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SoylentNews
from the editorial-staff-is-getting-TIRED dept.
I will put this to you, the community, in a very straight, simple (hopefully understandable) way.
The editorial staff is a small, hardworking group. There are currently about 5 of us that are actively pushing stories out on a regular basis, and we need help.
We humbly come to you, the community, to solicit for a volunteer or two. We will provide all the necessary training, at a cost of just 3 easy payments of $999.99US, or entirely free if you apply before 1 Apr 2099.
For that pittance, you can expect to learn:
- The editing process
- How to get onto the bouncer for IRC
- The best ways to abuse The Mighty Buzzard
- The secret staff handshake
- How to be abused, and learn to like it
- How to deal with having your name in lights
- and much much more!
In all seriousness, we all are busy and have lives. So do you, and we get that, but for this community to continue to thrive, we need a little fresh blood on the editorial staff. Some of us have been at this since the site went live almost 3 years ago (janrinok and martyb have posted over 3000 articles EACH). To put it in perspective, the site has only run about 14,500. Some of us came on almost a year later, but like any organization, there has been attrition, and we need to replenish.
We are starting to see some of the tell-tale signs of burnout, and to avoid that, we need your help.
If you are interested, please feel free to reach out in the comments below, via email ([nick] at soylentnews dot org), or hit us on IRC. If we aren't there (we all LOOK like we are logged in all the time due to the bouncer, but we may not actually be there), /join #editorial and leave a message — we will get back to you.
Remember, it isn't all doom and gloom! Working on staff, you will be on a team with a fantastic group of REALLY smart (myself excluded) people. I can honestly say I have made some really good friends from this experience, and I've even gotten to meet one of the guys in meat space. It is something that I am truly glad I took advantage of when the opportunity came around.
Thanks for listening, and with a little luck, we will see one or two of you pretty soon.
Live Long and Prosper,
-cmn32480
[TMB Note: Seriously. You really don't want me having to pick stories.]
[Update: see this comment below if you've expressed interest in volunteering.
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Monday November 14 2016, @01:40PM
Did you ever notice a typo, grammatical error, or formatting issue on one of the stories on SoylentNews?
I did, and went into IRC [soylentnews.org] to suggest a correction to the editorial staff. And then I saw another one. And another. So, I suggested that it would be easier for them if they let me edit stories.
Little did I suspect what I was in for!
I met a team of amazingly knowledgeable and hard-working people who cared about our site. I got to see the operations of a site first-hand, all the way from what the community posts to the site, down through all of the UI code and into the underlying OS and networking support. Saw how things were partitioned... and why.
Oh, and I got to do QA/testing, too. When TheMightyBuzzard rolled out UTF-8/Unicode support, I took it upon myself to do the testing. Found the relevant RFCs, wrote up test data, found edge and corner cases. We worked together until it was solid.
There are times after a long day at work that I get home and check the story queue at 9pm, and see that we don't have enough stories scheduled to make it until morning. As much as I'd rather just go to bed, I've found myself posting just a few stories to help get us over the hump. (And I'm not alone in doing that, by any stretch!) What am I doing this for? And then I see a discussion unfold in one of the stories that just blows me away.
But, beyond the rewards from a professional perspective, I made a number of good friends. We have a camaraderie that I treasure. We have shared joys and frustrations about our lives and grown into a group of whom I am proud to have become a part.
So, to all of you who have submitted comments about mistakes in stories, here's your chance! Even if you can post only a couple stories a week, every bit helps. SoylentNews is a community -- staffed by volunteers -- it's only as good as we make it.... come join the fun!
Wit is intellect, dancing.