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SoylentNews is people

posted by NCommander on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the hrm dept.

So, during the last site update article, a discussion came up talking about how those who work and write for this site should get paid for said work. I've always wanted to get us to the point where we could cut a check to the contributors of SoylentNews, but as it stands, subscriptions more or less let us keep the lights on and that's about it.

As I was writing and responding to one specific thread, part of me started to wonder if there would be enough interest to try and crowdfund articles on specific topics. In general, meta articles in which we talk deploying HSTS or our use of Hesiod tend to generate a lot of interest. So, I wanted to try and see if there was an opportunity to both generate interesting content, and help get some funds back to those who donate their time to keep the lights on.

One idea that immediately comes to mind that I could write is deploying DNSSEC in the real world, and an active example of how it can help mitigate hijack attacks against misconfigured domains. Alternatively, on a retro-computing angle, I could cook something in 16-bit real mode assembly that can load an article from soylentnews.org. I could also do a series on doing (mostly) bare metal work; i.e., loading an article from PXE boot or UEFI.

However, before I get in too deep into building this idea, I want to see how the community feels about it. My initial thought is that the funds raised for a given article would dictate how long it would be, and the revenue would be split between the author, and the staff, with the staff section being divided at the end of the year as even as possible. The program would be open to any SN contributor. If the community is both interested and willing, I'll organize a staff meeting and we'll do a trial run to see if the idea is viable. If it flies, then we'll build out the system to be a semi-regular feature of the site

As always, leave your comments below, and we'll all be reading ...

~ NCommander

 
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  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:25PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:25PM (#389238) Journal

    Yeah, I didn't think they were very far apart. My reasoning for prefering decoupling is that I think people should be able to buy a very tiny number of points. Currently, you can buy a 30 day subscription for $4, 180 day for $12, or 365 day for $20. I think it would be ideal if somebody could buy $1 of points if they wanted, or even less, and the only way to allow that while coupling the point system with the subscription system would be to make the existing subscription perks (subscriber star and ability to search entire archive) available much cheaper.

    The lower the barrier of entry, the more people will punch in their credit card number (or SoylentNews' Bitcoin address, or whatever). When somebody gives once, they're more likely to justify giving to the same cause in the future.

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