Myself and other submitters have noticed that articles are being edited to change the tone and intent of our stories.
Soylentil McD has suggested that "Minor edits, spelling corrections, and such, are no problem and to be expected." but "I think soylent editors should adhere to a policy of not putting words in the submitter's mouth".
I agree with that. If the editors want to add their own two cents, they can respond inline like the rest of us. Their role here is to be responsible, not privileged.
The stories we submit are a reflection of our enthusiasms and beliefs, the tone and character of those posts is as much part of the submitter's story as the actual content. The community is what makes sites like SN and Slashdot before it, an eclectic community with a wide range of opinions, styles and passions will always be more active and interesting than a bland monoculture. SN's editors should embrace and encourage that diversity, not sabotage it to appease some corporate interests.
So what do other Soylentils think? Should the submissions be allowed to stand as a clear reflection of the community's intent, or should the editors change our submissions to suit their perception of suitability?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:24PM
The problem could be solved by including with every summary a link to the original submission, so people can see for themselves just how much things have changed -- that way would save the staff some effort and leave it up to the community to call out any differences.
Honestly, though, I think this incident was blown out of proportion. The editors deal with with a lot of submissions and occasionally fuck up like everybody else does. My recent submission about multiculturalism was actually edited to be less inflammatory than the original submission, and with that I have no problem.
The only minor gripe I have about the editing process is that stylistic writing (in a conversational tone rather than grammatically correct, for example) that enriches the submission is sometimes changed to sound more formal. And pet-peeves are for assholes, but one of my little stylistic pet-peeves is seeing something like:
It just kinda throws the rhythm off, you know?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:51PM
And pet-peeves are for assholes, so one of my [...]
FTFY.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:44PM
It would be nice if the site had a "submitted by" field as part of the header like the "posted by" that indicates the editor. Like this, without the hosts showing:
Submitted by sigma [mailto], posted by n1 [soylentnews.org] on Sunday May 24, @06:06AM.
This would also make it easier for our editors since they wouldn't need to manually create the "So-and-so writes:" line. And this would also allow the block-submitter feature that some users request occasionally.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 24 2015, @08:11PM
Agreed, that would make the problem go away, and allow the original submitter's lead in to prevail.
OTOH, there is no reason why we need to start off our submissions with the cited article up front. (I admit I do this myself quite a bit). You can open the submission with a table setter paragraph, or even with your own opinion, and then drift into the supporting quotes and links.
Since we all know that the "submitter" writes.... is going to be there, we can try to work around it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by GoodBookOfTaunts on Monday May 25 2015, @03:09AM
Seconded. Including the original would help reveal how much editing is happening. Even better world be a diff tool to quickly show the alterations. Right now the amount of editing performed is difficult to gauge and seems like it is only measured anecdotally.
With data it's also possible to automate measuring the habits of different editors, at least with respect to quantity.