SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Here is a submission as a result from a conversation I had with mrcoolbp over email.
I want to present the following idea for a regularly-occurring SoylentNews story: a weekly promotion of an open source software project.
The current vision is to have a weekly post on the main page with an open source project presented (I suggest Sunday afternoon EST time, helping fill the slow news day). After a short description of the project and the normal collection of relevant links (homepage, downloads, etc.), the submitter presents the project to the SoylentNews community. This takes the form of an extended post (similar to the SoylentNews meta posts that often have a short blurb for main page and "Read more past the break").
Keep reading 'past the break' for more:
While we already see a number of open source related articles, typically they are associated with larger projects and with an "event". One of the ideas behind this proposal is to feature less popular projects during business as usual. I would encourage promoting projects which you have personal experience with, i.e. you develop for the project or are an avid user.In an effort to provide some independent journalism, the content 'past the break' is loosely defined. This could be a review or description of the software, an interview with the dev team, a story about how the software saved your life, poem, and so on. While I currently have these high and mighty dreams for the feature, I also want to encourage those who aren't as inspired by writing to post; SoylentNews is driven by our submissions, and I would rather read a short blurb than have no post.
When a post is selected, the highlighted project should be made aware, not only because it would be polite (and indirectly promote SoylentNews), but if the article goes live at a convenient time, perhaps the dev team might take part in the comment discussion.
What it will take to implement this idea:
- An "OSS Plug" topic (https://soylentnews.org/topics.pl). It could fall under other categories but it will be much easier to parse submissions with a dedicated topic.
- A decision on the permission required from the parent project. Many "contact us" emails are ignored, so would it be acceptable to make a post without warning the project?
- Submissions. Similar to regular articles, this could go dry if people don't participate.
- A selection process. If the SN team wants to own this or if a different solution is needed (I'm not familiar with what happens now).
A quick example (short as I don't use the software directly myself):
Weekly OSS: Slashcode!
Slashcode is an OSS project used to run news websites, in particular SoylentNews. From the developer's page:
Slash -- Slashdot Like Automated Storytelling Homepage -- is the code that runs Slashdot. More than that, however, Slash is an architecture for putting together web sites. It comes with functionality for posting articles, conducting polls, having discussions, and more; but it can be extended in innumerable ways.
Slash is written in Perl, and is built on top of Apache and mod_perl. It requires a database backend, though the only well-supported database used with it is MySQL (more databases will become well-supported as time goes on; PostgreSQL support is already well on its way). Slash is fast, scalable, and secure (as evidenced by one of the best test cases you could have, running Slashdot itself). Slash was originally written by CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal.
Through a plugin system, developers can add functionality to Slash. Through themes and templates (which are written using Template Toolkit), the look and feel of a Slash site can be customized.
Read more past the break:
For some reason I cannot put my finger on the first time I saw a website running Slashcode. It must have been ten years ago, but that is a big blur in my memory. I do remember the introduction of SoylentNews, the forefront news website running Slashcode.
Slashcode has a sophisticated commenting system for stories posted. What makes it so innovative is the rating system for each comment. This helps off topic comments get weeded out, and for the more insightful comments to be highlighted. This does depend on the community to prevent abuse, however I have seen very few cases of the commenting system fail.
Some improvements have been made to Slashcode in recent history, and the usability has evolved with the development of SoylentNews. I particularly like how gracefully the site fails thanks to the lack of javascript dependencies and the resulting clean interface.
There are also a number of features present that I have yet to use, and I am unsure how well they will integrate into the news website format. Particularly the Journals. Each user may make posts to their own user Journal. Beyond the site admins I see little need for this feature for regular users, and there are many other social media websites that provide similar functions. However, if this is the extent of feature creep I am satisfied with this project.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @05:19PM
I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that this is a terrible idea. This site really isn't that much different than Slashdot, and has most of the same demographic. So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.
This would be a great idea if we had a site that was exclusively focused on FOSS software, but this isn't that site. Slashdot is even worse: you can't post anything at all there about FOSS without getting tons of responses about how FOSS is all shit, MS software is the best, comments about RMS's hygiene, etc.
Here's a better idea: take your weekly OSS plug and post it on the appropriate Reddit forum instead. You don't see a lot of FOSS haters on /r/linux, for instance.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by fliptop on Monday May 04 2015, @06:08PM
Get rid of the "Disagree" mod. It was used twice in this thread and there were no follow-up arguments.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @07:29PM
That isn't going to help anything. People, when they have mod points, are going to down-vote anything they disagree with. If you eliminate the "Disagree" selection, they'll just use "Troll" or "Flamebait" or "Overrated".
The only way to fix moderation of this problem is to give mod points to everyone, not just to some lucky random people who abstain from commenting. Personally, I never moderate here or on Slashdot, and haven't for years, because the stupid mod system won't let me make comments if I do so (it undoes my mods). So, I simply abstain from moderation. If you want me to moderate, then you have to let me comment as well. I refuse to be an unbiased observer.
This is one reason Reddit is such a great platform: it doesn't have this idiotic moderation system. It's just up or down, and anyone can do it, not just some random person lucky enough to be blessed with mod points, and who also abstains from commenting. Yes, you get bad moderating sometimes, but it's outdone by the sheer number of people who are allowed to mod, and do so. And yes, it basically makes it a popularity contest, but that's what you get when you make something democratic. If you want everything carefully vetted, then you need a dedicated panel of moderators, and that means you need to carefully select such people and then employ them full-time in this capacity. Good luck funding that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sudo rm -rf on Monday May 04 2015, @08:17PM
I think everybody gets mod points here on SN on a daily basis (although there could be some restrictions, I haven't followed the relevant threads very closely..) And also I think Disagree gives +0, so no point-loss. And you *can* comment and moderate in the same thread.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @09:48PM
That isn't going to help anything. People, when they have mod points, are going to down-vote anything they disagree with. If you eliminate the "Disagree" selection, they'll just use "Troll" or "Flamebait" or "Overrated".
Truth. And since most everyone here knows Disagree is basically a no-op mod, a handful still resort to the others to lower score on things just for disagreement. I got marked Troll recently for saying that I don't think MS failing as a company would be a good thing because Apple or Google would likely fill its place and be worse. No arguments about why they thought I was wrong, just mark troll. And they waited a day or so after the story posting so nobody would go back and upmod me, too.
The only way to fix moderation of this problem is to give mod points to everyone, not just to some lucky random people who abstain from commenting.
You get mod points every day here. It even says it in the sidebar: "You get 5 points per day, given out at 00:10 UTC. "
Personally, I never moderate here or on Slashdot, and haven't for years, because the stupid mod system won't let me make comments if I do so (it undoes my mods). So, I simply abstain from moderation. If you want me to moderate, then you have to let me comment as well. I refuse to be an unbiased observer.
SN hasn't had mod-or-post since the first couple months. It was one of the first things on SN to deviate from the Slashdot way of doing things. The system has been tweaked twice so far, the first allowed you to mod-then-post (no more moderation after posting), and the current is mod-and-post (you can post before and after moderation, just not on your own comments).
You wrote two paragraphs denigrating the mod system while showing you don't even know anything about how it works here. Sure, it's still true about Slashdot -- the site's basically stagnant and unlikely to improve -- but if you paid more attention here you might find you like some of the new features the devs here are adding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:02PM
You should make sure that you read the stories that appear Re: S/N's updates to Slash/Slashcode (and the comments therein).
You are way behind the curve.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:57AM
I agree with your comments about "disagree" though. The other down mod options are still very much being used as "disagree" currently anyway, which is a shame. I'm a big fan of "disagree" as it's honest. 3 disonest tossers without the wits to form a counter-argument just "trolled" one of my recent posts simply because I said something that clashed with their worldview, when it was clear that "-1 disagree" or "-1 because I feel butthurt" would have been more honest. That reminded me of the existence of the old /. metamod system, which we've not adopted here. No system's perfect, certainly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @07:00PM
Use Reddit and help a company that employs Ellen Pao? No thanks.
We could use some weekend traffic, as it seems everyone visits here from their work. In fact the weekend is the perfect time for this sort of not-quite-main-page material.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @07:35PM
You dislike a website because their CEO filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against someone? Are you a chauvinist or something? Have you looked into this site's management and whether any of them have been involved in lawsuits?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @09:36PM
Had she won I wouldn't be against their corporate empire for that reason but some other equally bogus one.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:50PM
I usually read the weekend stores on the following Monday, but even then this is a good choice. Because this is something that won't be stale two or three days later when I finally get around to it. Might even be able to keep discussions up for a few days, especially if some of the actual developers decide to pop in.
Also might start bringing me to Soylent outside of work, as pretty soon we'd be building up a pretty nice repository of lesser-known software. I use the Linux Action Show for this sometimes -- if I'm building a new system I'll remember them talking about some potentially useful software for that a few weeks back. But digging through their shownotes is a huge pain, and looking for something out of the hour or two of video is even worse. Even if we covered the same stuff I'd be more likely to look here first because I could actually search the text or skim the titles.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @08:57PM
So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys...
Admittedly I've been out of the Slashdot loop for over two years so maybe my information is out of date, but is this statement really true? I ask because Slashdot spent over a decade presenting articles that were blatantly bashing Microsoft, sometimes even to the point of flat out lying about the details. Eventually people started started actually reading the MS articles and responding to the BS that was being fed to them. These people were labeled 'Fanboys', not because they forgave anything MS did, but because they didn't want to jump on the blind-hate-bandwagon.
... and open-source/free-software haters.
Who hates free software? Are you sure you're not counting people who prefer the commercial version of an OSS app because it better suits their needs? I've seen that counted a lot that way, but it's not actually hate.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @09:21PM
Admittedly I've been out of the Slashdot loop for over two years so maybe my information is out of date,
This is probably your problem. Slashdot seems to be completely filled with MS shills these days. I don't mean people who just don't want to jump on the "blind-hate-bandwagon", or people who prefer particular commercial software for utilitarian reasons, I mean outright shills.
When someone says FOSS app X isn't good enough because it doesn't have features A, B, and C, that's understandable. When someone says "Linux is written by amateurs", "go suck on Stallman's cock", etc., that's either a shill or a fanboy. Slashdot is mostly populated by the latter these days.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @09:35PM
"...go suck on Stallman's cock", etc., that's either a shill or a fanboy. Slashdot is mostly populated by the latter these days.
Every time I've seen that the preceding comment used words like "windoze" or referred to problems dating back to the Win9x line.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Touché) by moondrake on Monday May 04 2015, @09:41PM
Wait a second...almost everybody who posted here likes it but you do not like it because you assert we have too many people who will not like it.....
and then in a sibling post you complain about moderating problems this site does not have anymore.
Maybe tell us what you are smoking?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @10:17PM
I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that this is a terrible idea. This site really isn't that much different than Slashdot, and has most of the same demographic. So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.
Even if that's true here -- and I'm not so sure it is -- why should that be reason to not do it? Is there some kind of "no Windows lusers allowed" requirement to have your software considered FOSS? Open source software tends to be cross-platform, so even Windows users can benefit from learning about it. Sure, some projects are BSD/Linix only, but there's also OS X-only or even even Windows-only open source software, too. Until recently, Open Broadcaster Software [obsproject.com] was Windows-only (it's cross-platform now), and it's GPL software, for example.
Slashdot is even worse: you can't post anything at all there about FOSS without getting tons of responses about how FOSS is all shit, MS software is the best, comments about RMS's hygiene, etc.
This isn't Slashdot. Why do you keep complaining about the behaviour and problems of Slashdot as justification for how things should be here?
Here's a better idea: take your weekly OSS plug and post it on the appropriate Reddit forum instead. You don't see a lot of FOSS haters on /r/linux, for instance.
Great idea, everybody should go post to an echo chamber instead of risking having anti-Linux taint touch the hallowed FOSS projects.
There are some really good projects out there that could use more exposure, and most of them don't care what OS you use. Bringing things like Krita [krita.org], Synfig Studio [synfig.org], Zim [zim-wiki.org], or any number of other free software projects to the attention of more people is a good thing.
There are also some interesting language projects like Mirah [mirah.org], Crystal [crystal-lang.org], and Red [red-lang.org] that might attract much-needed developers via the exposure. Why limit it to just Linux users?
Occasionally having non-portable stuff like niche window managers (Notion [sourceforge.net], for example), less-common shells (fish [fishshell.com]), or maybe even a review of a niche OS like Syllable [syllable.org] could be fun once in a while. Info about FOSS mobile apps could be useful to readers, too; f-droid is nice, but lacks screenshots or reviews, so it's hard to tell if something on it is good.
(For anybody interested: there you go, ten potential write-ups for this feature. Have fun)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 05 2015, @01:08AM
Even if that's true here -- and I'm not so sure it is -- why should that be reason to not do it? Is there some kind of "no Windows lusers allowed" requirement to have your software considered FOSS?
It has nothing to do with Windows users or FOSS software running on Windows (or Macs), it has to do with MS shills and sycophants who spend all their time bashing FOSS (regardless of what platform it runs on).
Why is this a problem? Simple: who wants to try to have a rational discussion in the presence of an overwhelming number of nasty, bashing messages? It becomes so tiresome that all the quality contributors simply leave.
This isn't Slashdot
It isn't much better. It's mostly the same crowd.
Great idea, everybody should go post to an echo chamber
Not wanting to see countless posts making fun of FOSS users and bashing FOSS as "amateur" is not what I consider an "echo chamber".
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:51AM
it has to do with MS shills and sycophants who spend all their time bashing FOSS (regardless of what platform it runs on).
Why is this a problem? Simple: who wants to try to have a rational discussion in the presence of an overwhelming number of nasty, bashing messages? It becomes so tiresome that all the quality contributors simply leave
So, what, we're not supposed to discuss anything because somebody might start trolling? Don't feed the damn trolls, that's been internet rule #1 for a long time. Downmod the people. If it's the same people, set them to enemy and give enemies -6 so they're permanently in mod-hell for you.
For what it's worth, the only hardcore MS sycophant here seems to be Hairyfeet, at least that I've noticed. Though I wouldn't be surprised if a few anti-MS extremists here would count me as one -- despite not even using Windows -- because I'm more "meh, don't care" than "omg screw you" about MS these days. There is a fair share of AC trolling, but it seems to just be the same few people trolling for the hell of it, like the "systemd troll" and MikeeUSA.
If anything, the general tone here is heavily slanted toward Linux/BSDs and FOSS, rather than against. I've noticed that even saying something neutral about MS tends to attract downmods, and the responses to this summary have been overwhelmingly positive. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression you've got, but it seems way off base in my experience.
It isn't much better. It's mostly the same crowd.
I have to disagree. I still check Slashdot articles and the general discussion here, especially on topic overlap, is far more civil and generally more tolerant of dissenting opinion, at least on tech topics. The politics stories are a minefield, but they always are.
The big exception is MikeeUSA hovering around the edges, posting AC. He's doing it on Slashdot too -- I've seen the same posts show up in both places -- but gets drowned out by the volume of people there, whereas here he gets noticed more. He might be why you think there's a large "MS shill" problem here, actually, because he's got a personal vendetta against Debian and "contributes" to discussions by trashing it (and systemd, lately) any chance he gets.
Not wanting to see countless posts making fun of FOSS users and bashing FOSS as "amateur" is not what I consider an "echo chamber".
Suggesting talk of FOSS be restricted to FOSS-only sites and "appropriate" reddit forums because you "don't see a lot of FOSS haters" there is suggesting that discussion only be conducted in an echo chamber.