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So, as per usual, I like to occasionally check the pulse on the community to make sure that people for the most part are happy and satisfied with the day-to-day operation of the site. For those of you who are new to the community, first, let me welcome you and explain how these work.
When I open the floor to the community, the intent is to provide a venue to discuss anything related to site operations, content, and anything along those lines. I actively review and comment on these posts, and if one issue pops up multiple times in comments, I generally run follow up articles to try and help address issues the community feels is important before someone decides to take rehash and form a spinoff. Feel free to leave whatever thoughts you want below.
In contrary to my usual posts, I don't have that much to say to this, so to both the community and editorial team's relief, I'll cut this off right here before it becomes Yet Another NCommander Novel.
~ NCommander
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:47PM
Can Soylentils recommend additional sources for technical articles? We have Wired, arstechnica, phys.org, bbc, and some others but that can run dry.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday November 07 2016, @02:06PM
http://spectrum.ieee.org/ [ieee.org]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/ [theregister.co.uk]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday November 07 2016, @02:08PM
You can try journals like Nature and Science. Part of their articles have dumbed down versions (in Nature it's news) which could serve as submissions. How about "Ant genomes rewrite history of Panama land bridge".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:33PM
Those are good suggestions. If we can find more like those it would help tilt the balance toward more technical articles.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @08:46PM
> journals like Nature and Science.
Ladies' Home Journal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @02:11PM
Can Soylentils recommend additional sources for technical articles?
I think the "T" in TMZ stands for "Technical".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @02:13PM
I usually submit biomedical articles from sciencemag.org and nature.com. Both sites have physics/engineering/CS articles as well but I often stay away from those since they aren't my expertise.
When the "Pending Stories" list is empty and I can't find anything then I go to SciCentral.com for scientific press releases.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:45PM
I think that's an important point to consider. If Soylentils who are subject matter experts submit technical articles from their areas of particular expertise on developments they consider important to their field, or that they know are fundamental for laymen to understand, then the chance that we all collectively learn from that goes way up. Me, I have areas of relative expertise, but when I submit a lot of stories I feel most comfortable going with general tech news like you'd find on arstechnica or the like because I take for granted that the information in them was vetted at some level by people with deep expertise.
For example, I'd love to hear more about CRISPR, but don't even know where to begin. If Soylentils who do work with it have sources to more accessible content with it, and can mediate technical information on it, it would be enormously helpful and attractive to all of us, I think. Part of that sort of happens organically, such as when users like VLM comment on EE subjects, but it might work even better if he could be the resident EE professor, sourcing and mediating that field for the rest of us.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Monday November 07 2016, @06:25PM
I like to approach it from the other side. I secretly harbor a fantasy of having my own science blog, but I'm too lazy to actually put in the work to do it (finding stories, contacting the authors and talking to them, etc. etc.). So I skim a handful of journals that interest me, or poke around the press release sections of various places, and try to find interesting articles that I can turn into story submissions. I find it fun to try to translate a scientific paper to a general audience because I learn a lot about the topic that way. However, this takes me quite a bit of time to do, which is why my submission count is not very high.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:44PM
I think that's an important point to consider. If Soylentils who are subject matter experts submit technical articles from their areas of particular expertise on developments they consider important to their field, or that they know are fundamental for laymen to understand, then the chance that we all collectively learn from that goes way up.
The issue that I come across is that a lot of papers in my field are still, even in this day and age, locked behind a paywall. It's hard to have meaningful discussions about the content of a paper when no one can read it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:35PM
Yeah that's the barrier I've run into in the past when trying to get better, crunchier stories--journal paywalls. I've thought about data mining the Open Data stuff that swept the scene a couple years ago, because that stuff is collected by the government and supposed to be free to you and me, but that's a lot of work for uncertain gain. I like geographical info and that sort of thing, but how many here do, too?
And that's part of the dilemma--there are a lot of subject matter experts who could write great stuff on what's state-of-the-art in their fields, but if it's too esoteric for a robust discussion to arise around it, it feels like a huge waste of time for the author, which means it would be the last time they ever did anything like that.
I've got a process down where I can put together a story submission in 2-3 minutes. Over my morning coffee I can submit 6-10 and get my news reading done at the same time--kills two birds with one stone. If any one of those submissions gets zero comments, it's not a big deal because it only represents 2 minutes of my time and meanwhile it at least supplied a headline on the main page that Soylentils can hearken back to if they want later. I try to spark discussion with an ice breaker or geek reference or lame humor, but it's not ideal.
So we work with what we have. Sometimes tech/science stories you can sink your teeth into come along in the dozens, and properly spaced out they can last you for a week. Honestly, though, most times there isn't much in the news to be gleaned. More sources can help there.
Or maybe we approach it like a traditional editor would, whereby they have stories people are working on that run when the "OMG did you hear what just happened?!" stuff runs thin?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:20AM
I'd love to hear more about CRISPR
I'll keep my eyes open for any interesting papers or will try to write-up a Slow News Day submission on the current state of research. What are you more interested in (e.g. medical applications, its use as a bacterial defense against viruses, designer babies, etc.)?
There will probably be some clinical trials using CRISPR within a few months and they would definitely be worth discussing.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Monday November 07 2016, @02:41PM
For general science stuff Jennifer Ouellette's Cocktail Party Physics [typepad.com] is a good weekly round-up of stories. Updated on Saturday, there's usually something in there that is worth a submission when I look.
Also most stories initially appear through her twitter feed [twitter.com], if you're willing to trawl that.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:56PM
That's a good source.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @10:39PM
Wouldn't mind cocking that tail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @04:51PM
https://www.sciencenews.org/ [sciencenews.org]
Published by a non-profit established almost 100 years ago to help the public become science-literate - i.e., it's not a PR outlet like phys.org or link spammers that show up in google news' science heading.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:37PM
Thanks, that looks good.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 07 2016, @04:57PM
Seriously, WIRED, the den of hypocrisy [twitter.com] that reviews privacy tools such as Disconnect with one hand and blocks viewers using those tools with the other? See also what Doc Searls has to say about this hypocrisy [doc.blog].
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:41PM
It's hard to disqualify sources for that sort of thing, though, or pretty soon you run out of sources, the queue dries up, and there's nothing to discuss or reason for people to visit the site.
For example, I really don't like the Register as a source because of their language and approach, but I still submit stuff from them fairly regularly if no other source has that same story that day.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:21AM
You could always skim slashdot's headlines and see if they've posted anything interesting. ;) The RSS feed is good for that, since the slashdot comments aren't usually worth it anymore, but occasionally they get a submission that's worth checking the original source. Just make sure to write your own summary, since the /. summaries are usually shit.
Same goes for sites like HackerNews. Sometimes people post interesting niche stuff that might be appealing, though it's usually just personal projects and crap like that.