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posted by NCommander on Monday June 08 2020, @01:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the somewhat-overdue dept.

As promised, here's the round-table discussion post that I said on Wednesday was coming. We have a long history at SoylentNews of listening and responding to our community; I genuinely hope that never changes. I also recognize that I may have ruffled some feathers in the last few weeks with original content postings so here's the best place to get this all out.

I am mindful of the community's support and goodwill; I don't want to squander any of it. Yes, there are times where my hand may be forced (e.g., DCMA takedowns). Still, I'm always a bit hesitant whenever I post on the main site for anything that isn't site update news or similar. I may be the de facto site leader, but I want my submissions to be treated like anyone else's — I want no favoritism. The editorial team does review my stories and signs off before they go live (unless it's an "emergency" situation such as the last time we blew up the site). However, as the saying goes, the buck stops with me.

SoylentNews accepts original content. I'm also aware that I've probably submitted the most original content so far (See "Previously", below for some examples). I'm grateful for the community's apparent acceptance of my submissions and the positive responses to them. What I don't know is if there is an undercurrent of displeasure with these. Maybe everyone thinks these are all fine. Then again, maybe somebody has an issue with them. Rather than assume anything, let's get it all out in the open.

What I want to cover in this round-table discussion is original content and having images in posts as well as topics such as yesterday's Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020.

So, contributors and commenters to SoylentNews, get that Reply button hot and let me hear your feedback. As usual, either a member of staff or I will respond to your comments below,

73 de NCommander

Previously:
(2020-06-03) Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020
(2020-05-24) Retrotech: The Novell NetWare Experience
(2020-05-14) Exploring Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - Early 90s Networking
(2020-05-10) Examining Windows 1.0 HELLO.C - 35 Years of Backwards Compatibility
(2020-05-15) Meta: Having a Chat about SoylentNews' Internet Relay Chat
(2018-10-25) My Time as an ICANN Fellow
(2017-10-09) soylentnews.org experiencing DNSSEC issues
(2017-04-20) Soylentnews.org is Moving to Gentoo...
(2017-04-17) SN Security Updates: CAA, LogJam, HTTP Method Disable, and 3DES
(2017-03-13) Xenix 2.2.3c Restoration: Xrossing The X (Part 4)

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @02:24PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @02:24PM (#1004826)

    My vote is only allow photos in the article. And... hopefully no banner ads, pop ups, pop unders, or crypto miners.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by NCommander on Monday June 08 2020, @02:37PM

    by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday June 08 2020, @02:37PM (#1004829) Homepage Journal

    This is specifically why we don't use the YouTube embedded player. It would let Google track whoever loaded up the main page. Same goes for ... basically any embedded web player, and I don't know if its really worth the effort to add one to SN. There is the video tag so we won't necessarily need JS but each video file is 500-700 MiB. We have a lot of bandwidth but that's going to add up quick.

    I do admit the screenshot of the "play button" looks a bit tacky, but it at least gets the job done.

    --
    Still always moving
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DECbot on Monday June 08 2020, @04:01PM (5 children)

    by DECbot (832) on Monday June 08 2020, @04:01PM (#1004864) Journal

    I second this as well.
     
    To add, I think photos for original content is appropriate. However, photos from linked articles (even if used within the legal scope of DCMA) is detracting and would encourage more bandwidth usage for the site--thus increasing the hosting costs of SN. A photo would be a quick identifier of content that is a SN exclusive or original.

    --
    cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Monday June 08 2020, @07:15PM (4 children)

      by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday June 08 2020, @07:15PM (#1004952) Journal

      Hmmm... how would the editors be able to be sure the photos are original and that I created them? Maybe I took the photos from Wikimedia. Or maybe I took some non-obvious ones from Disney.

      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday June 08 2020, @07:58PM (1 child)

        by DECbot (832) on Monday June 08 2020, @07:58PM (#1004975) Journal

        The same way the AP knows photos are taken by their photographers, ultimately they don't.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @10:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @10:52PM (#1005022)

          The AP can write checks to lawyers/settlements to cover their ass that SN can't even imagine.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @03:02PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @03:02PM (#1005200)

        Personally, I'm happy that SN has no images--I'd probably turn them off if an option appeared.

        To parent--one quick way to check for image source/(C) is TinEye.com -- they don't have everything, but the site has been around for years and they have a lot of images to compare to.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:53PM

        You'd need to include a selfie with your driver's license, video of you creating said image, and a note from your mom certifying that nobody else has ever made said image before.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2020, @05:51PM (7 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday June 08 2020, @05:51PM (#1004920) Journal

    I vote against all images.

    If something needs an image, it can be by link elsewhere. The character of the site will change with images and if allowed in the comments, it will become even more antagonistic. Just look at twitter and facebook and all of the cruel, logically flawed, worthless memes for proof.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 08 2020, @05:54PM (4 children)

      A blanket "no" under all circumstances then?

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2020, @06:18PM (3 children)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Monday June 08 2020, @06:18PM (#1004933) Journal

        yes.

        Images are what links were invented for.

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 08 2020, @06:51PM (1 child)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday June 08 2020, @06:51PM (#1004946) Journal

          I agree, the unicode is bad enough!

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:26AM

          by coolgopher (1157) on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:26AM (#1005085)

          I agree. There is no need for images to be displayed for articles. Links to images are fine.

          If there's original content, maybe that content should live elsewhere (blogspot or whatever is around these days) and we link to it like any other post?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @10:08PM (#1005016)

      Here is one. Just imagine what Mr. Hudson's journal posts would look like if he were able to embed images. And then there are the security issues involved in handling them, the privacy issues from linking/embeding, or the liability from hosting them.