SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the trying-to-please-the-Momma-Bear,-the-Papa-Bear-AND-the-Baby-Bear dept.
We get a lot of story submissions here on SoylentNews. Well over 37,000 so far and still counting. (THANK YOU!)
We occasionally see a story submission from an Anonymous Coward or new user that is an obvious attempt to increase the number of views of the linked story. We regularly decline to publish those stories. The self-seeking or self-promoting aspect is rather obvious. Or they have a political viewpoint they want to spearhead. They stand out from the more mainstream stories that you have seen posted here over the past 5+ years.
The next-scheduled story gave me pause.
I was somewhat hesitant because of the foregoing reasons. But, I decided to accept it anyway and I'd like to explain my reasoning. One, the story submission comes right out and candidly admits it is from the author. Two, the story provides a level-headed description of a technical problem, its causes, and suggestions for mitigations. Three, it provides reasons why the suggested changes would be beneficial to all readers; not just people in the target audience. Further, the submitter has been an active member and contributor to the site — even before it went live. I've seen him at work and have never seen any self-seeking behavior or pushing of an agenda of any kind. Quite the contrary, all of the contributions I have seen have been strictly for the benefit of the site and the community. Lastly, the submission had been reviewed by another editor and the only question is the one that is now posed to you here.
What do you think?
Is this the first step down a slippery slope? Should we have a "bright line" policy that strictly rejects even the appearance of self-promotion? Should the editors just use their best judgement, based on their past experience and informed from the feedback to this story? Other?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @10:08AM (4 children)
I am impressed, firstly, by the fact that martyb is thinking and asking about the issues he raised, and secondly, by the positive nature of the replies from other people in the comments so far. I wish other sites had more editors and readers like this. I take it as a sign of the high integrity of SN, its editors, and its readers.
As a new reader of SN, I have been enjoying SN's selection of high-quality science and technology stories. I really appreciate how science stories are supported by proper citations to science journals, using a consistent DOI citation format.
Thank you for a great site.
I was planning in any case to make a donation to SN at some point. After reading this article by martyb, I want to donate a significantly bigger amount. Does SN have any alternative to Paypal as a method of accepting payments?
W
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:02PM (2 children)
You can use a regular card.
I'd also add when you hit the Subscribe link you can buy gift memberships for other Soylentils. I do a couple of those every year as a Secret Santa sort of deal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:37PM (1 child)
Do you have a link to a page where it is possible to pay by card? I can find nothing at all related to card payments or any other methods of payment on any of SN's front page, the Finance page on the wiki, the FAQ, etc.
W
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:57PM
It's the 'Buy gift sub' [soylentnews.org] link on the left.
*if* you're logged in, that link is labeled "subscriptions."
Since you can't buy a subscription for 'Anonymous Coward', that makes sense, yes?
As such, if you wish to subscribe for yourself, create an account (top right of the main page [soylentnews.org]), log in and then subscribe. As you go through that process, you will be prompted for a payment method. One of those methods is credit card (via Stripe [stripe.com], as I understand it).
If you don't wish to create an account, but still wish to contribute, you can use the 'buy gift sub' link (see above) and purchase a gift sub. You can apply that to any existing user you like (e.g., NCommander is uid '6' and MDC is '2239').
If you have problems, I'm sure someone would be happy to help if you posted in this thread, or join the #soylent IRC channel [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:41PM
Hi! Thank you SO much for the kind words — they are VERY much appreciated!
As you may not be aware, SoylentNews receives absolutely NO outside funding. ALL of our funding comes from subscriptions by its members. Though all staff are volunteers (nobody here has ever been paid anything for their work on the site), we DO have expenses in the form of server hosting, domain name registration, tax filing (and a CPA to do same), etc.
As for how to subscribe, there are two "paths." It depends if you want to sign up anonymously (as an "Anonymous Coward") or as a registered user.
Registered users get a nickname under which they can post their comments (but one can still post "anonymously" if so desired). They can also moderate comments posted here to help increase visibility of Insightful, Interesting, Informative, etc. comments as well as reduce the visibility of Troll and Flamebait comments. Further, you can then set preferences as to what level comments you want to see and how you want to see them arranged on the story page. There's much more, but that should give you a rough idea.
Registered users who subscribe get benefits such as a shiny star graphic attached to each of their comments (though you can toggle that off in your preferences) as well as relaxed restrictions on comment posting frequency. See the Why Subscribe FAQ [soylentnews.org] for details.
We have just over 8800 nicks registered to the site, so you can still get a coveted 4-digit UID (User ID number). I, for example, registered very early on and have UID 76.
Important: Before I go any further, we do not perform any processing locally; you need to enable Javascript before loading the Subscription page so we can present the payment processor's form.
When completed, we get notification through a backend process that a payment has been received, as well as the gross amount, fees, and net amount.
Anyway, back to subscribing, yes, you can subscribe either using PayPal or using Stripe. PayPal, obviously, allows you to use your PayPal account.
For those who do not have a PayPal account, or choose to use a different form of payment, we offer Stripe. They accept most major credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, JCB, and UnionPay.)
Links to the subscription page appear under our affectionately nicknamed "Beg-o-Meter" where you see graphical and textual depictions of our funding goal and progress so far (where it says "Subscribe Here"). Registered users also see a "Subscribe" link on the left-hand side of the home page under "Navigation" and then under "You". Either way it links you to our Subscription Page [soylentnews.org].
The layout varies if you are accessing that page as a logged-in, registered user or anonymously. You can either buy the subscription for yourself (registered user only) or as a gift. Select the recipient's UID or yourself, as appropriate, and then proceed to the Duration and Price part of the form.
This is important: the dollar amount shown is the minimum amount required for that duration. If you so desire, you can replace the suggested amount with any larger value. We are extremely grateful for any extra contribution you may wish to make. The vast majority of subscriptions are less than $100.00, but we have see more than 40 subscriptions exceeding $100.00. Lastly, though rare, we have had 7 subscriptions ranging from $500-$1000 for which we are exceedingly grateful!
I hope this has been helpful. I expect I've omitted something here, and if so, please accept my humble apologies. As your experience may be helpful to others, feel free to reply here. Or, you can reach out to admin(at)soylentnews.org, or pop onto IRC (Internet Relay Chat) [soylentnews.org] and ask around on there. It's not as active as it used to be, but if there's someone around, they are usually quite willing to help!
I am proud to be a part of this community which pulls together their resources — each contributing as they are able — to make this site possible. Thank you for your interest in supporting our efforts!
--martyb
Wit is intellect, dancing.