        Sounds like you should have submitted a story about the situation in the USA then...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @08:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @08:32PM (#252457)

          "Meanwhile" was a bit metaphorical on my part.
          Those events in Tennessee happened in February 2014.

          I thought I did have a story on that make it to the front page but, looking now, apparently not.

          I have commented on that multiple [soylentnews.org] times. [soylentnews.org]
          In the latter instance, an AC Soylentil who lives thereabouts picked up the ball and ran with it very effectively.

          Here in the middle of another Capitalist depression, I think that examples of workers pushing back against exploitation is worthy of a mention--no matter how many centuries^W days old it is.
          ...with French workers being particularly good at saying "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more".

          This gets us back to nexuses as A Good Thing(tm).

          -- gewg_

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @02:42AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @02:42AM (#252576)

            Here in the middle of another Capitalist depression, I think that examples of workers pushing back against exploitation is worthy of a mention--no matter how many centuries^W days old it is. ...with French workers being particularly good at saying "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more".

            If that's your priority, you're really on the wrong site. Try www.wsws.org instead. You could maybe also write about art for them - a lot of their material is very old.