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mattie_p paraphrases Barrabas, who uttered these words (mostly):
To everyone who contributed to the initial roll out, thank you! It was an amazing effort, and we couldn't have done it without you.
I've set down some notes, with an overview of where I see the project heading in the next few weeks. As always, we can stop and discuss if the community feels we should be moving in a different direction.
We have had a wildly successful launch, and can now proceed at a slightly more leisurely pace, at least for the team that handles code development. I have always intended to do development the right way; with a strong foundation of tools and with leaders to oversee and coordinate the effort between individuals and other groups. As a result, this upcoming week I've told our system administrator team to take a break. They can certainly do minor bug fixes at a leisurely pace if they feel bored, but I want a team that is relaxed and refreshed.
Speaking of a team, we actually have at least five of them. There is a systems team, which are primarily concerned with systems and server issues. There is a development team, consisting of people who contribute code to the site. There is a content team, consisting of our editors, artists, and administrators of our wiki, forum, and IRC channels. A fourth group is style, representing those who help determine how the site is presented. Finally, we have our business team, which includes marketing, legal, finances, and other such issues.
This has been an exciting time. I understand there has been some concern about decisions made during first roll out. I promised that we would operate by community consensus, and I will abide by that. Look for opportunities to contribute to the future direction of SoylentNews over the upcoming days and weeks.
(To read the full story in his words, simply go to Barrabas's Journal Entry. (internal hyperlink))
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pert.boioioing on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:54AM
...I'm starting to like the red. I really didn't at first but it's growing on me. Kinda like that red snow the Ex-SLASHDOT BETA user was talking about, if you know what I mean. And I forgot all about the funny things like "This page was generated by a Flock of Random Ninjas" from long ago, so IMO it's a welcome bit of nostalgia.
But most seriously, great job for following through and getting this place up and running, and so quickly at that! Here's to hoping it hits its stride.
(Score: 1) by pert.boioioing on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:57AM
Damn, messed up my first post here, but that led me to this: It would be nice to have a short (maybe 2 min.) grace period for editing comments, if possible.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Open4D on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:19AM
That's what the preview button is for!
Possibly though, there could be a preference for users who don't trust themselves to have a 2nd preview, which has just your comment on screen, almost nothing else, and says "Are you really sure you want to post this?" "Yes" "No, go back and edit it further".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dmc on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:35AM
Another option would be time-delayed and cancellable posting. I think I'd like that in thunderbird for email as well. I.e. by default the time delay on post would be 0s or perhaps 120s, though with a number/time entry field to modify the default for that post. Then after you hit submit you have that length of time to optionally cancel the post/submission. That way you can both 'fire and forget' as well as 'catch a mistake and keep it from going out'. I've too well conditioned myself now at the age of 38, but I can't count the number of times I've emailed the author/maintainer of an open source package with a question that had been bugging me for hours or days, only to have the correct thought about how to find the answer myself within 5 minutes of sending the mail. (yes, I am the one who had to post Doh above after a similar scenario, but in that case, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have found it myself even after a day)
(Score: 1) by dmc on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:24AM
"...I'm starting to like the red. I really didn't at first but it's growing on me."
I agree, but here is another idea- Offer a 100 mod point (with say 1 month expiration) bounty for a patch to the code on github that would enable a simple pref for the color.
(Score: 1) by cx on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:01PM
Sorry for being offtopic, but does anyone actually find having mod points rewarding? I always felt they were a burden, a civic duty, like 'Damn now I have to moderate and I have to read comments on stories I don't care about because I might want to comment on ones I do care about.'
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:45PM
You can opt-out of being a moderator on your personal page. We don't want to force anyone to be a moderator who doesn't want to be.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by cx on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:16PM
(Score: 2, Funny) by pert.boioioing on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:10PM
I always found it was a good way to get out of an unwanted social obligation:
"Nah, I can't help you move this weekend. I've got mod points on slashdot I need to spend."
(Score: 1) by mrbluze on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:57AM
Red:
Because I'm getting involved in the style side of things I thought might be good to respond.
I think red is a good choice to differentiate itself from other sites, but I don't mind what color is selected or agreed upon. Many have commented that the contrast of the site is excessive. I tend to agree. The priority is readability and usability. I think it can be better than it is now.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 1) by hankwang on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:32PM
"Many have commented that the contrast of the site is excessive."
Except for the visited links. Reading this from my phone, which doesn't do underlined links (not sure whether they are underlined on desktop).
(maybe I'll mod avantslash, see home page, to support soylent as well. Although the only reason would be data usage, since this is very usable on mobile as is.)
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:59AM
Red? I just finished using Stylish to turn it back to green, fix the fonts and the background color. Luckily this site has an easy combo of html and css to hack with. I think we won't be here if we were not picky on these details, right? :-)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Istaera on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:32AM
I'm looking forward to this site being a nice green. Not a slashdot green, but a soylent one.
I believe there's somebody out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.
(Score: 1) by stderr on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:45PM
We just need more people, if you know what I mean...
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" #
(Score: 1) by qwade on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:32PM
Dude! Don't ention-may the ord-way een-gray next to oylent-say! You'll bring the copyright folks out of the woodwork..
(Score: 2, Informative) by martyb on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:42PM
Would you mind posting your changes here? I used stylish to add a left border and padding to a comment blockquote. It's quick and dirty, probably fails in some cases, but I expect to remove it when SN gets past the early roll-out challenges and they implement refinements on appearance.
(For those who may not know, stylish is a Firefox addon [mozilla.org] that facilitates creating and applying user styles that can be applied against a site or sites. I head there's a version for chrome, but I've not tried it.)
I requested your style updates as I'd like to look at them, personally, but also as SoylentNews is soliciting feedback, it might be helpful for them to see what areas are affected and how.
FWIW, here's what I have; I know it's crude, but it's intended to be temporary! WARNING: there are spaces inserted into the code here by the posting system (solution to the early days /. page widening troll)... cut-and-paste WILL NOT work
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Saturday February 22 2014, @09:00AM
Hi! Unfortunately Soylent News doesn't send mail for comments (or they are not as visible as the ones of the other site) so I missed your request. The file is here https://github.com/pmontrasio/soylent-green [github.com] :-)
It does a little more than changing red to green so you might not like everything I did but your blockquote fix is there
Feel free to fork it and send pull requests for fixes. Tastes are an extremely subjective matter so I don't promise I'll accept every change, but I'll definitely accept technical improvements.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:22PM
pmontra (1175) wrote:
Hi to you! Thanks for making that available!
I regret to inform you that my "blockquote fix" has some problems. It seemed to work when looking at a first-level comment. For example, as I write this reply (in "Plain Old Text" mode), the blockquote markup seems to work.
OTOH,When looking at a nested and threaded discussion, though, I've seen it not work. :(
Don't have enough data to clearly identify what is happening, and don't want to pollute the site with tests... Hmmm! Just had an idea - vague and rough, so bear with me. Okay?
How do we know if fixes to SoylentNews.org actually fix things and don't break other things?
It would be helpful to have test articles, posts, replies, etc. that are known quantities. I have no idea at the moment about how that could be created, managed, and *maintained*, but I wanted to put the thought out there while I had it!
Thanks again for the feedback!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Saturday March 01 2014, @09:00AM
I think we can only hope that changes to this site don't break the Stylish patches. Alignment and color stuff are hard to check. Maybe a selenium test (or any similar tool) with screenshots and pixel per pixel checks? I don't even want to think about it :-)
I'll look into the nested quote thing as soon as I run into it. Maybe you can open an issue on the repository.
(Score: 1) by martyb on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:54PM
Seconded. After 17 YEARS of Pavlov training on the old site, I figured that was only natural; now the new color scheme is growing on me, as well. Took me about a week. In as much as possible, I'm trying to go along with whatever changes are implemented here. I'll speak up if I see something I'd like to see changed, but for now, I'm trying to go with the flow.
I'm reminded of an old saying: "It is easier to put slippers on my feet than to carpet the world."
So, count me in the camp that's okay with the red color scheme.
Wit is intellect, dancing.