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SoylentNews is people

posted by mrcoolbp on Wednesday April 09 2014, @07:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-thought-the-name-was-bacconmuffinnews dept.

After several early attempts, we have settled on a process for deciding on the final name for this site currently known as SoylentNews.org. You'll need to log in and go to: userprefs/homepage and check the box marked "Willing to Vote" if you'd like to participate (do this now, the submission round will go out soon). The vote will occur using an email-based solution loosely based on the Debian/Condercet method that we cooked up. Note: checking this box will indicate that we are scraping your email address from the database for participation (this is completely opt-in). If you wish not to participate, just make sure this box is unchecked (this is the default).

We are opening the floor to name suggestions. If you have suggested a name earlier, you'll need to re-submit it through this email voting system. Though we prefer available domains, if you have pre-purchased a domain (eg: to prevent squatters), by submitting the name you are stating that you are the owner of the domain(s) and will give it without strings attached to this project if it were to be chosen.

The criteria for an acceptable name:

  • Unique and free of obvious trademarks
  • Ideally be a bit technological/geeky and signal the site is "news"
  • Domain should be available in all permutations: .com/.net/.org
  • Easy to pronounce
  • Easy to type
  • Easy to 'market' or has a "hook" (imagine a mug with the name, a logo, slogans, plays on words, etc.)
  • Passes the girlfriend / wife / significant other / random person at work - test

This is how it will work:

  1. The first round will go out asking for name submissions
  2. Submissions will remain open for 7 days
  3. The community will vote to yield 5 names
  4. Staff will vote and produce 5 names
  5. A final vote on all 10 names will be held
  6. At this point, the staff will have a second full vote on the same ten items the community voted on
  7. The result of this vote, and the community vote, including its runoff, will then be published
  8. The staff vote is the final decision. We have to live with this. But the community will have a powerful influence on the final staff vote.

If you're interested:

NCommander adds: So its finally here, and I wanted to apologize for the long delay before this actually happened. To the editoral team, please bump this to the top of the index for the next 24 hours so everyone gets a chance to see it (click 'fastforward' then save to autoupdate the timestamp). I promise a Featured Story option is coming in the next major update so we don't have to deal with this!

 
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  • (Score: 1) by fadrian on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:09PM

    by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:09PM (#28841) Homepage

    ... after all, a rose by any other name, etc., etc.

    What I'd really like to see is the stories' summary posted as part of the RSS feed. We all know that this decreases the amount of clicks for the main site (as one might realize that they're not interested in the article while browsing the RSS feed rather than clicking through to the site to read the summary), but it is a hell of a lot more convenient. All of the other RSS feeds I subscribe to do this. Your #1 competitor [slashdot.org] does this.

    Lack of this capability is annoying enough that I am often tempted to take your RSS feed out of my Tech News section. Frankly, adding that feature would have been a better use of time than dicking about with a voting system so you can pick a name. Voting systems can be manipulated via the ground rules, which issues get voted on, etc. - actual features are much more useful.

    --
    That is all.
  • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:30PM

    by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:30PM (#28857) Homepage

    The RSS feed including the summary is a high priority issue on our issue tracker on GitHub [github.com], we will get to it. Changing the name sooner rather then later was also deemed important.

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    (Score:1^½, Radical)
    • (Score: 1) by fadrian on Wednesday April 09 2014, @04:42PM

      by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday April 09 2014, @04:42PM (#28902) Homepage

      Thanks for the first, but as for the latter, I still don't really get it. Yes, Soylent News is a pretty stupid name, but what web site these days doesn't have a stupid name? Oh well... Maybe someday I'll understand the world.

      --
      That is all.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:09PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:09PM (#28925)

        but what web site these days doesn't have a stupid name?

        Exactly. Being "non-stupid" really isn't that useful; what's useful is having something catchy and easy to remember, which isn't already taken (the domains are available), which doesn't have any IP (trademark mainly) issues, and won't earn you a C&D letter from some not-really-related company saying your name conflicts with their trademarks somehow.

        As long as it's unique and memorable, and comes up #1 on a Google (or DDG or Bing) search, that's all that matters.

      • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:10PM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:10PM (#28926) Homepage Journal

        A contest to rename the site was promised to the community from before we even had slash going; if we can't keep our promises to the community, how are we ask you guys to trust us and support us? I wanted this vote to happen ages ago, but circumstances make fools of us all :-/

        --
        Still always moving