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SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday December 23 2018, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the blame-ncommander-for-showing-me-how-to-write-a-wall-of-text dept.

So it's not the end of the world as we know it, but it's nearly the end of the calendar year. How'd we get here, where are we at, and what have we been up to? Oh, and please send us some monies.

Background:

It all started with slashdot attempting to push a redesigned UI (User Interface) onto the community (aka the "Beta"). There was tremendous discontent with the decision which culminated in the The Slashcott. Some like-minded folk getting together and bashing an unmaintained open-sourced version of slashcode into working order. For some of the early pre-history of the site there is a very readable entry at https://operationsysadmin.smbfc.net/. This was a Herculean task, but they somehow managed in a couple week's time to get something running and opened it up to the world on February 16, 2014. The site had some "stability issues" at first, but these tenacious folk persevered and we are now fortunate to have a stable and functioning discussion system that is fast approaching five years of operation!

Some Statistics:

Since that inauspicious beginning we have seen:

  • 125 polls offered
  • 1,000 subscriptions to the site
  • 1,770 days of operation
  • 3,655 stories published to users' journals
  • 7,228 userids registered
  • 25,038 stories published to the site
  • 30,747 story submissions
  • 37,744 poll answers
  • 524,622 comment moderations
  • 772,179 comments posted

Check out the Hall of Fame for some additional statistics.

Volunteers:

It bears mentioning that this site and its operations are supported entirely by volunteers. Nobody has ever received any payment for their efforts. In my own case, I work retail and have no two weeks' schedule the same. During the holiday season work hours are extended; as an example, I am scheduled to work past midnight tonight and the same again tomorrow. There have been many times I have popped into the site during a break and (painfully) used my mobile phone to push out a couple stories. Others here also have outside activities and commitments yet make the time to keep this site up and running.

Deucalion keeps us cats herded and keeps an eye on our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) daemons. The Mighty Buzzard handles the vast majority of actual site maintenance and security certs as well. Audioguy and Mechanicjay quietly work behind the scenes and take care of e-mail as well as other sysadmin-y tasks. Ncommander and paulej72 hover around in the background to help out when needed. Then we have fyngyrz, xyem, and FatPhil who pop in and help out from time to time. Lastly, there are the editors who are the main face of the site. Theirs is the seemingly thankless task of choosing story submissions, making corrections as needed, and queuing them up to appear on the main page. To all of you, I offer a profound and deep "THANK YOU!"

[TMB Note: He's being modest and left out that he's both Editor in Chief and HMFIC of breaking all of the things.]

I would be remiss in not mentioning the many others who were critical in the site's creation and launch who have since moved on to other projects -- though they no longer contribute to the site, their efforts were key at the time and we would not be where we are today without their efforts.

We have a tight-knit group behind the scenes, but generally go about things with a sense of humor. If you'd like to be a part of what makes this site what it is, and are willing to work with our sometimes curmudgeon-ly group, just send an e-mail to "admin [at] soylentnews.org" or mention it in the comments.

Funding:

Though the staff is entirely volunteer, there are still actual costs to keeping this site operational: monthly server bills, domain fees, accountant charges for filing taxes, and the like.

We have never carried advertisements on this site. Thanks to the continuing generosity of the community, we hope to keep it that way.

As of this writing, of our $3,000 funding goal for the second half of the year, we have received approximately $1142.48 -- that's just 38.1%.

If you have already contributed, THANK YOU! (If you are in a position to do so, please consider extending your subscription.)

We have approximately 110 users who had previously subscribed to the site, and have logged into it in the past 30 days, whose subscription has lapsed. I'll be the first to admit that our reminders are not the best! Maybe that happened to you?

If you wish to remain anonymous, designate your subscription as a gift; by default it goes to "mcasadevall" who has UID 6.

You can check your subscription status on the Subscribe page. Specify whatever amount you'd like (the amount presented is the minimum required for that duration) and submit it. We accept payments via PayPal and Stripe. (NOTE: For Stripe payments, Javascript must be enabled as we link to their payment processing page and it requires Javascript.)

Whatever amount you choose IS appreciated!! Please subscribe now.

It's not just the numbers!

The thing that keeps me volunteering here, though, is not the minutia of site operations (though I have learned so much by watching pros at work!). It is the community. I've come to know and appreciate the points of view of many regular commenters here. I'm regularly reminded people just don't fit into simple, compartmentalized boxes. Certain grand strokes may be consistent, but I've lost track of the number of times when a post has caused me to step back and go "Whoah!" Some deeply-held thought or belief gets re-examined and I'm a better person for that introspection.

The Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) also keep me coming back for more. These folk know stuff about areas that I didn't even know were areas! I am humbled by their contributions; more detailed than the press kit blurbs, but not so erudite that I need to grok the entirety of their specialty.

Whatever your interest or contribution, SoylentNews is People! Thank-you seems so little, but mine is heart-felt. Thank-you to all of you who contribute to this site, whatever way that may be.


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:35PM (9 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:35PM (#777815) Journal

    > Maybe change the star's colour to orange when the end of the subscription is near.

    And when your subscription expires, make your star go supernova!

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:28PM (8 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:28PM (#777831) Homepage Journal

    Or turn it to a poop emoji?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:45PM (7 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:45PM (#777837) Journal

      Do you want to motivate the user to subscribe again, or to annoy them away from subscription?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:06PM (6 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:06PM (#777840) Homepage Journal

        With this crowd? It'd probably do even numbers of both. All joking aside, making the star flare in an obvious but unobtrusive manner every ten seconds or so, only for the subscriber in question when they're nearing expiration, might genuinely not be a bad idea.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:15PM (3 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:15PM (#777843) Journal

          Here's one. Give anybody whose subscription has lapsed a red star for 30 days.

          A badge of shame!

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:27PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:27PM (#777848) Homepage Journal

            Both maybe. Can take an unscientific poll later while it's getting tested on dev.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 23 2018, @10:02PM (1 child)

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday December 23 2018, @10:02PM (#777922) Homepage

            Well, if somebody's withholding their monies and being a Scrooge, I think a six-pointed yellow star with some black pixels resembling a four-letter word in the middle would be a lot more appropriate than a red or blinking star.

            And I am of course guilty of that this year. Next year, though, it looks like I'm gonna be back on track to have sheckels again, maybe even the will to start submitting again. I can also be a subject-matter expert in current-events and electronics.

        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday December 24 2018, @12:20AM (1 child)

          by acid andy (1683) on Monday December 24 2018, @12:20AM (#777958) Homepage Journal

          Yeah. On other sites people would probably wait just to see the animation. On SoylentNews they'll hand over big bucks just to make sure they don't have to look at animations! ;)
          You know--That's a nice user interface you have loaded up there in that browser of yours. Very slick and clean. Pretty interface. T'would be a shame if anything were to happen to it...

          --
          If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @03:58AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 24 2018, @03:58AM (#778021) Homepage Journal

            Like reup or get your theme forcibly switched to Vomit? Nah, cruel and unusual punishment. I'm currently thinking replace the "This page was generated by a Mob of Overworked Mongols for The Mighty Buzzard (18)." banner up top with a notice your subscription is about to expire or has expired within the last month. Possibly a small, non-animated but noticeable image next to it so it doesn't get automatically overlooked. Hell of a lot easier than figuring out why the bloody emails quit sending twice a year. I mean, you'd think they'd eventually surrender and stay working or at least not find an entirely new way to break for at least one billing cycle but nooooo...

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.