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posted by NCommander on Monday March 10 2014, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the i-am-so-fucking-sick-of-this-drama dept.

Update: 10 March 2014 20:20 UTC. Follow here for the latest.

Update: 10 March 2014 19:10 UTC.

At this point Barrabas reports he is exchanging email with the buyer but refuses to say anything. Until we hear from them, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst. If this link goes down, please go to the linode site where we will regroup. We will use that link as a fallback if necessary.

Update: 10 March 2014 18:30 UTC.

Barrabas reports in IRC he has received funds for the site and has sold the domain name. The terms of this sale, as well as its buyer, have not been disclosed. We await additional information. If you have information on this, please contact us at admin @ soylentnews . org

Update: 10 March 2014 16:30 UTC.

Due to NCommander's personal involvement with the situation he is recusing himself from negotiations. I (Mattie_p) am currently working with the staff to figure out how to address this incident. We have posted a poll which is available and should show up shortly on the front page.

Original text:

We've been held hostage by John:

Working with NCommander
Am I The Bad Guy

Right now, I can't write a coherent response properly (I'm writing this from a Mac Store right now as some sort of response was necessary). Despite John's offer, we never used the Linode's he purchased for hosting slash, and the two services (forums and wiki) that were hosted on them were migrated. I had hoped that this would have been a private issue between me and John, to be handed by email with a proper agreement, but the site itself is now at risk.

Right now, I'm organizing a response with out staff now, but I won't be home for several hours so MrBluze is currently handling the crisis. He can hand off to mattie_p when he returns, or myself when I have proper net access again. John's offer does not reflect myself or any of the staff here, nor does he have what he says he has. The web server, dev server (fusion forge), and database were always hosted on Linode's on my personal account. John DID have access to the Linode account which was revoked when he left staff, but to my knowledge never had the root password or shell accounts on any of the boxes. That access was revoked. It is possible he has a copy of the database, I do not know for sure. He does not at this moment have access to any of the hardware powering the site. He does however control the DNS register and can possibly yank the site from under us. If that happens, I can send a mass email to every user account to inform them of what happened, and where we are now. We supposedly have until Friday until John drops everything in the trash unless someone pays him $2000 USD. As per the posts, I was willing to pay him, but I had some issue with the expenses as written (my emails are genuine, as is the email I received from John), but I'm currently in Asia, and have no practical way to send him a check until I return to the continental United States on Sunday; I informed John of this on IRC originally.

We're currently in scramble mode to try and organize a new name, and getting migrated as soon as possible. I was serious when I said I was done with the drama but it appears John isn't. I'm personally sorry to have to inflict this on the community, and if you wish to leave us, I shall not blame you in the slightest.

Related Stories

Backup Plan During Transition 146 comments

Update: The staff is in conversation with the buyer right now. More to follow, but at this point it looks to be a benevolent benefactor from the community. More to follow as we get it.

SoylentNews community:

As you know, there is not a lot of information available right now. Barrabas reports that he has sold the Soylentnews.org and associated domain names, and successfully transferred them, but neither the buyer's name nor the terms of that sale have been disclosed. As spokesperson for the staff of the site during this time, we would like everyone to know the following:

Our current backup plan is to revert to the li694-22.members.linode.com where the site is actually hosted. If we need to go there for any reason, we will try to notify the site in advance. If it has to go down or we are forced down, we'll be there. We will rebuild the database with some downtime and work from there.

We will send out a mass email to all users from the database informing them of this step should we need to do so.

We do not plan to implement this yet. We (the staff) did not advocate the buyout, but will try and work with the buyer if possible. We do not know the terms on which the domain name was sold.

We the staff will still operate the site, in its current condition on linode, until the community can vote on a new name. Depending on the buyer, we hope we can consider keeping the name the same as an option.

Until we know more information, we would like everyone to remain calm, collected, and civil, while we sort through these issues. Thank you

~mattie_p

Status Update: 12 March 2014 100 comments

I promised that we, the staff, would provide a quick status report after all the drama on Monday. The site issues today delayed that, and I thank juggs in IRC for reminding me of my promise. We've been very transparent and we want to continue that trend. Most of the comments we've seen have been encouraging of this method. However, we hope the transparency will result in less drama and in more productivity in the future.

On Tuesday, 4 March 2014, Barrabas, the "Man Behind the Curtain" resigned from his position. In his resignation, he retained ownership of the domain Soylentnews.org and associated domain registrations, as well as certain accounts on linode.com, our host. (See our article on backup plans.) Read more inside.

Meta: The Return of NCommander - Reprise 5 comments

It's been a long while since I wrote one of these, and well, to say things are depressing is very much an understatement. It's been over eight years since we first went online, and the world has literally changed several times over. Presidential elections, a global pandemic, war in Europe, and well, we've been here through it all. It's a testament to our staying power that SN has remained online through it all, as a volunteer and community driven project.

That's not to say it's all been good news though ...

About two years ago, I de-facto resigned from the project after internal conflicts, and SoylentNews has slowly been rotting to death. To say the state of the backend is bad is very much an understatement. I found the SN emails were on spam blocklists, and well, I won't even talk about the state of the software ATM. It's holding together mostly out of the sheer amount of overengineering, and good intentions. The last major overhaul was I did when the site was migrated to rehash 7 years ago ... yeah it's been awhile ...

At this point, I think we need to talk about where we're going, because its either going to be long slow painful death, an execution, or an attempted comeback tour. This is your host NCommander, and today, we're going to look towards the future ...

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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by d on Monday March 10 2014, @11:34AM

    by d (523) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:34AM (#13827)

    Crap, I already had 18 karma and a 3-digit ID!

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by xlefay on Monday March 10 2014, @11:40AM

      by xlefay (65) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:40AM (#13834) Journal

      We're not leaving! We will change domain, that's for sure. But everything will stay the same.

      I suggest everyone that's interested in real time discussion and updates joins us at http://chat.sylnt.us/ [sylnt.us]

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by buswolley on Monday March 10 2014, @06:24PM

        by buswolley (848) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:24PM (#14157)

        I liked the name soylentnews...after a while.

        --
        subicular junctures
        • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday March 10 2014, @07:34PM

          by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:34PM (#14194)

          Soylent News IS people,
          Soylent Green WAS People.

          Soylent News is now grinding up the executive staff and there will soon be enough for all to eat........

          --
          Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
      • (Score: 1) by Reziac on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:15AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:15AM (#14447) Homepage

        Okay, I can log in with the browser, but for the life of me I don't see how to post. No "enter text here" type field. [scratching head]

        I like the silly name, so there.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by marcello_dl on Monday March 10 2014, @11:43AM

      by marcello_dl (2685) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:43AM (#13839)

      well think about all the karma you left on /.

      Migrating everything to something like diaspora would be an interesting long term solution, right now I'll just have patience (whatever editors are doing, it's something i am grateful for).

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by lx on Monday March 10 2014, @12:00PM

      by lx (1915) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:00PM (#13864)

      Meh those are merely numbers in a database. The real world karma expended by all this drama is the real shame.

      Switch to tea or decaf take a couple of deep breaths, talk it out and find a solution. No need to ruin a perfectly good site with heated emotions.

      I know it's easy for me to say it because I'm not directly involved, but I think it's advice both sides could benefit from.

      The best of luck with finding that solution.

      • (Score: 2) by Jerry Smith on Monday March 10 2014, @01:55PM

        by Jerry Smith (379) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:55PM (#13948) Journal

        Meh those are merely numbers in a database.

        Easy for you to say, mister 4-number-id.

        Back on topic: it's time for some decisions to be made. It needs to become a non-profit so they can generate some tax-free income by ads or donations. etc.

        --
        All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
        • (Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday March 10 2014, @11:07PM

          by mojo chan (266) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:07PM (#14351)

          379? Pfft. Half the reason I come here is to be a low UID snob.

          --
          const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
          • (Score: 1) by ragequit on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:23AM

            by ragequit (44) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:23AM (#14453) Journal

            3 digits? pshaw.

            --
            The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by TWiTfan on Monday March 10 2014, @12:37PM

      by TWiTfan (2428) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:37PM (#13887)

      It's sad, but not uncommon. Most forks end up falling apart with squabbling. Just look at the mess that Linux is in.

      I've got to say, though, that the speed at which this one has fallen apart has surprised even me. It's a pretty good indication that the "management" had no fucking clue what they were getting themselves in for from the get-go. So it's probably for the best that they just disappear.

      A good Slashdot fork may come along one day, but it obviously won't be led by these bunch of numbnuts.

      --
      If real life were like D&D, my Charisma score would be a negative number
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:57PM (#13951)

        Especially when the guy claimed this was "all about the community". Since the point that he "amicably" stepped down it seems his true motivations have come through which was to build a fiefdom for himself. It seems he can't stand that the site does not need him and as such is going to try to raze the place as a way to get back at the guy he squabbled with.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by mrcoolbp on Monday March 10 2014, @02:16PM

        by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Monday March 10 2014, @02:16PM (#13969) Homepage

        Believe me, this is NOT falling apart. Things exploded rapidly, more quickly then we imagined. We'll have this sorted out, just give it a little time.

        Remember this is what /. looked like in 1998:

        http://web.archive.org/web/19980113192107/http://s lashdot.org/slashdot.cgi?mode=article&artnum=429 [archive.org]

        --
        (Score:1^½, Radical)
        • (Score: 1) by Reziac on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:17AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:17AM (#14448) Homepage

          I find it hilarious that one of the articles on that page is headlined as "Boycott".

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @05:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @05:18AM (#14489)

      soylent news... is news

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Hell_Rok on Monday March 10 2014, @11:37AM

    by Hell_Rok (2527) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:37AM (#13829) Homepage

    I hope you get this all sorted out. I've been enjoying this place.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:31PM (#13980)

      I say we have them duke it out, a fistfight, like Solid Snake and Grey Fox. Or Solid Snake and Liquid Ocelot. And that fistfight must be on a cliff overlooking the ocean during sunset, with seagulls and cherry blossoms flying around and shit.

      Then the winner could uppercut the loser into the ocean, and then the whole ocean would turn red because red is the color of blood and blood is the color of death. And letters could appear on screen, like "FATALITY." Those letters should also be red and perhaps orange to grab the spectators' attention.

      That would be awesome.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Peristaltic on Monday March 10 2014, @05:35PM

        by Peristaltic (3122) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:35PM (#14130)

        I say we have them duke it out, a fistfight...

        Call me crazy, but for some reason, I'm visualizing the fight between Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali in the gym, or maybe the Karate match between Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.

        .

        This whole thing is living proof of how so much of the time, people that are technically very bright end up, in the long term, working underneath technically incompetent management... or they slide into academia, and as PhD's torment the shit out of everyone underneath them- either with some idealistic justification, or without realizing that they're doing it.

        .

        Hell, I'm friends with an MD that is a genius in his field- he's boarded in emergency and internal medicine as well as in neurology- I mean multiple residencies and the whole 18 yards. While there is literally nobody I'd rather have working on me in the ER, in the every day management of his life, he manages to fuck up each and every endeavor he attempts, from picking and managing a nanny, to handling the rennovation of his house- He's ended up in court several times; he decides some ideal is correct, is unable/unwilling to compromise, then vacilitates between obstinately standing his ground on principal, and self-righteous indignation- and eventually feels that he's been "wronged" by everyone. He'll ask for help making decisions, then ignores any advice that doesn't match what he was planning on doing anyway. I sit back and watch the slow-motion train wreck unfold each time, then commiserate with him after the dust settles- I do not try to "fix" or counsel him about what he did wrong- after making *that* mistake twice, now I'm just there for the guy and listen to his woes.

        These guys, especially the AI student, are cast from the same mold. When I read:

        This sordid affair has left me soured on the entire community. Slashdot users think we're a bunch of spoiled crybabies, and 'ya know what? I agree. I'm not a member of this community, and now that I'm an outcast I see that I don't *want* to be a member.

        I'm not a nerd, I'm a scientist. Go do your own thing, I wash my hands of you.

        UPDATE

        I've had several offers for the site - thank you. I'm contacting the first one and then I'm gone.

        ...I see the same thing- A tremendous impedance mis-match between intellect and self-awareness/emotional IQ.

        The petulant, pouting, lack of self-awarness is typical: He'll do great in academia, but God help him if he moves into industry without someone to buffer between him and the suits.

        After working as a consultant for IBM for a number of years, I decided to earn a PhD- I got as far as an MS, but after observing similar behavior from 75% of the PhD's I worked with, I bailed. Ironically, I now manage the IT department of that large university; my two bosses are MD/PhDs, and I spend about a third of my time buffering: 1)them from each other 2)my staff from them 3)them from the university system's IT director.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday March 10 2014, @06:45PM

          by edIII (791) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:45PM (#14174)

          This sordid affair has left me soured on the entire community. Slashdot users think we're a bunch of spoiled crybabies, and 'ya know what? I agree. I'm not a member of this community, and now that I'm an outcast I see that I don't *want* to be a member. I'm not a nerd, I'm a scientist. Go do your own thing, I wash my hands of you.

          You see, this makes me angry at several levels:

          1) Slashdot was never about nerds. It was inclusive of all people from the start really, and a quantum scientist was just as welcome as the car buff who had 3 decades of automotive experience. That whole news for nerds thing was just a tagline somebody thought up.

          2) The people that think we are crybabies (I'm decidedly not), completely miss a much larger, and far more important point, that quite frankly, is very fucking important outside of Slashdot-Soylent.

          3) It's not possible to be an outcast from the Slashdot-Soylent community. Only you can make yourself this way.

          That point?

          We're not a fucking audience. We're not fucking lazy eyeballs that go someplace to dreamily consume content without thought, while taking in peripheral advertisements, and becoming some statistics that marketers pore over like we're cattle. I didn't leave Slashdot because I was petulant about some Javascript, or a new interface.

          I left Slashdot because the foundation of the community was crumbling to the extent we could not do what we do best on Slashdot. Honest-to-god dialogue and sophisticated discourse on so many different subjects. Slashdot was one of the only websites where I could hear straight from highly intelligent and skilled people from various disciplines. Unlike research papers, and those articles being linked to, these people had a knack for really explaining something.

          I learned things at Slashdot. Until it became clear that the owners wanted to destroy the very parts of it that were valuable by watering down the site and further monetizing it

          That's not something you can do with us. We are all very aware people when it comes to how the world exploits us, and attempts to turn us into dreamy audience members, that are really drooling little mice in some experiment.

          Some of us may have the emotional IQ of a ADHD turnip, but that is the exception, not the rule. There is always a hot button to set us all off. Mine is the greedy fucking bankers and Wall Street, and I know I can sound like a nut bag talking about them, but.. yeah.. that's my thing.

          What we all want is a place to go where we can just talk and learn from each other. Slashdot dropped the ball, BIG TIME. I don't care if where I go has a bunch of javascript or whatever. Just stop inserting 11 trackers and social media widgets, or designing pages to optimize advertisements. Gives us the tools we need to talk. That's it.

          It's an absolute fucking shame that we couldn't all get together and prove our detractors wrong and create a new site in which we contributed valuable insights and interesting thoughts.

          If I wasn't so god damned poor and burned out right now I would pay the $2000 myself and take on Soylent. I have experience running infrastructure like that, and it kills me that I just don't have the means.

          Why this devolved into some sort of emotional catfight between a bunch of 11-year old girls....

          --
          Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
          • (Score: 1) by Peristaltic on Monday March 10 2014, @07:24PM

            by Peristaltic (3122) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:24PM (#14191)

            I left Slashdot because the foundation of the community was crumbling to the extent we could not do what we do best on Slashdot. Honest-to-god dialogue and sophisticated discourse on so many different subjects. Slashdot was one of the only websites where I could hear straight from highly intelligent and skilled people from various disciplines. Unlike research papers, and those articles being linked to, these people had a knack for really explaining something.

            I learned things at Slashdot. Until it became clear that the owners wanted to destroy the very parts of it that were valuable by watering down the site and further monetizing it

            That's my story as well.

            Why this devolved into some sort of emotional catfight between a bunch of 11-year old girls....

            I think that there are enough folks interested, that even though God knows to whom the petulant AI "scientist"(when I see some pubs I'll believe him) sold the domain, it's early enough, that even if they have to get a new domain, this thing will probably be successful if the original devs (and the ex-slashdotters) stick to it. Have faith.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:35PM (#14023)

      Don't worry. I heard there is another site similar to SoylentNews. I believe it is called SlashDot.

      • (Score: 5, Funny) by Scruffy on Monday March 10 2014, @05:54PM

        by Scruffy (1087) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:54PM (#14138)
        Bah, that place looks like they're still in beta.
        --
        1087 is a lucky prime.
      • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday March 10 2014, @06:46PM

        by davester666 (155) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:46PM (#14175)

        Only it is getting a crappy new interface...

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:37AM (#13831)

    http://pipedot.org/ [pipedot.org]

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:48AM (#13845)

      You beat me to it!

      Right! Everyone! On to Pipedot [pipedot.org]!

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by halcyon1234 on Monday March 10 2014, @01:18PM

        by halcyon1234 (1082) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:18PM (#13917)
        WTF Pipedot?!? I signed up, opened one article to look at the comments, and...

        JavaScript Disabled
        Which is fine! But you are currently browsing the JavaScript version of this page. Please do one of the following:

        Enable scripts from pipedot.org
        Uncheck the "Use JavaScript" option on your account settings page. (not working yet) (emphasis mine)

        So my first experience within 5 seconds of using the site is a gigantic yellow "FUCK YOU" noscript tag that tells me that they can't generate a plaintext tree of comments without javascript.

        To repeat: THEY CANNOT GENERATE A PLAINTEXT TREE OF COMMENTS WITHOUT JAVASCRIPT!

        ffs

        --
        Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by fnj on Monday March 10 2014, @01:29PM

          by fnj (1654) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:29PM (#13927)

          With all due respect, stuff the attitude. Pipedot clearly intends to do script and not-script side-by-side, and when it's ready everyone can pick the version they prefer. I happen to be a champion of non-javascript web pages, but I couldn't do my banking and a lot of other things without it.

          Rather than run down a valuable site, if javascript is your boogey man why don't you make a spotless pure greaterthandot.org?

          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday March 10 2014, @03:53PM

            by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday March 10 2014, @03:53PM (#14041) Homepage Journal

            With all due respect, stuff the attitude. Pipedot clearly intends to do script and not-script side-by-side, and when it's ready everyone can pick the version they prefer.

            I think his attitude was completely warranted. If you're going to have both script and noscript it's just retarded to do script first. And it's a shitty site written by a shitty coder that won't let javascript fail gracefully. I used javascript some in my old Quake site, but if your javascript was disabled you'd never know there was any javascript at all unless you looked at the page source.

            It isn't rocket surgery. The guy is clearly incompetent. Unfortunately he's far from alone, some idiots have javascrip-only links! Stupidity abounds.

            --
            mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Monday March 10 2014, @11:39PM

              by GungnirSniper (1671) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:39PM (#14377) Journal

              When you are linking to your own personal site that isn't exactly pretty [mcgrewbooks.com] I'm not sure you're the best person to call a web programmer incompetent. You're even calling an HTML page as a JS file:

              meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.51 [en] (Win98; I) [Netscape]"
              script language="JavaScript" src="index_files/fragfest.htm"

              As near as I can tell, both Soylent and Pipedot are being programmed for free in people's spare time, and should be judged accordingly.

              • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 11 2014, @02:49PM

                by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Tuesday March 11 2014, @02:49PM (#14664) Homepage Journal

                It wasn't designed to be pretty, it was designed to be functional. The very first rule of design is form follows function and it doesn't matter if it's a physical device, a program, or a web page.

                And there's what's known as the KISS principle: "Keep it simple, stupid."

                --
                mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
            • (Score: 1) by Reziac on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:30AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:30AM (#14457) Homepage

              That was my gripe too... why do I have to turn on JS just to read comments? Pipedot has potential too, and it certainly doesn't hurt to have more community options, but why turn away some would-be users at the door??

              I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and speculate that whatever code he's using didn't originally provide for noscript use, but I certainly hope it start working soon.

              (At which point maybe the moderation dropdowns will actually do something... in SM, I don't see any way to apply them.)

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @01:41PM

          by Geotti (1146) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:41PM (#13939) Journal

          THEY CANNOT GENERATE A PLAINTEXT TREE OF COMMENTS WITHOUT JAVASCRIPT!

          He cannot generate a plaintext tree of comments without javascript yet!

          FTFY. I hope you see what the issue is now.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:47PM (#13943)

          No anonymous posting too. Fuck pipedot. I'd go back to Slashdot first.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:47PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:47PM (#14034)

            Ohhh, that (no anonymous comments) is a bit of a showstopper. Too bad -- I was getting excited for a minute, as the site and article selection looked good.

            But without free commenting, they're not going to move past the 3 or 4 comment totals they're showing now.

            What a clusterfuck we have. Might as well see what Slash is up to.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:48AM (#13846)

      lol wtf how many forks are there going to be?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM

        by wantkitteh (3362) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM (#13851) Homepage Journal

        Too many is bad, but Pipenews does at least have that wonderful threaded view of the comments that /. uses, my one complaint about SN so far has been it's poor comment section navigation.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Monday March 10 2014, @11:55AM

          by Marneus68 (3572) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:55AM (#13856) Homepage

          That's pretty nice indeed. I wish SL had this already. Too bad there are not that many people actually using Pipedot.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:59AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:59AM (#13863)

            Another problem with Pipedot is that the code is not open-source AFAICT so it can't be forked if it sells out. I don't know what the author's stance is on this, though.

            • (Score: 1) by SleazyRidr on Monday March 10 2014, @07:10PM

              by SleazyRidr (882) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:10PM (#14185)

              Is being open-sourced really that big of a deal though? This site got a big pile of code from the open repository and cocked it up. Pipedot just got to work emulating the functionality and seems to be doing a good job of it. Even if the way it works changes a little as long as the person/people running it can get something vaguely functional happening it will be good.

        • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @01:00PM

          by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:00PM (#13900) Homepage Journal

          i added collapsible comments in a pull request. it was a bit of a hack but worked.
          not sure if/when it will be merged though.

        • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Monday March 10 2014, @02:19PM

          by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Monday March 10 2014, @02:19PM (#13970) Homepage

          Threaded expandable comments done properly with proper fall backs: This is already in the pipeline here BTW.

          --
          (Score:1^½, Radical)
          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Monday March 10 2014, @04:09PM

            by wantkitteh (3362) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:09PM (#14049) Homepage Journal

            Awesomeness!

            I sincerely hope these issues can be worked out without SN going tits-up. SN is building up a nice critical mass of users and has great long-term survival hopes, it would be a tragic shame on all concerned if that concentration of participants was scattered around the web because a few simple management conflicts and practicalities.

        • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Friday March 14 2014, @02:26PM

          by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday March 14 2014, @02:26PM (#16391) Homepage Journal

          Late to the discussion, but this Greasemonkey plugin adds this feature quite nicely:

          http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/399112 [userscripts.org]

      • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by TWiTfan on Monday March 10 2014, @12:41PM

        by TWiTfan (2428) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:41PM (#13890)
        how many forks are there going to be? Enough to ensure that they all fail.
        --
        If real life were like D&D, my Charisma score would be a negative number
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by engblom on Monday March 10 2014, @11:49AM

      by engblom (556) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:49AM (#13850)

      Then there is also http://technocrat.net/ [technocrat.net] as an alternative. Personally I do not care who will succeed, all I wish is a strong alternative to slashdot. It is always good with some competing in the field.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:52AM (#13854)

      Looks like they've got expandable comments working. That alone is almost worth switching. Of course, the ridiculous drama doesn't help SoylentNews' cause. I'm sorry, but $2k is *not* a lot of money to loose if you're trying to start an entity (business/non-profit/whatever).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:18PM (#13873)

        Yeah and since Bryan got expandable comments working over on pipedot, neither posting without JS enabled or posting as AC works. The guys work is excellent though.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:05PM (#13957)

          So? If he's stated he won't do AC on principle that's definitely a problem. If it's just a failed regression that will be fixed as time goes on, well, that's how these things sometimes work. To be perfectly honest, I'm posting as AC because I'm too lazy to log in, and there's no penalty to posting as AC (at least as far as I care).

    • (Score: 1) by Kell on Monday March 10 2014, @11:58AM

      by Kell (292) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:58AM (#13862)

      I rather see bailing on Soylent as a last-ditch manouever to be used only in desperation - like that switch in the mecha with the missile-cover, that you wonder why they didn't use it in the very first moments of the battle. This is like that button... except unlike every anime ever, there are good reasons to hold off on the desperation move until the situation truly is desperate. Also, Pipedot has the same existential risks that Altslash had, so it's no sure safe haven.

      Keep the faith, folks.

      --
      Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tdk on Monday March 10 2014, @03:59PM

      by tdk (346) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:59PM (#14042) Homepage Journal

      Or how about going somewhere we can't be held hostage by one person?
      The comp.misc group on Usenet has many ex-slashdotters. There is a moderated interface to it at http://squte.com/ [squte.com] which has a familiar look ...

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 10 2014, @04:05PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:05PM (#14046)

      Sorry, I won't be using Pipedot. According to my company's internet filter, it's a gaming site, so I'm not allowed to go there.

      • (Score: 1) by Zinho on Monday March 10 2014, @04:36PM

        by Zinho (759) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:36PM (#14078)

        Ditto.

        --
        "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
    • (Score: 1) by mister_playboy on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:09PM

      by mister_playboy (2664) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:09PM (#14928)

      Signed up and got a 3-digit UID!

      Now to wait for the next forks so I can have a complete set!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:40AM (#13833)

    First in best dressed!

    Contact John with your offer..

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:43AM (#13838)

    will soylentnews eat itself and become like the kuro5hin graveyard?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Kilo110 on Monday March 10 2014, @11:46AM

    by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @11:46AM (#13843)

    It was fun while it lasted.

    Someone should write a case study about this site someday as an example of what not to do.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by regift_of_the_gods on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM

      by regift_of_the_gods (138) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM (#13853)

      This.

      Good site. GREAT business school case study (sorry John/NCommander, I'm afraid you don't have a choice about this).

      • (Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @12:55PM

        by goodie (1877) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:55PM (#13895) Journal

        I am working on it :)
        I do not wish for SN to fail but i think that there will be some things to learn from this as SN hopefully continues to grow.

        • (Score: 1) by Kilo110 on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:47AM

          by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:47AM (#14466)

          Be sure to properly announce it if you ever do write it. I'd love to read it once all the dust settles.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by mrbluze on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM

      by mrbluze (49) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM (#13857) Journal

      This site is not going down. That part is FUD. It is likely to relocate, that is all. More news to come.

      --
      Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
      • (Score: 1) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @12:41PM

        by Geotti (1146) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:41PM (#13891) Journal

        Could you guys register a backup domain and post it here? It's like 5 bucks... I'm having a difficult time understanding what all this fuss is about.
         

        The temp name is: SoylentNews with the tagline: SoylentNews is people! (http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/index.php/Soylen tNews#Site_Name)

        Let's have a referendum on Sunday ; ) (scnr)

        • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @01:02PM

          by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:02PM (#13902) Homepage Journal

          we just need to lobby ncommander to dump varnish

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @01:35PM

            by Geotti (1146) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:35PM (#13934) Journal

            dump varnish

            Huh? How is varnish relevant to domain names?
            As I understood it, this site is hosted on the personal accounts of NCommander, so all it takes is another domain name to point, a vhost/site entry and a search & replace on the system. Am I missing something?

            Even though I am grateful for the initiative John displayed, it would have been someone else otherwise. I don't now what it is with the MP3 player and the Spanish lessons, but I doubt these have anything to do with this site.

            Also, to pay a year in advance for a new site to save some peanuts is an unnecessary risk (and thus bad management decision) on the part of John, so (even though Linode will probably agree to transfer that into credit) I fail to see why NCommander should pay for these overzealous actions out of his own pocket and right now.

            It would have been possible to achieve the important parts on a much tighter budget (Why do we need this IRC server again? Why is email not hosted on Zoho for free? etc.).

            Regardless, we have >2k users, so why not just crowdfund these 2k and distribute shares?
            Have a survey to figure out how many of us are willing to commit to pay John out, and then split these 2k in shares, collect the money through paypal or whatever and be done with it (some will be willing to pay more, some will be unwilling to pay at all). John on his side, should be willing to wait until this process finishes for the least as to not appear a hypocrite.

            If you guys are splitting up, do it pragmatically and without too many emotions, because neither the community nor the team of editors will be sitting there watching you two fight a rose war.

            • (Score: 4, Informative) by Foobar Bazbot on Monday March 10 2014, @01:54PM

              by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:54PM (#13947) Journal

              Re: the MP3 player and Spanish lessons: Barrabas bought those and sent them to NCommander as a gift, to show appreciation for NCommander's hard work getting the site up. Now Barrabas demands that NCommander consider that gift to be part of the start-up costs of the site which NCommander has promised to reimburse.

              As for collecting money to buy out John, there are apparently ticklish legal consequences to doing so without a proper framework in place, so the team has thus far chosen not to do that. (I'd chip in a chunk for sure if they did.) There's a whole bigger mess of legal consequences over the concept of selling shares, so I'm sure they won't do that either.

              • (Score: 1) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM

                by Geotti (1146) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM (#13962) Journal

                Thanks for clearing that up.

                As for legal consequences, I'm sure there's some place on earth, where this is possible without a lot of legal hassles. Panama, Cyprus, the Bermudas? Even bureaucratic Germany has a company form, which can be set up in a matter of a day or so: GbR (partnership) [frankfurt-main.ihk.de].

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by mechanicjay on Monday March 10 2014, @01:58PM

            From the horses mouth -- since I worked on the varnish config.

            It's completely saving our asses. Apache 1.3 can't handle the load of the site on it's own. Varnish is serving 85% ish requests right of cache. So it's allowing us to protect the fragile apache/perl/slash backend and also run on *MUCH* more modest hardware than we'd be able to other wise....So, remind me, why do we need to dump varnish?

            --
            My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
            • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @02:12PM

              by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:12PM (#13967) Homepage Journal

              [12:05:26]  Just in case: http://li694-22.members.linode.com 
              [12:06:15]  laminatorx unfortunately due to the sheer number of hardcoded shit that won't work if we loose the domain 

              there's no 'soylent' in slashcode or in mysql schema. Can the varnish config be changed easily to suit a new domain? Dunno what other "hardcoded shit" he could be referring to.

              • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @02:20PM

                by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:20PM (#13972) Homepage Journal

                Also, if we can't get something working with apache2 how the hell can we call ourselves geeks? Not that anyone else cares, but I'm not gunna waste time fucking around with code that's embedded itself up apache1.3's ass.

              • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @02:27PM

                by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:27PM (#13977) Homepage Journal

                Btw the hardcoded shit was from ncommander replying to laminatorx. I prolly should've wrapped the log extract in ecode tags.

                • (Score: 4, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Monday March 10 2014, @02:34PM

                  1) The domain name gets hardcoded in various places in the database, which is why it's kind of a pita.
                  2) Varnish doesn't give a crap about the hostheader it receives.
                  3) Porting an app from mod_perl1 to mod_perl2 is not an insignificant effort -- one which is being planned for.
                  --
                  My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
                  • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @02:37PM

                    by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:37PM (#13983) Homepage Journal

                    So we can just dump the sql to a file, do a mass find/replace and then restore. Piece of cake.

                    • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @02:40PM

                      by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:40PM (#13984) Homepage Journal

                      I'll take a closer look at the schema tomorrow. Hardcoding urls in a db seems really bad; even for an old dinosaur like slash.

                      • (Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday March 10 2014, @02:43PM

                        It's a horrific idea, but so many web apps do it. Even the latest release of wordpress craps hostnames all over the db.
                        --
                        My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
                      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 10 2014, @04:00PM

                        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday March 10 2014, @04:00PM (#14043) Homepage
                        urls are data more than they are code.

                        Therefore they belong in the database more than they belong in the perl.
                        --
                        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:28PM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:28PM (#14071)

                          They don't belong in either. The base URL belongs in a configuration file. I don't do web development; but that's just common sense.

            • (Score: 1) by Reziac on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:38AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:38AM (#14462) Homepage

              Hey, use tin cans and string if it works :)

              I will say the site performance so far has been uniformly stellar.

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SpallsHurgenson on Monday March 10 2014, @02:05PM

      by SpallsHurgenson (656) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:05PM (#13958)

      Except the drama this site is going through is /not/ that unusual, especially for non-commercial productions. More often than not, there are these little power tussles in the background as the organizers struggle to determine who is in charge of what. As with Soylent, it often comes to a head when the original founders leave for greener pastures, and issues of ownership come up. It even happens - if in a more understated, less personally-involved way - in commercial entities (although those do all they can to minimize the upset lest it affect the bottom line).

      What is unusual about Soylent is that the organizers have chosen to air all the dirty laundry to the public. This is both gratifying and mortifying. On the one hand, this transparency allows a greater feeling of community between organizers and audience; there are no "closed-door" deals. This is, of course, a direct reaction to how Dice worked on Slashdot. On the other hand, it paints a less-than-pretty picture of the site to the public, which makes it more difficult to attract audience and backers. Plus, the picture we gets tends to be a bit one sided. And on the gripping hand, while everything is nicely transparent, it remains a facade as ultimately the direction the site goes in will be determined largely by the organizers/owners and not by the commenters (mind you, this is not necessarily a bad thing; democracy is great but you still need a someone with vision and a strong hand to lead).

      Anyway, I'm not too worried about what is going on the back room at soylentnews, no matter how strident the organizers might be. These things will ultimately work out one way or another and - despite its rocky road - the (relative) ease with which the site was created should prove to the organizers that they cannot depend on a monopoly over the audience. Soylent will either get its act together (in which case they'll maintain their readership) or they won't (in which case people will migrate to more favorable climes). It's hardly worth becoming partisan over.

      • (Score: 1) by timbim on Monday March 10 2014, @07:45PM

        by timbim (907) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:45PM (#14204)

        It's not mortifying. That's ridiculous. Nobody is dying or getting physically hurt.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by xlefay on Monday March 10 2014, @11:47AM

    by xlefay (65) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:47AM (#13844) Journal

    Really, people should eat more Bacon.

    Anyway, join us on IRC: http://chat.sylnt.us/ [sylnt.us] and get some real time updates + you'll be the first to know if the domain changes.

    Also, e-mail name suggestions to: name-suggestion@soylentnews.org

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:49AM (#13849)

    If the name is finally changed that'd be good news to me, even if it had to be this way.

    I know it was the plan from the beginning but I am sure you'd have never gotten around to doing it (typical in software development: "//Temporary kludge -dev1" - a whole decade later: "//Temporary my ass -dev2").

    I never liked the SoylentNews name.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:53AM (#13855)

      "I never liked the SoylentNews name."

      Because it was missing the logo of a basket of Soylent being delivered by a stork?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by islisis on Monday March 10 2014, @01:04PM

      by islisis (2901) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:04PM (#13904) Homepage

      +1 I think the site is better off without the association of a recently launched commercial venture...

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @03:39PM (#14028)

        Well, yeah, that, and the association with cannibalism. I kept saying it was a really bad choice of a name for a tech news site (or pretty much any site except for an Anthony Hopkins / Charleton Heston fan site).

        I'm glad to see the terrible name go, despite the unfortunate circumstances.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:22PM (#13922)

      backlash.org ?

      • (Score: 1) by berrance on Monday March 10 2014, @04:44PM

        by berrance (1229) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:44PM (#14088)

        Slashback.org or slashback93.org or whatever the year the other side started. Or then again slashbeta.org

        --
        Just my two lentils worth...
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by donjan on Monday March 10 2014, @02:44PM

      by donjan (323) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:44PM (#13990)

      Fully agree.
      I've sent in a fairly cool name suggestion (as have others), but posting them publicly would only invite domain squatters. IMO we should have a panel of randomly selected judges (say 50 out of the first 2k UIDs) who would act as a sample of the user opinion, and can vote somewhere private on the suggestions. I'd also support a crowdfunding collection to buy out domains where necessary (2k-3k for unattractive parked domains, that is if nobody talks publicly about how they're candidates to replace SoylentNews), because we really should have all three of .org, .net and .com. I'd readily drop $100 on that (or more if really necessary) since the .com domain of my suggestion is parked (the other two are still unallocated).

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by umafuckitt on Monday March 10 2014, @03:38PM

      by umafuckitt (20) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:38PM (#14026)

      With you there. The name is daft. Further, there are big problems with the UI. We came here to avoid beta but we've ended up with other issues instead. I know the retro nature of the site is pleasing to some, but for me it's too retro. We'll have a hard time continuing to attract new readers if everything stays as it is.

      • (Score: 1) by el_oscuro on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:10AM

        by el_oscuro (1711) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:10AM (#14444)

        I rather like it, except for the red. I think a dark blue would be easier to read, but otherwise it is very nice and fast. The category icons all look nice and professional, much better than slashdot. And my Ghostery looks completely lost, as he can't find any trackers at all. :)

        Not having that shit is awesome. I would put up a paypal link for donations and keep all of that shit off the site. I'm pretty sure most of us would happily donate $5/year or so to keep it running. Just don't have dorky banners like Wikipedia. :) Perhaps there could be a karma bonus for people who donate?

        --
        SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM

    by Marneus68 (3572) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM (#13852) Homepage

    I'm really not a fan of all this drama. I took the time to read the previous entry on the subject and was kinda happy that this could be the last of it's kind, leaving the drama behind and going forward, but this seems to be going on.
    I really can't wait for everyone involved to put all this behind and give the site itself some well-deserved attention. Sites like pipedot made a quick progress and are now fully functional and pretty, the same can barely be said about SoylentNews. (I know pretty isn't important for most people around here, but come on, just look at those icons)
    I know that the size of the community moving here and all the people ready to help mush have made it a hell to organize but come on, this is getting ridiculous. Besides, halting the publication of new stories just for that message to stay on top... Even if I can see why it's important, it feels weird to see that on a news site.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM (#13861)

      "I'm really not a fan of all this drama"

      This is why I'm thankful for mailing lists, which generally weed out the noise.

      With forums anyone and their monkey can register and cause problems. Forums are notorious for drama among mods and others in power.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:09PM (#13870)

      pipedot? sounds lame. very lame.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Monday March 10 2014, @12:22PM

        by Marneus68 (3572) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:22PM (#13874) Homepage

        The name sucks but it works and it's actually readable. The comment system isn't a mess.

      • (Score: 5, Funny) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @12:30PM

        by Geotti (1146) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:30PM (#13880) Journal

        I kind'a like the name.

        The motto will be: "News for nerds, without the corporate slant." Get it? A pipe character looks like a slash without the slant! (https://pipedot.org/story/2014-02-11/hello-world)

      • (Score: 2) by Daniel Dvorkin on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM

        by Daniel Dvorkin (1099) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM (#13959) Journal

        Pipedot's a good site and I'd like to see it get more traffic. I'd also like to see Soylent continue. There is, or ought to be, plenty of room for both.

        --
        Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
      • (Score: 1) by SleazyRidr on Monday March 10 2014, @02:44PM

        by SleazyRidr (882) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:44PM (#13989)

        Pipedot is really cool. The display is really smooth and nice. The comments work quite well. Ideally I'd like to see /., this site and pipedot all continue to provide a richer tapestry of information but if that's not a possibility I'm glad there are still options.

        • (Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @10:40PM

          by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @10:40PM (#14331) Homepage

          Totally agree - there's no reason why the Soylent crowd has to be so threatened by and antagonistic to Pipedot. Under the best of circumstances they would both continue to exist and provide interesting articles and discussion. The fact that so many Soybeans are threatened by an alternative to their narcissistic little world says a lot about Soy.

          Oh crap - a totally working site with a great look that renders well on a small screen and isn't a total morass of petty squabbles and bickering. Why would anybody want that? I'll continue to post here, where the only story with any comments on it right now is the one about the Soylent death spiral.

          Good one, gents.

          --
          Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
    • (Score: 1) by tempest on Monday March 10 2014, @02:19PM

      by tempest (3050) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:19PM (#13971)

      Drama never "just stops" if the people involved are still living. If it were so easy to fix things, there wouldn't have been drama in the first place. It takes time for these things to shake out, especially when many people are involved.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by cmn32480 on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM

    by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Monday March 10 2014, @11:56AM (#13858) Journal

    Can we get reimbursed by the community?

    --
    "It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:00PM (#13865)

      too late - someone's probably snorting lines off a hooker's tits at this point.

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:07PM (#13868)

        Emotional maturity has never been the strong point of geeks, and cynical posts like yours aren't helping so kindly STFU if you can't bring anything constructive to the table.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:12PM (#13871)

          "Emotional maturity has never been the strong point of geeks, and cynical posts like yours aren't helping so kindly STFU if you can't bring anything constructive to the table."

          i'm sorry for your loss.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TheloniousToady on Monday March 10 2014, @12:35PM

      by TheloniousToady (820) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:35PM (#13884)

      I haven't followed all the drama, but I keep wondering why they don't do a Kickstarter or something if they only need $2000 to straighten this out. I'd easily donate $50 myself if they provided a facility for that. If just 39 other people (out of thousands registered) would do the same, the problem would be solved.

      • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday March 10 2014, @01:22PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:22PM (#13921)

        I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm thinking they're considering taxes. If they get donations, but aren’t designated as a charity, non-profit or business there are going to be hefty taxes penalties. Just me assuming though.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Khyber on Monday March 10 2014, @12:04PM

    by Khyber (54) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:04PM (#13866) Journal

    It's not like migration is that hard

    --
    Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
    • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Monday March 10 2014, @01:07PM

      by crutchy (179) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:07PM (#13908) Homepage Journal

      picking a server OS shouldn't be either, but here we are

      but i agree with your sentiment

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:05PM (#13867)
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:08PM (#13869)

    ...at least there's still Technocrat [technocrat.net].

    • (Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday March 10 2014, @04:19PM

      by umafuckitt (20) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:19PM (#14061)

      Except there isn't because nobody is commenting there and, if you look at the Wayback Machine, you'll see that nobody ever really did. That's why it kept shutting down.

      • (Score: 1) by Reziac on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:48AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:48AM (#14469) Homepage

        There's always been a peculiar ...cohesion... to the articles on slashdot and now here, and somehow Technocrat lacks that, so it comes off more as a magazine than a community. :(

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:23PM (#13875)

    I had hoped that this would have been a private issue between me and John, to be handed by email with a proper agreement, but the site itself is now at risk.

    Email and chat to solve emotional issues only leads to flamewars. Talk face to face (or by phone if f2f isn't an option) if you want to find a solution.

    • (Score: 2) by Khyber on Monday March 10 2014, @02:09PM

      by Khyber (54) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:09PM (#13964) Journal

      "talk face to face"

      Gee and I had offered such a method to do that online. But no, geeks don't want a very advanced video chat so they can talk face to face.

      Oh well, won't stop my work on a Linux client and osx client. Windows is almost done.

      The community keeps losing it seems.

      --
      Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 16 2014, @09:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 16 2014, @09:55PM (#17296)

        Are you the one who wrote:

        "Even your linodes can't take the 400TB aggregate bandwidth I can carelessly tosg at you (I run one of the most advanced video chats on this planet.) Would NCOMMANDER and BARRABAS like to deal with a bankrupting bandwidth bill? All it takes is aiming my servers with auto-refresh at you. Legitimate transactions, cloud-based, unstoppable. I'm now sick of being held hostage and I'm about to fight back and I'm going to fight DIRTY. Both of you can either talk to me, or I bury you. See you in IRC, boys." (http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=580&cid=14 436 )

        Oh, and about banning:

        "We're sick of your ill-cultured assholes coming in and telling women from our area "Show Vagyna" or "Opyn Tyts Plz" SCREW TURKEY AND ANY SIMILAR COUNTRY. BAN THEM ALL FROM OUR WORLD. There's a reason almost every video chat program worth a shit has them globally blocked by IPv4 and IPv6. They take the program and advertise it as a sex chat, where we advertise it as a meeting and hangout place. T'HELL WITH TURKIYE AND ANYONE RELATED TO IT." http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=521&cid=130 14 [soylentnews.org]

        I am simply a lurker here, but I am glad to see somebody like you gone. You are probably 15 and don't know life yet. Go learn somewhere else.

    • (Score: 1) by Cyberdyne on Tuesday March 11 2014, @12:34AM

      by Cyberdyne (403) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @12:34AM (#14396)

      As long as you take along a voice-recorder for later transcription.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tynin on Monday March 10 2014, @12:27PM

    by tynin (2013) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:27PM (#13877) Journal

    For a new site, this is getting old. I know some folks around here don't care for bitcoin, but I've been wondering why you haven't allowed and promoted some manner of bitcoin donations. Or even Paypal donations. Something. But I suspect too little, too late. I'll stick around and hope something positive can yet come out of this awful start.

  • (Score: 1) by rcamera on Monday March 10 2014, @12:29PM

    by rcamera (2360) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:29PM (#13878) Homepage Journal

    i bet if you held an annual kickstarter, you could get all the funding you need for linodes and domain registration. anybody sending over $100 could even get a keychain! but the "investors" would know up front that they couldn't hold the site hostage (other than not giving during the next fundraiser).

    --
    /* no comment */
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:33PM (#13883)

      a keychain?

      are you high?

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by rcamera on Monday March 10 2014, @12:57PM

        by rcamera (2360) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:57PM (#13898) Homepage Journal
        i am not currently high.

        that was in reference to an old request for ideas article [soylentnews.org] from the first week or two of the existence of SN. the joke was that it was any old keychain, not even a SN branded keychain. i do rather like the idea.
        --
        /* no comment */
      • (Score: 1) by SpockLogic on Monday March 10 2014, @03:27PM

        by SpockLogic (2762) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:27PM (#14019)

        a keychain?

        are you high?

        Not high at all.

        In fact I'm only 4'2" you insensitive clod.

        --
        Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:30PM (#13879)
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Lagg on Monday March 10 2014, @12:31PM

    by Lagg (105) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:31PM (#13881) Homepage Journal
    You seemed like a pretty cool guy. So I will give you benefit of the doubt here and hope that what you said isn't as asshatish as this post makes it out to be. But come on John. Literally thousands of people are happy here. This has a good chance of totally replacing slashdot. Why would you want to ruin that? You've probably already damaged the image of it. People are not going to want to join and contribute to a site that'll disappear tomorrow. Please tell me there's another side of the story and you're not just being a bastard. Please.
    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Monday March 10 2014, @08:05PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @08:05PM (#14228)

      "Please tell me there's another side of the story"

      Well lets think this thru here, if we know for certain we're absolutely positively only hearing one side of the story, then maybe, just maybe, another perspective exists? Possibly?

      I could swing the two grand and I considered performing an epic legendary troll by buying it and pointing it to /. beta for like 15 minutes, just for the LOLz. The difference between a guy with a bad sense of humor vs evil is I'd only do it for the LOLz and switch it right back. I'm already too late and a bunch of other folks whom I have either positive or no opinion of already volunteered to buy so its too late for me. There's an old legend (true, actually) about a guy who goatse'd tens of thousands of myspace users, truly mythological epic, and I would raise myself into the pantheon of the internet gods by beta'ing soylent, even if only for 15 minutes. Like, astrologers and astronomers would re-arrange the stellar constellations to put by initials up there as a constellation if I pulled that troll off.

      • (Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @10:52PM

        by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @10:52PM (#14338) Homepage

        +1 fucking AWESOME idea. Best potential troll ever. It would make OMG Ponies look like childs' play. Alas, ...

        --
        Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by bucc5062 on Monday March 10 2014, @12:35PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:35PM (#13886)

    Sorry, had that lyric line in my head as I read various posts ("This is the end...") (And Morrison was one for dramatics thus on my brain).

    1 - Drama sucks. But, it exists and the S/N community should look back at all our "wonderfully supportive" comments and ask, did I really mean it? If so, sit the hell down, let the child fight it out and when it's over, continue on. The notion that just because there is (omg) drama does not mean we so quickly jump ship. FFS, the one thing you can say about NCommander is that he has been up front, honest and willing to work with his community.

    2 - I am one of the many who (in moments) complain about the site's appearance and interaction. Given that I do accept that it takes FUCKING TIME to make changes when you are dealing with a new site starting up, perhaps a real job, and trying to build a community while attempting to keep the foundation as it was meant to be, Open. We got pissed at /. because they went all closed source, ad links up the wazoo, and scripting that seemed to upset some (if not many silently). So now we have a site that runs simple, doesn't look snappy, but does not collect information, does not require ad block, does not try to run unknown scripts...the site we wanted and it has been dishing up good content. I figure over time the site will adapt and improve. Hell, if I knew how to write in its core language I'd be happy to help fix something (like the red, or posting comments inline. I remember how well that went at /. when it was rolled out).

    3 - Many of us came here, not pipe dot (and yes, sounds limp) for we felt it was the best alternative to what /. is for the idea was to take the best of what /. was and move it forward again. Can the same be said for |. or techacrat? I plan to give NCommander and S/N a chance. No news feeds till noon is okay (I got to get work done), and the folks behinds the scenes have worked long and hard to earn that much time and loyalty from me.

    We don't really know the whole truth, certainly John (barabbas which seems an apt name at the moment) has a voice which he can use, but in the end, this is about keeping something potentially good going, and not just knee-jerking are way around the internet. Michael, you got my support, no reason to go. Good luck.

    --
    The more things change, the more they look the same
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday March 10 2014, @04:05PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday March 10 2014, @04:05PM (#14045) Homepage
      Alas, everything that's done in the public gaze is "drama".
      And everything that's not done in the public gaze is "secretive".

      Catch-22.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Monday March 10 2014, @12:39PM

    by gallondr00nk (392) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:39PM (#13888)

    If the site is capable of bringing in advertising revenue of $100k+ a year (or even half that), it seems worth just paying up the $2k that he's asking for. Is it really worth slashing and burning the entire site?

    I know very little of the details. Just from reading the aired dirty laundry, it strikes me that no party in this furore has behaved impeccably.

    If this goes on too long, there aren't going to be many left to contribute once the dust settles.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday March 10 2014, @04:09PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday March 10 2014, @04:09PM (#14047) Homepage
      It's not the "site" /per se/, just the address by which people get in. The site runs on NCommander's nodes, and the data (stories, accounts, posts) are all safe and sound. It's mostly the ownership of the domain name that's the issue. One of the problems with trying to resolve the issue in the community's favour (bringing everything together, under accountable staff), is that goalposts have been moved.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 10 2014, @12:39PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @12:39PM (#13889)

    "unless someone pays him $2000 USD"

    What was linode's response WRT $600 or so of that $2K? They have an excellent community rep (well, maybe some near legendary security mis-steps, but aside from that, I'm talking about how they handle customer relationships...) and I'd be shocked if they didn't prorate. They are basically nice competent guys, and no I don't have any financial relationship with them other than having happily purchased $$$$$ from them over the years because they're more or less nice competent guys (although maybe not security geniuses, but in all biz relationships, there are always tradeoffs). Also the SaaS world is full of noobs who haven't been powned yet, and pros who've been powned and know better now, and you can guess which categories linode occupies / has occupied.

    They'd probably be pretty pissed off that they're dealing with people who can't understand the difference in financial operations between running a corporation and a residential acct. And I'm talking about both sides. So now they're dragged into the middle of a dispute between two residential customers, which I'm sure they'll be thrilled with.

    Also you're not out $600, you've obtained $600 of service you can use next month or whatever where the decision to purchase was not made while you're in charge. The business operations term you think you're operating under is bankruptcy where you can stiff accounts payable, but you're actually pretending to sell the business and that does not magically wipe accounts payable just because you might not agree completely with previous management. Its hardly linodes fault and they shouldn't be dragged into this transaction.

    As a completely separate transaction, they almost certainly will prorate with you, or at least I'd be tremendously surprised.

    Its the same deal with the wiki hosting or the "gift" or whatever. Don't like what was historically placed in accounts payable, well, shoulda purchased an ownership position earlier. As a totally separate transaction from the business sale, donno if later on you should try to go after those historical charges. I have a gut level feeling of "no" other than due diligence to make sure the financial side is legit (not accidentally double billed or double paid or whatever)

    Asking for payment in full in a week is somewhat, but not tremendously out of line. Its 2014 in a world of paypal, bitcoin, and internet banking access, he's not asking for you to dispatch a well fargo stagecoach on a eight horse hitch and a wagon full of gold across the western desert in 1870. If both sides were acting like businessmen instead of yahoos doing the make believe businessmen-thing there would be some form of contract, signed (maybe by fax, and/or GPG key) and the terms would probably be something vaguely along the lines of net30. None of this "we'll transfer some control to someone else kinda sorta and they'll pay me whatever they want, whenever they want if, they want but I'll not finish transferring control until I get at least $X, and now you change the rules for how much so I'll change the rules for how soon, pretty much because we both said so." There's an interesting technological hack to work around business problems like that, invented a couple thousand years ago, called the "contract" and even a pitiful attempt would work well.

    As another .biz commentary, this kind of transfer of power almost never works. Take the money and run, not put the previous owner as "head of dev" or WTF. Transition team, sure. Both professionally reasonable and a great contract topic. But not beyond "transition team" time. Turning a human nature thing into a "me vs him" is seeing the trees but missing the forest or something like that. Yeah, it ain't gonna work and no its not a "me vs him" thing its a "we're both human beings" thing.

    You might both be better off selling to a businessman type. Not a "business men are psychopaths" but a guy who knows business. I'd buy, but I'm not in the labor perspective ready for it at this time, and not ready to burn unholy hours is exactly the worst possible match for a startup-like business. Oh well, missed opportunities.

    • (Score: 1) by Skarjak on Monday March 10 2014, @05:50PM

      by Skarjak (730) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:50PM (#14136)

      You are the voice of reason.

      As much as people might dislike "those business folks" (probably as a result of what created a demand for this site to begin with), the way this has been handled is terrible.

      Get a contract, pay the 2K$ and get on with it. No need for any more bad blood. And there's certainly no need to make further blog posts about this, in the "interest of transparancy".

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @12:45PM

    by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:45PM (#13892) Homepage Journal

    Right fucking now. Send me a full accounting of the costs to date, a projection of costs going forward for one year, a list of all the players involved, and a commitment to keep things going for one month while shit gets sorted out.

    I'm serious.

    --
    I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by regift_of_the_gods on Monday March 10 2014, @12:55PM

      by regift_of_the_gods (138) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:55PM (#13896)

      It's pretty obvious that this isn't about two thousand bucks less the linode refund. It's more like the Kardashians.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @01:02PM

        by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:02PM (#13901) Homepage Journal

        I know, but the bullshit has to stop. Somebody needs to step up and be a leader, and I'm willing to do that and to put my ass on the line. I want this site and this community to grow and become something even better than the other site was at its best.

        --
        I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Monday March 10 2014, @01:15PM

          by bucc5062 (699) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:15PM (#13913)

          Then you should read the links posted in the summary (John's Journal). In one the specific costs are stated, in another John is quite clear that the first person who pays him gets the candy jar.

          On the other hand, does that really get rid of John? Visibly he's done two things to impact a site then basically founded.

          1 - The resignation
          2 - This tripe

          Neither shows good public sense or concern about the child he started. Do we want to reward that? Perhaps $2000 is a lot of money to him (it aint' chump change for sure), but what ensures that he really would then 'go away'. typically blackmailers continue to attempt extortion tilled something bad happens. His public persona is not stable (as another mentioned, Kardashian like) and I would not see a need to feed that behavior.

          To put it another way, John knew the risks (he is a scientist after all), knew he could lose money, so how is it that he get's it all when he walked away.

          --
          The more things change, the more they look the same
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:30PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:30PM (#13928)

            I have seen this sort of melt down many times in public projects.

            I call it 'the hero'. Basically someone semi decent steps up to the plate and does something cool. However, when someone better shows up they do not want to give up *any* control. Many times to the detriment of the community. Look at the fiasco that ffmpeg was for a good example. However the people who forked went totally overboard the other way. This sometimes has the affect of them taking their ball and going home and taking the whole project down.

            In a strange way it feeds their egos to have people arguing over them.

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @01:37PM

            by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:37PM (#13936) Homepage Journal

            I just emailed him an offer.

            John,

            I offer to buy you out for the amount already published. I can most likely initiate payment today. Was a check the only form of payment you said you would accept? (I can't remember.)

            Regards,
            Bill Wilson

            --
            I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
            • (Score: 1) by marcello_dl on Monday March 10 2014, @01:42PM

              by marcello_dl (2685) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:42PM (#13940)

              OT remark: Does anybody recall some "back to the future" scene where the job fate of one guy was affected in real time by a video-conference? It seems much like this. The future is here, we still lag a bit anyway.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday March 10 2014, @01:45PM

            by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:45PM (#13941)

            I hate to be the one to point it out, but John always had intentions of monitorizing the site. Right from the beginning he was trying to come up with a business plan and discussed how to attract advertising. I believe he said something to the effect, "I just want to make sure I have an exit strategy if I decide to move on in 10 years or so."

            I have no issue with that, but he was looking for a payout and ended up sinking money into it instead. I think he's entitled to recover his costs and we shouldn't be surprised he's trying to do so. Maybe he's being a little dramatic, but this whole site was his idea, he took the imitative to get things started so I think he should be rewarded in some way.

            Just my opinion though.

            --
            "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
            • (Score: 2) by Skarjak on Monday March 10 2014, @06:07PM

              by Skarjak (730) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:07PM (#14146)

              Agreed. Even if people disputed the details of what he's asking for, he deserves to get that money just for having the initiative to do this.

              A lot of people are saying "You knew there were risks! Sucks to be you!". People seem very eager to take risks with other people's money... If you haven't spent a dime on this site, you don't get to tell John to get lost.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday March 10 2014, @01:56PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @01:56PM (#13950)

          "Somebody needs to step up and be a leader"

          Via observation I'm not sure that a lack of people with a desire to lead is the biggest problem at this time. Lack of implementation of the most basic small business procedures, apparent lack of any financial accounting, lack of alignment of org chart and authority and responsibility ... That doesn't mean swinging the pendulum in the far opposite extreme of PHB and VC-istan is optimum either.

          The coding analogy would be we've got a team of experienced businessmen trying to implement your stereotypical startup CRUD app marketing experiment wrapped in bootstrap, which isn't all that much, although nobody involved, so far, knows how to "hello world" much less fizzbuzz.

          • (Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM

            by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:08PM (#13961) Homepage Journal

            Well said.

            --
            I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:28PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:28PM (#14072)

            Things that need to be done:

            Incorporate (probably nonprofit).

            Get a checking account and decide who has access to it.

            Implement or pay for basic accounting on said account.

            Decide what level of costs can be tolerated and pick a funding model that covers those costs without alienating the community. That includes a decision as to whether costs will include compensation for admins. Review how much time people are putting in and have them make an honest assessment of whether they can keep that up for free.

      • (Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday March 10 2014, @04:15PM

        by mmcmonster (401) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:15PM (#14054)

        Yes. But that doesn't mean we can't go all Ferengi on them and buy the site out from under them.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by mattie_p on Monday March 10 2014, @01:14PM

      by mattie_p (13) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:14PM (#13911) Journal

      List of expenses, per Barrabas, are here [soylentnews.org].

      Join us on IRC if you want to discuss options.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @01:16PM

        by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:16PM (#13914) Homepage Journal

        Just read it. I'm ready to do this. Will be on IRC shortly.

        --
        I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Marand on Monday March 10 2014, @01:27PM

      by Marand (1081) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:27PM (#13924) Journal

      You must really want that one-digit UID. ;)

      Maybe that should be SN's profit model. Problems solved, everybody!

      • (Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @02:14PM

        by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:14PM (#13968) Homepage Journal

        Naah. I went from a 5-digit on the old site (#94460) to a 3-digit on this one. That's good enough for me.

        --
        I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
    • (Score: 1) by photong on Monday March 10 2014, @03:13PM

      by photong (2219) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:13PM (#14011)

      I'd like to send you the finest green tea from Taiwan for your generosity. Please give me a mailing address.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by mrclisdue on Monday March 10 2014, @04:51PM

        by mrclisdue (680) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:51PM (#14093)

        ...as long as you don't try to recoup the cost of the gift later ...

    • (Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @04:19PM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:19PM (#14062) Homepage

      Rob Malda, is that you?

      (joking, but that would be fucking hilarious, you've gotta admit).

      Anyway, notice this article got hundreds of posts, and the two news articles that followed have both gotten almost no comments at all. I think people smell "damaged goods" and are saving their time for other sites (www.pipedot.com and Usenet comp.misc both come to mind).

      The vultures are circling, just waiting for this crippled site to finally fall to its knees. Me, I'm sticking around for the sequel: VarnishDot, the Phantom Menace.

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
      • (Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @04:26PM

        by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:26PM (#14069) Homepage Journal

        Ha, that would be hilarious. I don't think Malda would touch this with a 10' pole at the moment, though.

        --
        I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
        • (Score: 1) by mrclisdue on Monday March 10 2014, @05:01PM

          by mrclisdue (680) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:01PM (#14106)

          ... touch this with a 10' pole at the moment, though.

          That's a 3.05 meter pole, you insensitive US-centric future-overlord clod.

          And I've never seen a polish guy that tall. Embellish much?

          cheers,

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by wjwlsn on Monday March 10 2014, @05:19PM

            by wjwlsn (171) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:19PM (#14119) Homepage Journal

            Can't help it. I've lived in Canada for close to 14 years, but I grew up in the US. I still can't get shit straight.

            True story: my kid is Canadian and really only knows metric/SI units very well. The first time she encountered a measurement in "lb", she didn't know that it denoted a weight in pounds. She figured it must be like all the other units of measure that she knew, so right away, she pronounced it as "lillibeaters".

            --
            I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
            • (Score: 1) by mrclisdue on Monday March 10 2014, @06:21PM

              by mrclisdue (680) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:21PM (#14155)

              Ya, born, raised, and still here in Canada, a child of the 60's, so I'm fully fluent in both Imperial/metric.

              Plus, a lot of daily life here is still conducted in Imperial, at least conversationally, and at the deli, etc ... and, I still convert to mpg to get a better feel for fuel economy. 6L/100Km ...? wtf?

              cheers

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by aliks on Monday March 10 2014, @12:57PM

    by aliks (357) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:57PM (#13897)

    Love it or hate it, money does have a role in everything we do.

    Its pure economics - even open source community projects benefit from discussions on costs, and payments and budgets. Scanning the material, it seems like some money got spent on things that seemed like a good idea to someone at the time, but with no paymaster signing anything off, or challenging the payment.

    I trust all concerned got a good life lesson, and also that the openness surrounding the project means that the threads can be picked up, and a wiser management team can keep things going.

    --
    To err is human, to comment divine
  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:59PM (#13899)

    why the fuck did he challenge slashdot if two measly fucking grand upsets him this much?

    and if two grand really does mean this much, why the fuck did you give up control?

    utter faggot. go back to slashdot beta you cunt.

  • (Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @01:03PM

    by goodie (1877) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:03PM (#13903) Journal

    I am no expert in this but has SN built so much brand loyalty that we can't just move somehwere else? I am certain that in a metter of hours/days we would have all found a new home :).
    But either way we need to fix the business side of things pronto people or this sort of shit will just keep on happening.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:15PM (#13912)

      The other bitch in this bitchfight is still here pulling strings, so we have to convince him.

      Barrabas is an asshat for sure, but NCommander has dirty hands too. Both of them need to get the fuck over themselves.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by nobbis on Monday March 10 2014, @01:21PM

      by nobbis (62) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:21PM (#13920) Homepage Journal

      in case the DNS goes, bookmark this

      http://li694-22.members.linode.com/ [linode.com]

      --
      It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
    • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 10 2014, @02:59PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:59PM (#14004)

      What brand loyalty? You mean the brand loyalty that Slashdot generated over the last 15 years? That when they changed their brand we moved to a placed that replicated the old experience. (for better or worse)

      I am sure the majority of people here will be happy to jump to any site that can reproduce the classic experience without all the bullshit.

      However, I am starting to believe that the bullshit seems to be built in and cannot be avoided.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @03:47PM

        by goodie (1877) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:47PM (#14035) Journal

        Ok, "brand loyalty" was a bad term. I meant it more the way you describe how this site reproduces the old style of the other site.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by VanessaE on Monday March 10 2014, @04:56PM

        by VanessaE (3396) <vanessa.e.dannenberg@gmail.com> on Monday March 10 2014, @04:56PM (#14099) Journal
        Actually, I think you just defined "brand loyalty" quite nicely. It doesn't have to mean "We'll stick with you until the end of time, regardless of what you do". Brand loyalty is a two-way street: "We'll stick with and support you as a {business, website, etc.} as long as you genuinely stick with and treat your {customers, users, etc.} with all proper respect and appreciation, and don't do anything purposely illegal, unethical, etc." Anything that just means staying there... just because... is *blind* loyalty or just plain old inertia. In Slashdot's 15 years, they've changed their face multiple times, but most of the time we were happy with it because we had options to stick to the old ways. Then came Dice Holdings, and all hell broke loose. John and co. essentially said "fuck this! ENOUGH!" and Soylent news was born. The rest of us agreed, and that's why there are some 4000 accounts here and 1/3 of Slashdot's traffic level, in less than a month's time. Would we all still be at Slashdot if Dice hadn't screwed it up? Probably. We'd still be complaining about how the moderation system sucks, how there needs to be this or that other poll option, or how there are too many of one type of story or another, but we wouldn't be irritated enough to leave because we generally liked Slashdot. THAT is brand loyalty. We don't like Slashdot anymore because Dice has repeatedly violated their side of that two-way deal.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by VanessaE on Monday March 10 2014, @04:59PM

        by VanessaE (3396) <vanessa.e.dannenberg@gmail.com> on Monday March 10 2014, @04:59PM (#14104) Journal

        Actually, I think you just defined "brand loyalty" quite nicely. It doesn't have to mean "We'll stick with you until the end of time, regardless of what you do".

        Brand loyalty is a two-way street: "We'll stick with and support you as a {business, website, etc.} as long as you genuinely stick with and treat your {customers, users, etc.} with all proper respect and appreciation, and don't do anything purposely illegal, unethical, etc."

        Anything that just means staying there... just because... is *blind* loyalty or just plain old inertia.

        In Slashdot's 15 years, they've changed their face multiple times, but most of the time we were happy with it because we had options to stick to the old ways. Then came Dice Holdings, and all hell broke loose. John and co. essentially said "fuck this! ENOUGH!" and Soylent news was born. The rest of us agreed, and that's why there are some 4000 accounts here and 1/3 of Slashdot's traffic level, in less than a month's time.

        Would we all still be at Slashdot if Dice hadn't screwed it up? Probably. We'd still be complaining about how the moderation system sucks, how there needs to be this or that other poll option, or how there are too many of one type of story or another, but we wouldn't be irritated enough to leave because we generally liked Slashdot. THAT is brand loyalty.

        We don't like Slashdot anymore because Dice has repeatedly violated their side of that two-way deal.

        (reposted, properly-formatted this time. sorry about that.)

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by halcyon1234 on Monday March 10 2014, @01:10PM

    by halcyon1234 (1082) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:10PM (#13910)

    Uhh-- can anyone prove that none of the players involved are actually saboteurs from Dice? A quick investment of ~2k, a few weeks of playing a developer on the Internet, build a community only to smash it up / demoralize the "rebels". Maybe I'm just trying to find a narrative that makes sense, but seriously guys?

    --
    Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by lx on Monday March 10 2014, @01:20PM

      by lx (1915) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:20PM (#13918)

      It's just people man. People with fears and dreams and egos. Like you and me.

      • (Score: 1) by halcyon1234 on Monday March 10 2014, @02:09PM

        by halcyon1234 (1082) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:09PM (#13963)

        It's just people man. People with fears and dreams and egos. Like you and me.

        Speak for yourself. *I* am WAY too amazingly awesome and flawless to have an ego.

        --
        Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by mwvdlee on Monday March 10 2014, @05:21PM

        by mwvdlee (169) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:21PM (#14121)

        This.

        The only reason soylentnews exists is because slashdot was determined to go for the beta (which today looks the same as the day they said they'd listened and would change it).

        We're here because we hate Beta.
        But we all have different reasons why we hate Beta.
        And we have even more different ideas of what a soylentnews should be like.

        This site needs a visionary leader and a crew of faithful believers to make it happen.
        I don't think SN has either of those.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:16AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:16AM (#14564)

          slashdot[...]today looks the same as the day they said they'd listened

          You may not fully appreciate exactly how true your statement is.
          With the exception of Dice's ads and the polls, the sidebars[1] there[2] haven't changed since Feb 21.
          In this thread, Leebert confirmed my suspicions about a revolt in the ranks [soylentnews.org].

          [1] For me, those are actually at the bottom of the page, as I don't download their scripts or stylesheets.
          [2] I actually get the page a day later via Google's cache using the &strip=1 parameter so I don't give them any pagehits either.

          -- gewg_

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kebes on Monday March 10 2014, @02:10PM

      by kebes (1505) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:10PM (#13965)
      That seems unlikely. Such a move on the part of Dice would require them to be extremely aware and dedicated to keeping the 'vocal nerds' at Slashdot. But, if both those things were true, then the disaster that is Beta would never have happened.

      The far simpler explanation is that people are people. Nerds in particular have strong personalities, and so a spontaneous collection of motivated nerds are not guaranteed to get along. In fact, given that all the people involved in this project had (I presume) no working relationship prior to launch, it's amazing that it has worked as well as it has.

      These are the growing pains of a new site/community. I'm not saying that this kind of drama is inevitable; and I certainly would have preferred if we didn't end up where we are. But on the other hand none of this is that surprising; and it certainly doesn't mean the end of the site/community.
    • (Score: 2) by TheloniousToady on Monday March 10 2014, @05:25PM

      by TheloniousToady (820) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:25PM (#14123)

      Don't forget the NSA. If Dice really is involved, you can just bet that NSA is the *true* puppet master. (Ain't conspiracy theories fun? ;-)

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 10 2014, @01:27PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:27PM (#13923)

    As soon as the leadership drama unfolded.

    Nice try, it was a good run, see you guys over at betadot.

    Seriously, how the fuck hard is it to run a site that just posts news?

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:34PM (#13931)

      Yes! Bitching from the sidelines is what will help resolve this situation. Good job!

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by TWiTfan on Monday March 10 2014, @01:48PM

      by TWiTfan (2428) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:48PM (#13944)

      I'm going back to Slashdot. It's clear that you beta rebels just are a bunch of fucktards who couldn't succeed at finding your own asses in a hall of mirrors.

      --
      If real life were like D&D, my Charisma score would be a negative number
  • (Score: 1) by blackest_k on Monday March 10 2014, @01:30PM

    by blackest_k (2045) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:30PM (#13929)

    There is a real cost to running this site and if there isn't $2000 to sort this mess out is there enough to pay for the bandwidth this site uses?

    Is this a news site or a vanity site? I thought the former but unless this is settled by grownups in a responsible manner i think the latter.

    How about you run a poll see how many people would follow to a new site or would prefer you just paid whats owed and get on with it.

    If there isn't enough money then lets fund raise less than a dollar per registered user would be enough to pay him and probably pay for bandwidth in the short term.

    If that can't be managed then this site deserves to fail.

    could understand it being a problem if he was after silly money like $50,000 or more but it seems like he pretty much want's to get repaid what he put in, right now it doesn't look good, if he did make silly demands then it would be better to start fresh and I'd be with you on that but for $2000? I'd rather stick with slashdot even with its dodgy beta version (well at least while classic is an option). Show your serious about making a news site and can see a little beyond the end of the week.

     

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @05:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @05:32AM (#14493)

      i vote new domain name

      fuck soylent!

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:33PM (#13930)

    I'll be honest. From an outsider's point of view, you both come off as childish assholes. John giving up on the site seemed shitty at first. Michael's posting of "dirty laundry" over it all was petty and honestly, the interactions between the two made Michael look like a controlling, power-hungry asshole. Then John's snapping back and airing more dirty laundry, then "holding the site hostage" came off as petty vindictive behavior. Now Michael's whining and bitching about it is the icing on the dogshit cake that we're all eating right now. Maybe you should both grow up and act like adults.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:43PM (#13988)

      ...and I just want to have the myth in my head that the founders of SN are cool people.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:50PM (#14092)

      mod this up please!

    • (Score: 1) by Skarjak on Monday March 10 2014, @06:12PM

      by Skarjak (730) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:12PM (#14148)

      I would give you all my mod points if I had any.

      At this point I'd prefer if Micheal didn't own this site. I'm hoping some other user ponies up the cash first so we can be rid of this whole drama.

    • (Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:40PM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:40PM (#14199) Homepage

      Furthermore, the story is essentially being related at this point by one side only. Haven't heard much from John, as far as I can tell. I think the guy is out of pocket $2000 and wants to be reimbursed. So would I. But I get the impression NCommander is trying to spin things in his own favor, and since he posted the article, got to use the incendiary topic word "hostage" which put a lot of subjective spin on what's going on.

      What if the title had been "Barrabas turns over site; asks for reimbursement." It would be a non-issue.

      Pipedot doesn't have this kind of drama. And Usenet is incapable of it because no one person can take it down because of lack of funding. Suck it you Web 3.0 weenies :)

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Monday March 10 2014, @01:34PM

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @01:34PM (#13932) Journal

    Quote Of The Moment : "Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance."

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by pasky on Monday March 10 2014, @01:35PM

    by pasky (1050) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:35PM (#13933)

    I think John's behavior is very childish here, but I also think *you* are at fault.

    Seriously, do you value this whole site and community at less than $2000? Then why are you bothering at all? So the guy that's leaving wants $2000, and IIRC was upfront about that before too. Pay him $2000, to be on the safe side write a short contract that just lists the persons involved and exactly what is getting transferred, and be done with it. If you feel like a drama queen, you can also ex post complain how much money did the other guy make from the site, in your feeling.

    If you start petty fights about $2000, how is that good business? The damage you are doing to the community is immense here, and if you believe in this site, *way* more than the $2000. I.e., you are losing money big here; John is the original cause, but you are at fault as it was your fundamental decision not to pay.

    IOW, you are buying the site with this, receipts are illustrative but not crucial. $2000 does not seem like an outlandish price for such site with such community. Well, it *did* not, now who knows...

    But in any situation at all, never stop posting news for long. If the site goes without regular news stream once for 12 or 24 hours, people who don't care about the drama will stop coming, likely forever.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 10 2014, @02:04PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @02:04PM (#13955)

      "$2000 does not seem like an outlandish price for such site with such community."

      If Google will pay $3.2 billion for a thermostat, maybe they would pay $2K for some Soylent flavored news?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Zedrick on Monday March 10 2014, @01:38PM

    by Zedrick (2648) on Monday March 10 2014, @01:38PM (#13938)

    I like drama, but this is a bit too much. Public fighting over $2000, which is less than I've spent on a logos for a site I kind of suspected would never take off (and which was abandoned later without ever going online).

    We need an alternative to slashdot. Man up. Those of you (admins/editors, whatever) who are serious about this site, just pay whatever whoever thinks they are entitled to and move on.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @01:46PM (#13942)

    * I was there when this whole thing began, like many of you.

    * I was excited when the forum and IRC channel went up and many people were volunteering to help.

    * I was puzzled by the fact that most of the volunteers were simply ignored, while just a tiny handful of people went off, cowboy-style, to run this thing.

    * I was not surprised when this tiny handful of people started infighting and collapsing under the pressure.

    * I will not be surprised when the butthurt levels are such that the whole thing implodes.

    Sorry for sounding bitter, I'm just disappointed, like everyone else...

    • (Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:44PM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:44PM (#14201) Homepage

      Mod this parent fucking UP! Anonymous coward, that is one good piece of reporting; thanks for it.

      I hope when the butthurt tsunami washes this place onto the rocks, the hoipolloi that gushed about community focuses a bit more on responsible management the next time. I want this site to succeed - I really do - but it doesn't look like it was organized or set up in a responsible enough way for it actually do so. Now I want it to die a respectable death (that means, no more blubbery, teary dirty-laundry-airing posts from you, NCommander) and for something better to rise out of the ashes.

      Meanwhile, see you on comp.misc at Usenet. Good discussion, great kill filters to weed out the bozos, and no corporate drama. This stuff is tiring.

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Pav on Monday March 10 2014, @02:00PM

    by Pav (114) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:00PM (#13954)

    ...it's the community. The community needs to maintain cohesion, which is why I was nervous about the IRC server and web hardware maintained by one individual/group. Apparently the physical server can be reached here [linode.com] so bookmark it just in case. Also ##altslashdot on freenode is still open for business (note the two hashes) in case the machines go as well as DNS.

  • (Score: 2) by nobbis on Monday March 10 2014, @02:30PM

    by nobbis (62) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:30PM (#13979) Homepage Journal

    My 2 cents : whoever is in charge should now

    1 - just pay the guy if possible
    2 - if not and the DNS gets pulled use the http://li694-22.members.linode.com/ [linode.com] address until we have a new name
    3 - whichever of those 2 happens, stop raking over this shit, no more mud slinging / excuses / justifications
    4 - no really, just stop doing that, no more articles about it at all, we need a fresh start
    5 - get communicating , introduce the new vision / whatever , encourage people to the site, choose a new name , get people involved ...
    6. profit (joke)

    --
    It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by buswolley on Monday March 10 2014, @02:32PM

    by buswolley (848) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:32PM (#13981)

    Get it together.
    Also, I disagree that transparency means presenting one side of an argument. Personally, I'd rather not hear anything about the he said he said stuff. If their is a community issue that you'd like the community to contribute ideas toward fixing, fine bring it up.

    I don't want to hear about squabbles. If the site moves, I might or might not follow.

    --
    subicular junctures
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @02:41PM

    by weeds (611) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:41PM (#13985) Journal

    1. Remove all the posts about the fight, the breakup, the divorce, and the custody battle. It makes you both look terrible and makes the whole community look bad. And don't post any more.
    This is not an example of transapency. It is an example of trial by media. It is divisive and destructive.
    2. It doesn't matter that this is the internet age... Public airing of internal grievances is a failed strategy, period. No corporation would allow this sort of non-sense to happen especially during a start up period.
    3. Leave the site alone! No changes nowhere, no how. Leave it alone. What we need now is momentum and this isn't it.
    4. You want $2K? You have my email. Send me the contact info and I'll send you _each_ $2K.
    5. My requirement for my $4K? - Shut up!

    • (Score: 2) by nobbis on Monday March 10 2014, @02:46PM

      by nobbis (62) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:46PM (#13992) Homepage Journal

      perfect

      --
      It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
    • (Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @02:52PM

      by goodie (1877) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:52PM (#13996) Journal

      DON'T remove these posts. I think that they are extremely informative and should be a reminder of what can go wrong in this type of endeavor. With time it will be burried under the new, informative, and interesting news and comments everybody puts on SN. But removing this is nothing short of censoring it in my opinion. People need to see this. The community does not "look bad" because of it. A few people do. But those who care about SN will move past this quickly. It's part of the community's history now. I for one think that it's good to keep this to remind us of what we've been through.

      • (Score: 2) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @03:11PM

        by weeds (611) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:11PM (#14010) Journal

        A worthy counterpoint, but right now it looks pretty bad to anyone looking at it. We want to be attracting new, contributing members. This kind of static isn't going to do that.
        The business of SoylentNews is building a community. Everything that is done should be directed toward that goal. This is why a vision and mission matter. This is what should have been done from the start. When you have a vision, a mission, know your business and what your specialty is, you make decisions based on those elements of your strategic plan. (see my blog) Not on the issues of the moment. We should consider ourselves in the business of building a community. In my opinion, this custody battle with all of it's back and forth does not contribute to building a community. The details for anyone who wants to see them are memorialized elsewhere. I might consider leaving it to the blogs, but never in a news post and never stop posting news to just have your news posted.

    • (Score: 1) by timbim on Monday March 10 2014, @08:04PM

      by timbim (907) on Monday March 10 2014, @08:04PM (#14225)

      1. Looking terrible is your opinion about the situation. Not mine or other peoples. And lots of people think this is a good thing.

      2. You're comparing this organization to a modern corporation? Really? I don't want this place run like the evil corps of today. Do you see the dot org?

      3/4/5. Your money dose not buy you power. This is not politics. Go back to Fox News.

      • (Score: 2) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @09:02PM

        by weeds (611) on Monday March 10 2014, @09:02PM (#14282) Journal

        1. Looking terrible is my opinion. I think that is what this dialog is. Or am I supposed to post thoughts about your opinion or somehow divine the thoughts of the community?

        2.

        "I don't want this place run like the evil corps of today."

        because, of course, we all know that every corporation is evil and everything they do is also evil. Well, not every corporation is evil. My corporation makes money and does everything we can to keep our customers happy and provide a good service. There are plenty of lessons to be learned from successful businesses.
        3/4/5. I was making a point about how trivial this dispute was. I did not ask for control or power, in fact I only asked for one small favor. Trivia on the scale of "buying power."
        By the way, money does buy power. Have you not noticed how our elected officials vote? (I am note supporting it, I think it's the single biggest thing wrong with our government. - PACS, SUPERPACS, etc.) Also, if you buy stock, if you own a company, if you sit on a board, you have power. That's how it works i the real world. This is politics, corporate politics. Fox News Sucks. (at least we can agree on that :)

    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 11 2014, @08:48AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @08:48AM (#14541) Journal
      If this weren't already the top of the list of hot comments, I'd say it needed modding up. Absolutely right. This isn't about transparency, it's about the 'staff' behaving like children. If there are any adults there, please will you send the children to their rooms and not let them come back until they've learned to share their toys?
      --
      sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 10 2014, @02:56PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 10 2014, @02:56PM (#14001)

    One interesting observation is you compare a "self referential internal soylent drama" article vs "send a rover to Europa" article and this gets ten times the posts. Is it a news site if most discussion is about internal site politics?

    Is it good or bad if readers find site politics 10x more engaging that what the site is supposedly all about? I suppose the only thing worse than the readers getting all wound up about site politics would be the readership simply not caring.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by lhsi on Monday March 10 2014, @04:31PM

      by lhsi (711) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:31PM (#14075) Journal

      I have noticed that articles about the site in general seem to get a lot more comments than normal news articles. My theory was that not everyone comments on every news story (for example I usually only comment in articles I have a little bit of knowledge about), but people are more likely to comment on articles about the site as everyone uses it.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Monday March 10 2014, @04:32PM

      by bucc5062 (699) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:32PM (#14076)

      I feel that part of the difference is the general expertise one can bring to a discussion. In the case of the Europa story, I read through the article, I read some comments and in the end had little that I could contribute that had not already been stated, other then "Go NASA Woo Hoo". That is why the diversity of stories is so important since not every one can comment intelligently on all topics.

      In a case such as the public display of information on S/N, it hits much closer to home for a lot more people, it is something that can be grasped for it deals with emotions, decisions, and yes, drama. This is a story that evokes aspects of right and/or wrong and people are more willing to state their own view. I think this is why stories about creationism vs evolution spark more commentary then one on testing for mental deficiencies via blood. The former evokes emotions that can be presented more so then facts.

      I am glad this was put out for all to see. Like an infected wound, better to pull the band-aid aside and let fresh air in and have the chance to clean it out then let it fester. I plan to stay till it sinks, but for all those lower then my ID who are leaving, can we swap, maybe I'll get to double digits.

      --
      The more things change, the more they look the same
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Bill, Shooter Of Bul on Monday March 10 2014, @03:02PM

    by Bill, Shooter Of Bul (3170) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:02PM (#14007)

    I haven't been able to post in weeks, for some odd reason. So I doubt this will work. But seriously, you guys suck. This always should have been a single dev project. In early stages of a company, you *need* a dictator that has time to do stuff and make sure stuff gets done. You never had that. Tried to do it as an all volunteer group, bad idea. This is the result.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @03:27PM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:27PM (#14020) Homepage

    I like this place and I love the idea of the revolution that took us here. But all this drama, all the teary, poorly-composed texts, and all the airing of dirty laundry in the name of "transparency": it all comes across as juvenile, unprofessional, and mediocre. Seriously, people, get it together. Do a kickstarter or something. You/we always knew the funding thing was going to be an issue, but this social implosion looks so unflattering.

    Meanwhile, www.pipedot.com just keeps thundering along. It's got a beautiful interface, renders well on big or small screens, and seems to be professionally run. Not sure how it's going behind the scenes, but I've been visiting for several weeks now and though it doesn't have the number of people that this place does, it doesn't have the F'ing DRAMA either. That makes it the better site.

    So get your crap together. Meanwhile, I'll be over there, and on comp.misc which doesn't need any funding because it's F'ing USENET ferchrissakes.

    I'd like to feel sympathetic about this whole situation, but I don't. Can we have some adult leadership, please?

    --
    Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Monday March 10 2014, @03:32PM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:32PM (#14021) Journal

    I'm sure the guys over at Dice are laughing at all of us.

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:48PM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:48PM (#14205) Homepage

      I doubt it. The Dice guys are realizing the value in their recent purchase just tanked, and they no longer have the page views to make the ad revenue worth it.

      We toppled the dictator, but our infighting and drama also hobbled the "free state" we tried to put up in its place.

      Everybody loses: Dice lost its investment, this place lost its charm, and everyone lost a good place to read about tech. As for technocrat.net - goddamn that's an ugly site. They haven't lost anything; they were never in the race (sorry, Perens - I wished you well).

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Monday March 10 2014, @03:41PM

    by umafuckitt (20) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:41PM (#14029)

    Keep this shit off the front page. It undermines the site. Sort it out yourselves and tell us when it's done. I don't care who said what, threatened what, called someone a name, or whatever. If I wanted to be party to this stuff I'd have joined the staff.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by buswolley on Monday March 10 2014, @04:53PM

      by buswolley (848) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:53PM (#14095)

      +10
      I mean really people. Transparency doesnt mean uninteresting, undermining, dirty laundry. I dodn't want to feel dirty recommending this site to people.

      --
      subicular junctures
  • (Score: 1) by lepspirosis on Monday March 10 2014, @03:41PM

    by lepspirosis (208) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:41PM (#14030)

    Well from here it's looking somewhat like a Feudalistic one, where the serfs stand around wondering which of the two Barons will finally get control; or whether the newly built Hamlet gets burnt to the ground.

    People have mentioned willingness to contribute money to sort the mess out.
    Could all the keys be handed on to someone different - go for "3rd time lucky" ?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Schafer2 on Monday March 10 2014, @03:50PM

    by Schafer2 (348) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:50PM (#14037)

    John is asking to be fully reimbursed for his out of pocket costs.

    This seems reasonable. Like a company expense reimbursement, it's about being repaid for costs incurred in attempting to forward the business. Not just the items that paid off through hindsight.

    Given how I'm sure John's hurting over the incredible sunk effort and ill will, this was a pretty stand-up offer in my opinion. The alternative would be to be asked for the estimated value of his holdings, which would be far higher.

    I'm game for donating to help reimburse John.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @04:00PM

      by weeds (611) on Monday March 10 2014, @04:00PM (#14044) Journal

      Right, fully reimbursed. That includes stuff that went awry or stuff that wasn't used. That's what _fully_ means.
      In an effort to get the project going, money may have been spent that now results in a purchase that didn't directly help the project. That's how it goes. When you say you will reimburse someone fully, you get to pay for that too. You don't get their experience and hindsight for free.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:25PM (#14068)

      The alternative would be to be asked for the estimated value of his holdings, which would be far higher.

      BTDT with a startup, and that's super dicey. As the guy doing the work, you think it's worth a lot of money based either on your typical $/hour value or your fractional ownership and what you think the site will ultimately be worth. Thing is, though, SN is teetering on being worth nothing. It wouldn't be hard to screw it up to the point that all the value goes away.

      It sounds like there's at least one full value offer on the table now, though, so coming up with money isn't really an issue anymore.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:02PM (#14142)

      Schafer2, I totally agree with you. On IRC, NCommander agreed to reimburse John fully. Now NC is whining about paying for items that he doesn't want, and when his BS doesn't fly, he calls it "being held hostage". I think I'm going back to /.

      • (Score: 1) by Skarjak on Monday March 10 2014, @06:41PM

        by Skarjak (730) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:41PM (#14170)

        I just found out about pipedot.org. Go there, it looks like a great place.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Leebert on Monday March 10 2014, @03:52PM

    by Leebert (3511) on Monday March 10 2014, @03:52PM (#14039)

    If you think THIS is bad, you don't want to know what's been going on behind the scenes at Slashdot. (I hear about it from friends who work there.)

    Difference is: This is happening in public.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @04:47PM (#14090)

      Would love to hear stories if you can tell any that doesn't out anyone.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Skarjak on Monday March 10 2014, @06:44PM

      by Skarjak (730) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:44PM (#14173)

      Well, that's the thing. The slashdot folks have the good sense to not do this in public.

    • (Score: 2) by gottabeme on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:57AM

      by gottabeme (1531) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:57AM (#15137)

      Huh? Come on, you're not new. Post as AC and tell us what's going on. That's what AC is meant for.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by cosurgi on Monday March 10 2014, @05:27PM

    by cosurgi (272) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:27PM (#14125) Journal

    I'm a staff member. I have been pretty busy last 3 days, so I missed the drama before it hit the frontpage.

    I can pay 2000 USD in bitcoins right now. The only thing that I need is BTC address from John.

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
    #
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:09PM (#14147)

    He's also a welsher, and loves terms like "the bringup process".

  • (Score: 1) by sl4shd0rk on Monday March 10 2014, @06:13PM

    by sl4shd0rk (613) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:13PM (#14149)

    It's conceivable that there were some assumptions made here, along with some misunderstandings and miscommunications. Perhaps a third option for the poll would be "Open donations from community to help sort this mess out"

    I think NCommander and Barrabas both need to be reimbursed for time/expenses. The site is going to need to run on something besides hot air anyway. Perhaps a third option for the poll is NCommander and Barrabas both post their paypal info. Anyone who's been chomping-at-the-bit to make some kind of donation, well.. now would be the chance.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @06:49PM (#14178)

    Screw paying anyone a ransom. Barrabas has bowed out. Buy a new domain name for $7 and call it a day. $2000 is ridiculous, especially since it appears we didn't use his servers (except DNS service paid for by him), so he can go fuck himself. Why negotiate anything here? What legal right does he have to the community, beyond the domain name?

    Also, fuck beta, and fuck greedy motherfuckers.

  • (Score: 1) by FuckBeta on Monday March 10 2014, @08:37PM

    by FuckBeta (1504) on Monday March 10 2014, @08:37PM (#14264) Homepage

    Fuck Sale

    On March 10, 2014, Soylent announced through a story that Barrabas has sold the Soylentnews.org and associated domain names.

    Selling Soylent is a trend-following attempt to cash in on "news for nerds" sites, an approach that has led to less time for interesting technical discussion and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot values. Much worse than that, selling Soylent to an undisclosed buyer fundamentally breaks the trust of the community.

    We should boycott soylentnews entirely during the week of Mar 10 to Mar 17 and tell the mystery buyer how we feel about the website sale.

    We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is the sale until the buyer abandons the project.

    Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Sale
    Commentors - only discuss Sale
    http://soylentnews.org/recent [soylentnews.org] - Vote up the Fuck Sale stories

    Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

    In the mean-time, Al Pacino summarizes what I personally want to say to the Seller [youtube.com].

    --
    Quit Slashdot...because Fuck Beta!
  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Khyber on Tuesday March 11 2014, @02:36AM

    by Khyber (54) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @02:36AM (#14436) Journal

    Even your linodes can't take the 400TB aggregate bandwidth I can carelessly tosg at you (I run one of the most advanced video chats on this planet.)

    Would NCOMMANDER and BARRABAS like to deal with a bankrupting bandwidth bill?

    All it takes is aiming my servers with auto-refresh at you. Legitimate transactions, cloud-based, unstoppable.

    I'm now sick of being held hostage and I'm about to fight back and I'm going to fight DIRTY.

    Both of you can either talk to me, or I bury you.

    See you in IRC, boys.

    --
    Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
  • (Score: 1) by lajos on Tuesday March 11 2014, @04:42AM

    by lajos (528) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @04:42AM (#14484)

    This domain name sucks anyway. Terrible name, actually. Whoever pays any money for it, is an idiot. So nothing of value lost.

    Just get a better domain name, post the url, and people will follow.

  • (Score: 1) by WTF on Tuesday March 11 2014, @07:13AM

    by WTF (1338) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @07:13AM (#14513)

    So long and thanks for all the phish.

    Or in other words,

    Thanks for selling our contact info.

    WhaddaSCAM...

    *adds soylentnews.org to the spam filter*

    • (Score: 2) by unitron on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:56AM

      by unitron (70) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:56AM (#14962) Journal

      Do you have evidence that our contact info has been sold?

      Or do you mean as in sold to the new site owner?

      --
      something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
  • (Score: 1) by amsterdam on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:35PM

    by amsterdam (3446) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:35PM (#14940)

    They are mine, if you are going to use it for this site I will promise not to sell, rent or do anything else with it as long as the site is live.

    http://atnot.org/ [atnot.org]

    or

    http://slashstar.org/ [slashstar.org]

    • (Score: 2) by gottabeme on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:59AM

      by gottabeme (1531) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:59AM (#15139)

      You may be completely honest here, but that is a recipe for a repeat of this situation.

      If you want to help, offer to donate--i.e. give, transfer--your domains to the site.

  • (Score: 1) by fx_68 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:43AM

    by fx_68 (2719) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:43AM (#15012) Homepage
    Talk about soap opera. "As the DVD burns" Tell me someone has an idea from here. And no. I don't want to hear. "2 dollars!"---- from "better off dead". Movie
    --
    Some where on the black vein highways of America......