We're pretty used to fluctuations in the number of editorial staff available at any one specific time. There have been several periods since our inception when 2 editors had to keep the site going for extended periods of time. LaminatorX even coined a term for it - 'ironman editing'. It is in exactly that situation that we now find ourselves again. Combining one's personal and professional life with the task of being an active editor without a break is hard work and not without its costs.
The last time that I was this involved was during the second half of last year. In the end, I had to take a 2 month break which necessitated medical treatment and prolonged rest. I am beginning to feel the same as I did then, and I cannot keep going at this rate. So I have a plea - all those who are authorised Soylent editors, please consider if you can make a small but sustained effort to help keep this site active 24/7. I know that you all have demands on your time but if you find yourself able to process a couple of stories a day, particularly at weekends, then it would go a long, long way to helping us overcome this current manning problem.
Over the last 2 weekends, the effort of being an editor has been severely tested by a very small number of our community swamping several worthwhile stories with, in my opinion, childish behaviour. I have decided that I am not able to continue to work 7 days a week at this level of intensity. If we cannot muster enough editors to keep the site active 7 days a week then I will stop editing at the start of my weekend and return the following Monday morning. I, too, need to rest and spend time with my family.
There are some others who do contribute to the editorial task - and to them the current active editors are extremely grateful - but they have their own roles to play in the team and it is not fair that they should have to shoulder the extra burden. I hope that someone out there will be able to make the not insignificant effort that is now needed.
Related Stories
The observant reader will notice that we have reduced the number of stories we post on weekdays from about 15 stories per day to about 13 stories per day. We would certainly like to continue with the higher rate, but we have been struggling to do so with current staff.
We try to post enough stories each day so that there is "something for everyone". Ultimately this site is for the community. It is also by the community; it does not run all by itself.
We Need Your Help
People's lives change. They move, get married, have health issues, change jobs, etc. All of these place additional demands on their spare time. SoylentNews is not immune to this; in fact we have experienced all of these. With less free time available, more work falls upon the other staff members — whose lives are already quite full.
What would help?
Volunteer! Have you ever thought about being an editor at SoylentNews?
You'll get to learn a super-sekret handshake, the passcode to enter our volcano-lair, and the admiration of your fellow Soylentils!
Right from the start, let me point out that we — SoylentNews — aim to be impartial. If you have an agenda that you would like to push or advocate (or denigrate) then skip to the next story.
On the other hand, not a great deal of time is needed. Even if you have only an hour or two per week that you could contribute, that would be greatly appreciated!
An earlier request for help summarized things nicely (slightly updated here):
Well we are all volunteers, so we contribute what we can, when we can, no one is expected to edit X stories/day (make your own hours). I would say a strong recommendation (maybe not requirement) is signing onto IRC once in a while (especially when editing) so one can communicate with the other editors. Editing a few stories a day, or even a few a week would be welcome. A typical submission takes me about 15-30 minutes to edit, usually on the longer side if I'm expanding or adding a balanced point of view without trying to put words into the mouth of the submitter. The rest is pretty much what you'd expect:
- Opening up a story
- Checking links
- Checking basic grammar and spelling
- Correcting wording
- Expanding a weak submission (sometimes it's just a few links and a sentence or quote)
- etc.
One also needs to:
- Learn the editing interface (not particularly hard but it has its quirks like UTC 24 hour time and the interface could use a little polish)
- Learn the SN Style Guidelines
How else could I help?
Nominate someone. Have you noticed someone who tends to compose well-written comments or journal entries? Think they might be a good fit? Please let us know!
How else could I help?
Submit a story! A well-written story that needs little editing takes a huge load off of the editorial staff. If just a few Soylentils submitted a story each day it would make a world of difference. Ideally, a story submission would be grammatically correct, have no spelling errors, be balanced and impartial, and be "publication ready". But even if your writing skills are not up to (or are even far from) that level, we are experienced at "cleaning things up", so do not let that keep you from making a story submission! If you see something tech-related that you think would be of interest to the community? Send it in!
How can you reach us?
Send an email to editors (at) soylentnews (dot) org. Or drop a message on our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel. Just issue the command "/join #editorial" and leave a message expressing your interest, along with your SoylentNews nickname, and someone will get back to you.
What's in it for me?
That is a good question. Speaking for myself, it started with my getting onto IRC and occasionally pointing out an error I'd seen in a story. Sometimes it would take a while before I could get the attention of an editor who could make the correction. I got frustrated. Finally, I suggested that if I were made an editor, I could fix things myself without having to track people down. Over the 5 ½ years since then, I have made mistakes... and learned how to own them, in writing, in front of all of you. I've developed a thicker "skin". I've made great friendships with people all around the world. The technical expertise on staff here is amazing; they've taught me so much. And, I hope, I've been able to teach them a thing or two, too.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Thursday March 12 2015, @08:43PM
Not having to maintain a site yourself, but still owning it and it's ads? Good stuff.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:23PM
It's times like this I wish SN had a "Douche Nozzle" mod.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:57PM
It's times like this I wish I had a mod point left for one more +1 Insightful.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:48PM
Hugh Pickens submits articles pretty much daily, and they always end up on the front page. Why not just bypass the manual step and have every Hugh Pickens submission automatically end up in the "Pending Stories" list?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 13 2015, @12:45AM
Hugh Pickens submits articles pretty much daily, and they always end up on the front page. Why not just bypass the manual step and have every Hugh Pickens submission automatically end up in the "Pending Stories" list?
Careful what you wish for!
This is a great example of all the behind the scenes work the editors do.
His posts are actually so riddled with the N-word that The Mighty Buzzard ended up just writing a script that replaces it with left-wing propaganda.
Some of his best work if you ask me...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @12:54AM
We almost could, honestly. I know he rubs some folks the wrong way, but Hugh's submissions need very little polish to get out the door. If I'm in a hurry trying to get some stuff out before I go to work or the like, seeing "PappasFritas" in the queue can be a relief.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hubie on Thursday March 12 2015, @08:47PM
I have very little insight into what the demands are on an editor. From the naive outside view, I see low numbers of submissions sitting in the queue and I'm led to believe that there is not a lot of work involved, but this is in very stark contrast to what janrinok has written. It would be helpful to me to know what a typical day-in-the-life of an editor here is.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaganar on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:01PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:43AM
where do I sign up?
Email me AND/OR jump into IRC [soylentnews.org] and join #editorial.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @05:15AM
What's the least amount of time I can devote per week and still contribute positively
I would shoot for around 3-5 hours a week or so for a minimum maybe, the learning curve isn't too hard. Check out our story editing guide [soylentnews.org] for information on the interface and our style guidelines [soylentnews.org] for our journalistic style. Besides that it's just basic journalism; stories should be un-biased, link-checked, free from major typos, etc.
Editing 10 stories a week (doable in 3-5 hours) could be a minimum goal (note: I'm making these numbers up).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3) by edIII on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:07PM
Thank you. Well said.
Likewise, I'm reminded of Frojack's comment about the donation bar to the side. *getting broken record out*... PayPal. Yeah. No. That being said, I'm pledging a $100 to Soylent by the deadline. I'll send a check by online billpay. Bitcoin is interesting, but only to those that have it already. I've yet to determine an economically viable and scalable way (for me) to make profit in crypto-currency mining. I'm pledging, but I also would like to point out that there may be other ways of fundraising external to the site with more attractive payment and funding options.
As for the editor jobs, I don't think I'm up for it in terms of English skills quite frankly. Janrinrok should outline the common tasks, overall responsibilities, and expected workloads for both editors and perhaps assistant editors. I can answer the call for help to the extent I can, but a job description would help.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:44AM
We are working on new subscription options and a direct credit card option that does not use paypal.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 13 2015, @04:33AM
I appreciate that. Sometimes I like to get the jab in at PayPal, but I know you guys have priorities. I've been waiting patiently, but there was a point made about that bar. I've had the same thoughts and felt it necessary to at least say I pledge something before the deadline. I've been saving change towards that check already :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @05:18AM
Not sure the exact time-frame, but know the devs are working on it. I'm hammering them about getting our number-of-servers reduced right now; but, they have that as a high-priority item as well.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by tynin on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:36PM
I suspect some of it is the sense that you are always ON. Like an oncall schedule where the phone rings every couple of hours. Where you could go relax, but you know there is more work that could be done. Without really knowing if it is true, it sounds like if they had a bigger group of active editors the core group might feel more capable of enjoying their dinner / sleep / life from time to time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:09AM
This, very much. I've spent the past year checking this site when I get up in the morning, during breaks at work, before bed at night, while on vacation, and so on. It adds up.
It's not so bad when there're four to five of us in the game, but when the stars don't line up for that it really can wear you down. Adding new blood is hit or miss. Most drift off after a week or so when the novelty wears off or they get tired of getting complained about. The thing is, we'll always be complained about no matter how good a job we do. We as a community do not all agree about what constitutes a good story. Add to that the times we legitimately do a so so job because we're tired or in a hurry and it rapidly gets less fun.
For all that, we'd certainly appreciate more volunteers to share the load. :)
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:48AM
I will say that though LaminatorX has felt the burden, he probably feels a certain responsibility to the queue being the leader of the team. I hope with a solid 5-10 editors, it would make light work of the editor's position, and I'm happy to see lots of volunteers in this thread.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:36PM
Also, what is mean't by "swamping several worthwhile stories with, in my opinion, childish behaviour."
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:45PM
Somebody named goog submitted some low-quality submissions with a heavy political slant. Some of them made it onto the front page, and in the subsequent discussions a number of commenters voiced their displeasure with these rather awful submissions. This discussion ended up garnering more interest than whatever it was the submissions were about.
I don't think that such discussion was "childish", though. Low-quality submissions are a problem, and can be harmful to this site. It was a serious problem that needed to be raised, and I think it's good that members of the community were willing to do so.
The editors shouldn't take this personally, though. They didn't write the low-quality submissions, and reportedly the queue was quite bare when they were accepted and promoted to the front page. Going forward, we either need to see this goog fellow de-politicize his submissions, or the editors should edit away the obvious and totally unnecessary bias that these submissions from goog tend to be filled with.
(Score: 5, Informative) by paulej72 on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:22PM
Some of them made it onto the front page, and in the subsequent discussions a number of commenters voiced their displeasure with these rather awful submissions.
Don't be fooled people. The number one complainer was the AC above. I have no idea what this person's beef with _gewg is, but the whole matter is getting on many people's nerves. I have had little issue with most of _gewg's stories and one can just ignore any article if they do not like it.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:36PM
The submissions on this site should be held to a higher standard than those of other sites.
I invite everyone to take a look at the low-quality submission in question here: Albuquerque Cops "Comply" with Records Request by Encrypting the Videos [soylentnews.org]
It's atrocious.
The first problem is that the summary references boingboing, which is not known for being a reputable news source. That other site it links to isn't exactly newsworthy, either.
The second problem is that the boingboing article referenced there is pretty obviously biased, and rather low quality, too. It really does start with "Har-har-fuck-you", and it goes downhill from there.
The third problem is that we get useless, biased, totally unnecessary commentary from the submitter within the submission. Save that shit for the comments!
The fourth problem is that pretty much every single submission from that particular submitter is of a similarly low quality. It's not a matter of ignoring one or two stories. We find a lousy submission from him on the front page almost daily!
This site shouldn't try to lean to the left of the political spectrum, nor should it lean to the right. Submissions should be about delivering facts, while avoiding obvious bias, minimizing partisanship, and avoiding unnecessary submitter commentary.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 13 2015, @01:09AM
I invite everyone to take a look at the low-quality submission in question here: Albuquerque Cops "Comply" with Records Request by Encrypting the Videos
Yes. I guess I missed this one on the front page and agree that it is inflammatory. (see my above comment I guess...)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Friday March 13 2015, @12:21AM
I've noticed _gewg toning down his political diatribes of late, and posting more stories with a more measured tone, although occasionally still letting his links do the heavy political lifting. There are lots of ways to say something, and lots of sources to link to.
Its sort of unfortunate that our submission system is one-way, and final. I've occasionally had my work handed back to me to re-draft since the 4th grade. It would be nice if Editors could do the same thing: Send it back with suggestions for rework, add citations, add balance, etc.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday March 13 2015, @04:33PM
Sending papers back for revision is routine in refereed journals, also with regular book publishing.
If it's plain that the editors actually want the submission resubmitted after specific revision, and that it isn't being sent back as a euphemism for rejection, the author will likely feel encouraged to effect the changes and resubmit. Further, (s)he will likely learn from the experience, and later submissions may need less revision.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:07AM
As an occasional submitted, I agree with this idea. It would be hugely helpful to help improve first-draft quality, so editors have to edit less.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 13 2015, @01:00AM
Don't be fooled people. The number one complainer was the AC above. I have no idea what this person's beef with _gewg is, but the whole matter is getting on many people's nerves.
Funny, I thought he was talking about "Obamanet" the other day. An amusing example of confirmation bias I guess.
Either way I do think the Articles themselves should be neutral.
Editorial commentary should be saved for the comments. Don't worry, we'll get to the flamebait all on our own.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @01:44AM
A couple of reminders.
1) Some of the people complaining about story quality don't submit stories. That's hypocritical. Submitting quality stories is hard work and it's unpaid (like everything else on this site, except that done by the good folks at Linode) so if you javen't been submitting your share then at least you should at least have the grace not to complain about the selection.
(BTW if you haven't guessed, I'm not one of the hypocritical non-submitters).
2) It's hard to have an interesting selection of stories without getting political (that is, reflecting the politics of the submitter and editor) *at all*. Just the choice of news topics is often political. For example, almost any story on net neutrality, except maybe for a link to a blog from a telecom lobbyist, arguably leans in the direction of pro-neutrality because that is the side that wants to keep the story in the news. And that's OK. I don't think SN is claiming that it has an editorial policy of being neutral across the board.
Having admitted that there's a story selection bias, there's a right way and wrong way of crafting the summary. The wrong way is for TFS to say something that sounds like Geez louise, you wouldn't believe what those asshole telecom companies are trying to pull across the public. TFS should strive for a neutral tone and, if possible, at least a semblance of a balanced presentation ("a spokesman for Verizon rebutted the argument by saying.."). Let the commenters get as rowdy as they want on one side or the other.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Friday March 13 2015, @07:11AM
Don't be fooled people. The number one complainer was the AC above. I have no idea what this person's beef with _gewg is, but the whole matter is getting on many people's nerves. I have had little issue with most of _gewg's stories and one can just ignore any article if they do not like it.
Are you trying to imply that, because the person complaining about bad behaviour is AC, that the complaint isn't valid? I expected better from site staff. Just because an AC has a beef with the tone or style of some of the submissions doesn't mean nobody else does. I've made a few comments about his (and others') submissions containing inflammatory or juvenile remarks as well, and I'm not the only one. I've tried not to complain too much about it because it's not the editors' faults, and if I saw someone else make the same point I intended to, I left it alone and modded them up, rather than adding a redundant post. I didn't realise that a valid complaint would be ignored simply because an AC voiced it before I did. I thought that was the point of the mod system, so I used it to boost signal -- AC or not -- instead of repeating the same points.
Just to be clear, I've been lambasting people for precisely the reason that part of the summary exists: there's been a lot of juvenile behaviour that's putting extra work on the editors that have to clean it up. Gewg isn't the only one that's done it (someone else put a jab at Microsoft's purchase of Nokia, for example), but he's a repeat offender so he's an easy one to call out by name. He's even gotten a cheap shot at "Internet Exploder" into a submission; you can't get much more juvenile than that. There's been similar political baiting, including LaminatorX himself adding some flamebait remarks to the end of a submission he edited in the past.
The submitter of a summary might not think it's a big deal, just a little M$ or crApple reference here and there, or a snide little remark about the foolishness of people that don't agree with his/her views, but it adds up. Having to dig through every submission to clean up all the snark and sniping at the submitters' personal vendettas has to be tiresome, and some of it still slips through. Sure, the editors could ignore it and let the crap through instead of cleaning it up, because one here or there isn't going to hurt anything, but over time it drags the discussions down and hurts the site's quality.
I have had little issue with most of _gewg's stories and one can just ignore any article if they do not like it.
Does that mean you're encouraging flamebait submissions, replacement of all company names and products with petty, snarky replacements, and other similar behaviour? It shouldn't matter because "one can just ignore any article if they do not like it", correct? I'd love to see that put into practice for a few weeks, with every article adjusted to talk about M$ Orifice, Internet Exploder, crApple's latest iPhony, Screwgle's latest update to Lamedroid, etc.
I doubt that's what you really want.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 13 2015, @01:09PM
> Are you trying to imply that, because the person complaining about bad behaviour is AC, that the complaint isn't valid?
That conclusion is an absurd one. He's saying that two anonymous posters (the above, and the historical) are one and the same person, whilst pretending not to be (and thus fooling people). You're putting words into his mouth. Read for comprehension next time.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday March 13 2015, @02:51PM
That conclusion is an absurd one. He's saying that two anonymous posters (the above, and the historical) are one and the same person, whilst pretending not to be (and thus fooling people). You're putting words into his mouth. Read for comprehension next time.
I understood that he was implying that the AC above is the one that complained elsewhere. However, saying that he's "the number one complainer" as a followup to "don't be fooled, people", and that "the whole matter is getting on many people's nerves" is implying that others haven't felt the same way and it's just one person carrying out some vendetta, to the annoyance of everyone else, rather than being something that is actually worth discussing.
It also seemed clear that it was a response to the part of the AC's comment where he stated that "a number of commenters voiced their displeasure", implying that others didn't care, just one AC with a vendetta. So, as one of the people that commented and/or moderated similar comments when the issue came up, I spoke up, because paulej72's statement reads like a dismissal of the original point, and it rubs me the wrong way. That's not putting words in his mouth, that's how his comment came across to me. Is it possible that's not what he meant? Sure, which is why I opened with a question about it; it seems like the point is being dismissed because an AC made it first.
[Slight tangent, but as of this writing, the AC post is sitting at -1 Informative (which is kind of funny, actually) just for what looked like an attempt to answer somebody's question. The comment doesn't read like flamebait or a troll to me, so why is the AC getting modbombed instead of some disagree mods? I've expressed similar concerns before and gotten modded up to +4 and +5 for it, and so have others.]
Also, just because I interpreted his statement differently than you doesn't mean I don't "read for comprehension"*, it just means we got something different out of it because my perspective isn't the same as yours. His decision to lead the statement with "don't be fooled . . . complainer was the AC" looks to me like an attempt to discredit the entire AC comment because the person replying also complained elsewhere. I guess you didn't see it that way. Maybe it's because I've been noticing the same problem with submissions lately and have been reading (sometimes writing) the criticism that comes up, so I know it's not just some AC with an axe to grind because I recall users with accounts (myself included) echoing similar sentiments.
* Was that supposed to be taken as an attempted insult, or just an extremely condescending attempt at being helpful? Either way, it isn't particularly endearing. That's the kind of remark the "flamebait" mod is for, not the AC's comment.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Friday March 13 2015, @03:14PM
The AC in question has had several comments with positive moderations, he has had his submissions accepted including politically charged ones. He has also made countless comments and many of them are off-topic doing very little but complaining about gewg.
Sadly, they are one AC who have made a large percentage of comments in a single story, off-topic. Also claims "not to speak" for another AC when referencing his previous comments. This is not representative of ACs but it is what has happened in this isolated case.
People do agree with him, but not enough to mod up every one of his repetitious comments, and they shouldn't be when off-topic. There was a conversation to be had, we did have it and we will continue to have it.
I value the ability to post as an AC, I have made comments AC myself. I was an AC at the old site for over 10 years. Being an AC is not a problem at all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:52PM
It would be helpful to me to know what a typical day-in-the-life of an editor here is.
This. Also, how would an interested person go about becoming an Editor? Perhaps some of us commentors would volunteer?
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @05:22AM
how would an interested person go about becoming an Editor?
Feel free to email me and/or jump into IRC and "/join #editorial". Mention: janrionk, mrcoolbp, LaminatorX, and n1, and one of us will respond (eventually).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by n1 on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:16PM
This is just my situation, janrinok and LaminatorX have different ones.
There are only a small number of editors overall, and many have to take a break due to the 'real world'. We miss them! If you and the community think we're doing awesome right now, that's great and makes me happy, but we think we could be doing a lot better.
When I joined the SN staff, I was only going to edit a story or two a day, when I had some spare time. Didn't work out that way, because I felt encouraged to help out and saw the site needed it. I'm more than happy to be doing this, it's been a very positive experience for me so far.
That said, this is an every day thing. We want to keep the news relevant as some are time sensitive but others are not. Having someone 'available' most of the day is an ideal situation.
The way things work for me is, for a time over January-Febuary i was totally out of communications, I travel a lot for work and also for family. The same applied for a couple of weeks over the summer and in the autumn last year. I would really like to be able to work on the site at those times, but I am a volunteer here and sometimes my normal job demands 12-18hr days for weeks, usually with very limited or no internet connectivity due to my location.
I feel a responsibility to do a good job here, be proud of the work i'm doing and the overall project. Sometimes when just before I go to sleep, i will take a look to see what stories are pending, and there wont be anything there. Only takes a moment to consider what the other editors and what could be stopping them getting to work on some stories before they need sleep themselves. It's my responsibility to get some editing done then, but I am not doing my best work then. I should have gone to bed...
It happens a lot - no pending articles - when there are only two or three of us trying to keep the site relevant and maintaining a good quality of content, driven by submissions that we don't get to choose when they arrive and how much work they actually need.
We can continue as we are, we could continue with one editor, LaminatorX could do it by himself. I'd be surprised if anyone think that's the best way forward... I think we need several editors, people with different interests and different time zones, if we want to make this site a real success and keep quality as high as possible.
[the bat phone rings and n1 vanishes for a couple weeks...]
(Score: 4, Informative) by n1 on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:30PM
I realize there was no attempt at 'day in the life of an editor' in my previous comment. Maybe i'll do a journal on it some time soon. Now is a good example of: If i was editing, it would not be my best work. So please keep that in context with my above ramble, it's been a long few days.
If anyone does want to be an editor, please join the SoylentNewsIRC and talk to either: juggs, mrcoolbp, janrinok, LaminatorX or myself (n1).
SoylentNews IRC Server: irc.soylentnews.org Port: 6667 (without SSL) and 6697 (with SSL)
Web Chat link. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:31PM
I have very little insight into what the demands are on an editor.
Indeed. This is something that needs to be well documented (or at least described) before anyone can consider themselves for the role.
I don't know how it is done currently, but in some mutual help societies people are polled if they can/will do certain work - and if they can, they reply; if not, after a short timeout the token is passed to another candidate. This serves as a gentle reminder, but imposes no "hard" obligations. People will do the work when they can; and you can't really ask for much more.
Perhaps then it makes sense to set up some system where volunteer editors are pinged now and then and offered an article to work on? Maybe it would be practical to use an XMPP server and some simple client, where editors would mark their status as "have $n minutes, willing to help" or "Busy" ? This sharing of work should be automated. If an article is issued to an editor but not submitted by him in a reasonable time (negotiable with the bot?) then it can be taken back from the editor and given to someone else, and the editor will be unable to take another one for some time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @05:04AM
We are all volunteers here. I don't spend a lot of time editing stories (I have my hands on many other things for SN), but I'd rather have a competent person with an eye for detail that was only able to edit a few stories a week, then no one at all. I don't want people to be deterred from some vision of a high workload, as I feel that would just be one less person that could help. No one has ever said "you must edit X stories/day" or anything of the sort, we just do what we can, when we can. Some people have left, and though I appreciate an email or something when they do, we have no hard feelings for them even if they didn't let us know. That's the point of this article. If you've ever considered jumping in and are unsure, send in a few well-written submissions and get an idea what the "job" is about. A good submission is really 80% of it, if not more (a great submission is easy to edit). More info on story style and the editing process is on the wiki: Editors Team Page [soylentnews.org] (check the "Documentation" section of that page).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:02AM
We generally post between eight and sixteen stories a day, depending upon submission volume. It wouldn't be bad if it was a job, but as we're squeezing it in in odd moments between the rest of our lives it can become a challenge.
I must bear some of the responsibility for them getting a bit worn down of late. I used to have some free time at work every morning to look things over, post some stories, co-ordinate on IRC, and so on. Now though, I've changed jobs and don't have the luxury. I've mostly been following along behind and doing second-looks.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:59AM
Here is the section on the SN wiki [soylentnews.org] where the process is outlined in some detail.
Basically, we look through the submissions queue, find something promising, check it over, make changes or corrections as warranted, write a pithy department one-liner (this is the most fun part of being an Editor), and set it to run at a specified time. We mostly queue stories up in advance, but also try to keep an eye out throughout the day for breaking news.
Really, if we had five or six people each doing a couple stories a day it's be a breeze. The reality of it though is that 3/4 of the people we train drift away. After a while the wasted effort of spinning up new folks just to watch them go gets to be a gets in and of itself, to the point that I've allowed myself to become complacent, contributing to the current level of burnout among the team (myself included).
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @02:04AM
^ Yikes, I can barely type a coherent paragraph myself tonight. This is kind of the rub of it. Editing a story is easy. Editing a thousand stories in the in-between moments of a busy life is hard. "Cry me a river," I know, we're volunteers. But if you're ever wondering "How could they have let this happen?" The answer is that we really should've gone to bed a little while ago, but need to get stories queued up through morning before our eyes close, or the like.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Friday March 13 2015, @03:31AM
I volunteer. I sent you an email earlier this afternoon.
Please, let me know how I can help.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:50AM
Cool! I'll be on IRC Friday pretty much all day (EST). Feel free to ping (just mention our names) myself, janrinok, n1, LaminatorX etc.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:41AM
Well we are all volunteers, so we contribute what we can, when we can, no one is expected to edit X stories/day (make your own hours). I would say a strong recommendation (maybe not requirement) is signing onto IRC once in a while (especially when editing) so one can communicate with the other editors. Editing a few stories a day, or even a few a week would be welcome. A typical submission takes me about 15-30 minutes to edit, usually on the longer side if I'm expanding or adding a balanced point of view without trying to put words into the mouth of the submitter. The rest is pretty much what you'd expect:
One also needs to:
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @05:19AM
I see low numbers of submissions sitting in the queue and I'm led to believe that there is not a lot of work involved
Don't be deceived by the sparse number of items appearing in the queue at any particular moment.
Sometimes things are immediately judged to be inappropriate and from time to time there is a mass culling.
My guess is that you don't go there quite often enough to notice how many items the editors weed out. [google.com]
(Google's results are nowhere near the full list of those.)
-- gewg_
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:08PM
I am the AC that probably done the most editors' ball busting - yeah, that one.
I do that because I like the way you lot have gone about so far, and that is one of the key factors that makes this site awesome (and the other site crappola). Nasty as some of my comments directed at you editors, consider them as attempt for constructive criticism and encouragement.
As for the editor shortage, it may help to describe how someone may go about volunteering to be an editor here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by buswolley on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:11PM
I think they might have to first sign up for a user-name.
subicular junctures
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ezber Bozmak on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:27PM
Nasty as some of my comments directed at you editors, consider them as attempt for constructive criticism and encouragement.
Its not really clear what you did, but given that Janirok was miserable enough to mention it, cut it the fuck out.
"I'm just trying to help you" is the #1 justification given for mistreating others.
You don't know better. You aren't helping. Being a shit to someone has never helped anyone.
If you actually care about being constructive - then actually construct by making a positive contribution.
You want to work out your issues? Find someone who you can pay for the privilege.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:51PM
:) I see that you are not cut out to be an editor.
For what it's worth, I would value editorship gig at SN a big plus in the resume/professional achievement. SN may be a small site, but it definitely earned respect among the geeks, and putting up with jerks like me yet still staying positive and continue to do a good job, I consider that not a minor accomplishment, demonstrating maturity of temperament. I wouldn't know what to think if you said your worked at gigaom (sp? featured in one of earlier posts), but I would definitely notice if you said you worked on SN.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:30PM
If you are really the AC that has been torpedoing articles he didn't like because of politics or submitter, then I want you no where near being able to edit.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:57PM
I'm not the one bitching about "gewg"s posts if that's what you mean. I don't mind some politics. What I do mind is insipid, gossipy stories (sure, subjective, but what isn't) and egregious editorial comment tacked onto submission.
Come to think of it, I see that I'm not the worst bastard here, but that's, like, just my opinion.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:52PM
Goog torpedoed his own submissions by making them so crappy to begin with. Seriously, he linked to an article at boingboing that started out with "Har-har-fuck-you". Maybe the subject matter was relevant, but by linking to a biased shitty article instead of the better local news articles he doomed his submission to failure.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:33PM
Nasty [...] constructive
Those are practically antonyms in this case.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Insightful) by drgibbon on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:13PM
Perhaps just slow down? I don't have too much of a problem with SN being a slow-paced site. I think it already attracts some interesting comments, so maybe just take it a bit easier. Bring on some more eds if that's necessary, I'm sure there's people willing to help out.
Certified Soylent Fresh!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:39PM
Even more: If the site moves a bit slower, maybe it helps to slow down some of the discussions as well and to keep interesting topic in view a bit longer. I sometimes have the feeling the discussions are superficial because people are too much in a hurry to move to the next topic already.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SrLnclt on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:31PM
I actually like the speed of articles right now. IMHO only having 4-6 articles in a 12 hour period compared to 8-12 of them might actually decrease user involvement. Not every article is going to be of interest to everyone. I may find some privacy vs. security articles interesting, while the reoccurring debate about systemd doesn't do much for me. You might be sick of the former and passionate about the latter. If a user is only interested in a couple articles per day, that person may be less likely to comment, and more likely to spend their time on other site(s).
As others have stated previously, if this is a problem with the quantity of active editors then maybe we need to ask the community for a few more editors. SoylentNews is people after all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:22AM
As a general rule, we vary post speed in response to submission volume. If we've got a ton of stories, we'll have them go live every 90 minutes or so. If we're low, it may stretch out to every three hours. It varies a bit as well by time of day, but that's the basic idea. We like to give each story time to shine, but also give people a reason to keep coming back.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @03:57PM
Perhaps just slow down?
This. Just set a specific period of time. Be clear what the hours of operation are. DO NOT DEVIATE. Maybe new stories only go up every 4/8 hours? Maybe set aside a story discussion area other than 'the queue'. Or even if you have already edited a story set a timer for it to go up so it looks like more work is going on. Maybe 'goes up in 5 hours' or something. That way you do not have to babysit the queue... Automate the boring tedious work.
Many startups fall into the trap of 'if I dont do this it will not get done'. Yes it will. Just not right now. You will burn yourself out then drop it eventually because there will be some awful comment that makes you snap. You will end up burning the candle on both ends and feel like you are letting everyone down. It is because you are not setting expectations up front. Automate as much as you can. Computers are very good at that.
Most 'breaking' stories can wait. There are plenty of websites out there to cover this sort of thing. This is not the only place we come for news. It is OK to kill a story because it has been sitting too long or is just bad quality. It is OK for the queue to 'go empty'. Just throw up a story that it is empty and it will fill up fast enough...
Basically work smarter not harder. Pretty much this is a leisure site. Almost everything can wait. You do not need 6 nines of uptime. 98% of the time is fine. Make it clear to everyone this is YOUR spare time and is taking away from other projects you may like to work on. It is one of the reasons I have not volunteered. As I have about 10 other projects I am working on. One of them includes playing the latest in the cities series on steam. I have portioned out my time to what I feel I like. Because it is *my* free time. Take re-ownership of your life. It is already yours. You have let other things control it.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:22PM
Let me volunteer. If you want to see how I write, you can check out my posts on this site. Most have been comments, some facetious.
Let me know what I'd have to do, how much time it would take to be useful, what the editorial criteria are, and what interfaces or privileges I'd need to do it. I'll decide if I might be capable of it. If I think so but I turn out to be wrong, of course, you can always fire me.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:54AM
Cool! Email myself AND/OR jump into IRC and join #editorial. I'll be on most of Friday.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:32PM
Can write. can edit, can even (HORROR!) fact check.
Just shout.
B.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:04PM
Fact check?
Step away from the keyboard, slowly... No sudden moves, and nobody will get hurt. Put the internet down, and slide it my way with your foot.
I want you to find a window... Hands off the mouse!
Find a real window... open it ... take a long breath of fresh air... Even not-fresh air, frigid air, or blast-furnace air, any air whatsoever.
Then you can sit down on the floor, and start talking. We need names. Who else is involved in the fact-checking ring?
We can help you if you collaborate. Think of the children. They're not safe on a gray-scale internet.
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:15AM
Let's follow up on this next week. I'm about to go out of town (see how we get in trouble here?) but I'd love to add you to the team.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:56AM
LaminatorX doesn't have much time this week, but I'll be around, I recommend jumping into IRC [soylentnews.org], but you can send me an email too if ya like.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by cosurgi on Saturday March 14 2015, @08:52AM
Great! Please jump into IRC [soylentnews.org] and join #editorial
#
#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
#
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Tuesday March 17 2015, @12:51AM
Yeah, yeah. Took me three days to check back to my own comment. Will do ASAP.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:32PM
Would it be possible to aid the editing work a bit more by technical means? I'd have some proposals, but they'd probably require some implementation effort.
- If not already done, split the editing-process in several steps: 1. review, 2. summary improvement, 3. accept-decision
- Allow moderating pending submissions like comments. Implementation might be like a fake-Story, where submissions are posted as comments. This gives editors some feedback which topics are the most valued ones, anyone with mod-points could support this step. Editors wouldn't have to spend time on sorting out trash. Published submissions are moved to another story or simply deleted.
- Anyone who is a member for at least n months and kept his karma between 40-50 for at least m weeks/months qualifies as a 2nd-level editor and can propose redacted summaries as comments to pending submissions. Since many readers qualify and a separate registration process wouldn't be required, this step might come for free to the core-editor staff, and anyone having some time to spare can make himself useful without creating any effort up-front. Even a one-time contributor would create a net-gain.
- redacted summaries can be voted on as well by all 2nd-level editors.
- We would need a technical limitation of two levels of comments to avoid people abusing this setup to start the discussion before the article is officially published. This section would be dedicated for editorial work only. If someone tries nevertheless to abuse this section to start discussion, they are off-topic, should be moderated accordingly, and hopefully the abuser would go below the required karma-threshold and lose privileges for this section for a couple of weeks.
- Ideally, Core-editors would have to just pick the highest-rated submission, pick the highest-rated summery-rewrite, and decide to publish
- Any 2nd-level author who got at least x improved summaries accepted as final version can be promoted to 1st-level editor, with permission to do the "publish" decision
Later on, maybe we could have some more attributes for submissions and for our 2nd-level editors, helping people to specialise on their areas of technical expertise
Thanks for your effort, janrinok, it is appreciated. Please take good care of your health and family. I'd prefer to read 5 days a week for many more years compared to 7 days a week for only a few more weeks/months ;-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by cwix on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:43PM
Many hands make light work. I honestly would not be a good fit for actual editing, but I would be glad to track down sources, and alternative viewpoints for the stories.
Or how about this. What do you need me to do to help?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @12:47AM
Try increasing the submissions pool. It seems like it is stressful for an editor to deal with the situation of picking a poor quality submission or trying to make some themselves to make sure the pool does not go dry.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @03:58AM
Yes, as AC points out, if you are interested in editing, sending in a darn good submission is 80% of the job, and a much welcomed resource around here.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by quixote on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:48PM
I could spend a few hours a week at defined times doing ... well, something. No real idea what goes into being an editor. Something tells me I'd be the novice who just gets in the way, but if there's something I could do, I'd be glad to try. Like an earlier commenter said, if I'm hopeless, you can always fire me.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:00AM
There's a little HTML, converting timezones to UTC and the like, but most importantly if you feel you have good writing and proofreading skills, you're likely a good match. Super bonus points if you can edit stories to include an unbiased point of view AND/OR your have some kind of expertise in the subjects commonly referenced here. If you are still interested, email me or jump into IRC and join #editorial.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CRCulver on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:04PM
If you get offended by trolls and flamewars in the comments, you are investing too much emotionally in trying to serve people serious news. It's just a nerdy aggregator site, don't take it too seriously. Plus, on the old site for years it was the trolls that really kept me hanging around, as much of the news was already stale and well known from other sites anyway. Many readers will not care about your stories, they just want to see what mayhem will ensue in the comments under them.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by n1 on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:20PM
That attitude will lead us down the same road as the old site.
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:33PM
My mod points exhausted, I substitute a "This!".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CRCulver on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:03PM
Low-quality submissions on the front page, and especially bad moderating, will have a much greater impact.
Bad moderating is particularly harmful. It has become the worst thing about Slashdot, now that the beta site has been killed.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:58PM
And a lot of that discussion doesn't really involve "trolling".
It's just that these days, anyone who isn't pushing the social justice line is treated like a pariah and mislabeled as a "troll".
If you dare to, say, point out the fact that Michael Brown robbed a store, roughed up the clerk, tried to take a police officer's gun, and then yet again tried to physically assault that police officer, you'll surely have several somebodies screaming "TrOL1LLLLl!!%!@#!" at you and mislabeling you as a "racist". That even happens here, although it's nowhere near as bad as HN and Reddit are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:51PM
It's not that that gets you called Troll, it's posting the same damned thing near verbatim multiple times to the same story to make it look like people agree with you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @12:12AM
Nah, it's not that. It happens regardless of who posts in the comments. It's a societal problem, and this site is not immune from it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 13 2015, @12:24AM
Trust me. If it were SJWs, I'd be upmodding you to counter it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @01:00AM
Damn right.
The moderation community has done a pretty good job of balancing itself and correcting unfair moderations that even oppose their viewpoint.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 13 2015, @01:09AM
Yup, looks like all we really needed was a wider disbursal of mod points. I've personally been exceedingly happy to be wrong on that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:03AM
Yes, I can second TheMightyBuzzard's sentiment here. I receive emails complaints about mod abuse/misuse, and most of the time the "problem" has been corrected by our peers by the time I get there. = )
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @02:51PM
That's spamming/flooding (probably by a net cook), not trolling. Trolling is fishing for replies by fabricating a bait post.
(although posting same troll several times might be involved since that gets more replies)
(Score: 2) by TLA on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:30PM
and decide for yourself, if I'm the sort of person you want on your editorial staff. No skin off my nose if you don't, I will continue to contribute in my own way by dropping comments and adding to my journal.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2015, @01:06AM
Not to discourage you from adding to your journal but increasing the submission pool would probably help more.
I don't know if this is acceptable but maybe you could even find a relevant news article and submit your journal entry along with it. It is a shame that we have a lack of submissions on the main page and an untapped pool of sometimes great user-generated content hiding from view.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:38PM
2 editors... 2 month break... Over the last 2 weekends... work 7 days a week
A lot of style guides recommend words for small numbers ;)
Actually I'm usually against that kind of fairly arbitrary rule, but single digits too tend to stick out a bit.
I'd offer to edit myself, but I do have an annoying habit of missing out the occasional at random.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:05PM
OMG your focus on minutiae is such an obnoxious waste of time.
keep it to yourself, nobody cares
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:07PM
Maybe he's just a C++ programmer. Somebody who cares about details. He's not a JavaScript programmer, who just shits out syntax without any regard for how it's formatted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:21PM
Whatever kind of programmer he is, he's shit at human communication.
Human language has a ton of redundancy so that minor variations in syntax won't prevent the transmission of ideas.
Trying to micro-optimize syntax is wasteful.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:12AM
We're geeks and nerds, not English majors.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by rafa on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:40PM
Just let me know how I can sign up, please.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:05AM
Send me an email and/or jump into IRC [soylentnews.org] and /join #editorial.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by prospectacle on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:50PM
By having a wiki section dedicated to getting articles mostly-ready.
Maybe I'm alone in this but while I don't feel I have the time to properly edit, I would be quite able and willing to look through pending articles for a few minutes a day, fixing obvious spelling or grammatical errors, testing and fixing links, adding extra links and sentences to clarify terms or provide background for those unfamiliar with the topic. If a dozen people did this for only a few minutes each day, then stories would get polished very quickly.
A story form the queue could be pasted into a new wiki page in very little time, a link to this "wikiqueue" section could be put somewehre obvious (e.g. the wiki home page), and when (if) the stories were sufficiently improved by the casual sub-editors, they could be pasted back into the queue for final editing and submission.
The real editors would then have to put in far less time per article. They could even make requests in the talk page of a pending article, for mods that are required (e.g. better sources, clarifications of terms) and see if any sub-editors step up to save them the time.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:11AM
That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure what's stopping anyone from doing that right now. (you could resubmit as "RESUBMISSION" or something) but it would remain in the queue. I'd recommend pining an editor (or myself) in IRC to see if anyone's working on that story already. Our editors would still need to change formatting into html though unless someone uses html formatting in wiki page. Seems like a work-around, might be better to just join up the team until we can implement some cool community-sourced method of doing similar (distant future?).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by prospectacle on Saturday March 14 2015, @02:22AM
To change formatting to html one can select the text on the wiki -> right-click -> view selection source -> copy. That's on firefox anyway, most browsers will have an equivalent feature.
I think what's stopping any submitter from just doing it now is that, absent any formal system (e.g. a link on the submissions page that goes to the "wikiqueue", an instruction for where to put a copy of the article on the wiki when submitting, etc), anyone wanting to do this would have to figure out where to put it on the wiki, then advertise the fact they'd done it (but where: their journal, the wiki, irc?), and ask people to go to the wiki to read/edit their submission, every time.
If instead the submission page and queue page had a link, and a suggestion to use it, then people would get used to the idea that this is where you go to sub-edit articles if you want to, and this is where you can check on the editing progress of your own article, including any suggestions that may have been made by real editors. It's would also make it easy to fix up all the problems you inevitably notice with your own submission the minute after you submit it.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 13 2015, @12:20AM
Janrinok, thanks for throwing up a flag for the rest of us. I have spare cycles and can help out.
I suggest you schedule a time on IRC to show new volunteers the ropes, and also recommend lighter shifts for us to take so if we screw up while we're getting up to speed we don't screw the community too much. What time works for you guys?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LaminatorX on Friday March 13 2015, @01:27AM
Let's follow up next week. I'm about to go out of town, but we could definitely use a few more hands.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday March 13 2015, @04:13AM
I'll be on IRC as much as possible Friday to whip new recruits into shape (IRC is our main method of communication and strongly recommended for anyone on the team.). Beyond that just ping janrinok, n1, myself, LaminatorX or anyone with a + in front of their name.
(Score:1^½, Radical)