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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)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DECbot on Monday June 08 2020, @04:01PM (5 children)
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)
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)
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
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
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.