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SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 9 submissions in the queue.
posted by mrcoolbp on Friday May 16 2014, @04:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the democracy-at-work dept.

Phew, we are almost there, we've reached the last phase of voting. The final list of names is:

  • apt-get-news
  • crosslog
  • dailybacon
  • forkdot
  • grepnews OR newsgrep
  • salientnews OR salientnoise
  • soylentnews
  • sudonews
  • techmatter

All of the above names we have confirmed in at least *.net and *.org, and we even have a few *.com (where possible). There are some new names because the staff held a round to submit and vote also. The above list was created by using the top 5 from both staff and the community, and two extras due to possible copyright issues with two of the names (soylent and apt-get-news).

There were a few names that were nearly identical, the two pairs are listed as one entry (with the variation that got the most points listed first). Should one of these win there will be a runoff to determine which variation gets used. (This is done to keep from splitting the vote for very close names).

The final round of voting will go out within 24 hours after this post and last for one week. We would like to provide an opportunity to discuss the finalists, so here is your chance, discuss below. If you change your mind after seeing an insightful comment, remember you can always change your vote by sending it in again (only most recent will count). We collected a quick writeup from as many submissions as possible to allow for discussion. Some names have more than one advocate due to multiple submitters; conversely, some submitters didn't reply.


Site Name: crosslog

islisis writes:

The idea behind this was to highlight the cross-fertilisation and communication of expert community voices I have cherished over the years. I hoped that our site name could represent that value to outsiders. To me, the site is also a record of our experiences through tech events, and a valuable log and testament to the lives which dared to ride the wave.

cosurgi writes:

Our site is cross-logging events from around the world. The "cross" means that various different disciplines are inter weaved together.


Site Name: sudonews

gishzida writes:

"Sudo" is a pun on both a *nix shell command to "execute a command as if you are the system superuser" and on the word "Pseudo" i.e. not genuine... both of these things represent the kind of environment our site operates in--- we find news stories, we edit them then we expand upon them factually or contra-factually... laughing, flaming, learning, teaching, and hopefully building friendships and consensus.


Site Name: apt-get-news

gishzida writes:

The name is based on the shell command in some linux distributions [Debian, Ubuntu, etc]. Apt-get is used to reach out to a software repository to obtain and install software. "apt-get-news" reflects the idea that we reach out to get and install news in our community to discuss.

I have been surprised by this community and whatever the name ends up being I know it will be the starting point of something great.

cosurgi writes:

Our site has "natural tendency" to "get" the "news" from around the world. (second meaning of apt on http://www.thefreedictionary.com/apt is "natural tendency")


Site Name: grepnews, newsgrep

AudioGuy writes:

This name was interesting to me because it instantly provides knowledge of what the site does, and who it is targeted to, from the very name itself. Grep is a command line program that searches a mass of data for information matching a certain pattern. Our site searches a mass of data ('news') for information ('stories') that match a certain pattern ('would be of interest to our community of users')

Our users are mostly of a somewhat technical bent, and tend to use computers in a fairly sophisticated way, so would likely know what 'grep' means. So just from the name one might assume this was some sort of news aggregation site aimed at more technical users. In this respect, it has some similarity with another, similar sites name.


Site Name: salientnews or salientnoise

AudioGuy writes:

Another description of exactly what our site does - it looks for news that is salient to our community of users. It does not indicate a preference for purely technical news.


Site Name: techmatter

middlemen writes:

The name "techmatter" is derived from Breaking Bad's "Grey Matter" corporation of which Walter White used to be a part of. Since Soylent News is predominantly a technological oriented website, the name "techmatter" makes sense. It also is safe for work and is easy to market to other folks who are already into technology or who will be part of the community in the future.

Marketing is everything.

AudioGuy writes:

This is a very general name indicating a site that concerns itself with technical matters, that can easily expand its meaning to different uses. I was surprised it was still available.


Site name: forkdot

geottie writes:

Well, pretty simple: our site (& community) is a fork of and has a similar ring to the site we came from and will serve us as a reminder of our effort as a community. The name represents the core values and principles of Free Software & Open Source, which, when followed truly, are always guided by the community. Our community is part of this larger culture/movement and this name will remind us and following generations to continue standing for Freedom and uphold our belief and ability to work towards and defend a genuine, Free Internet for the benefit and advancement of earth, humanity and our society. Huzzah^H^H^H^H^H^H Woot!

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ancientt on Friday May 16 2014, @04:39PM

    by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Friday May 16 2014, @04:39PM (#44270) Homepage Journal

    I also like TechMatter and am planning to vote for it. I'd be happy to send my boss a link to an article on TechMatter but not as happy with many of the names on the list.

    I think we can all agree readily enough that Pipedot is pretty. I look forward to the days when this TechMatter is also pretty, but I don't want you to switch engines. At least not until there is equivalent functionality and I don't expect that to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, the part that I really care about, the community, is here and that's where I stay regardless of how pretty it may or may not be.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16 2014, @04:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16 2014, @04:59PM (#44281)

    No. I said "design and utility". This site works much less well than the other. It is much, much harder to navigate and read a discussion here. Too little is shown at a time, and replies must constantly be expanded to be read, many levels deep. It's rather awful.

    I was not talking about being pretty.

    • (Score: 2) by tynin on Friday May 16 2014, @05:31PM

      by tynin (2013) on Friday May 16 2014, @05:31PM (#44306) Journal

      It is because you are viewing the forum likely in "Threaded" view. Change it to Nested and you'll be a lot happier I suspect.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Friday May 16 2014, @05:34PM

      by drussell (2678) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 16 2014, @05:34PM (#44308) Journal

      Too little is shown at a time, and replies must constantly be expanded to be read, many levels deep.

      Try 'Nested' mode instead of 'Threaded'. Also, proper comment expanding/collapsing is coming with a future update and is already being tested.

      • (Score: 1) by NigelO on Friday May 16 2014, @06:30PM

        by NigelO (2523) on Friday May 16 2014, @06:30PM (#44336)

        Why isn't 'nested' the default?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16 2014, @07:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16 2014, @07:26PM (#44365)

          I agree. In other stories back when this site started months ago several people requested 'nested' be the default. From the consistent responses here it seems it is still the requested default. I suggested it be the default months ago but was mocked.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Friday May 16 2014, @08:05PM

            by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday May 16 2014, @08:05PM (#44401) Homepage Journal

            The default is actually "Improved Threaded" which was not implemented in time for golive, and still not done on the last site upgrade. It *is* implemented properly on dev, and will be live in two weeks. Feel free to try the system on http://dev.soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]

            I vaguely remember people suggesting switching it to nested, but I think it was something I overlooked, and we have something better coming down the pipe in a bit.

            --
            Still always moving
            • (Score: 2) by ancientt on Friday May 16 2014, @08:45PM

              by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Friday May 16 2014, @08:45PM (#44425) Homepage Journal

              The look is immediately a little better, but it is hard to get a feel for what real stories will look like without more comments. Would it be reasonable and possible to copy all the comments (with their ratings) to the dev site?

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              • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday May 16 2014, @08:58PM

                by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday May 16 2014, @08:58PM (#44433) Homepage Journal

                Here's one of the largest stories in the dev archive: http://dev.soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/03/31 /070201 [soylentnews.org] with 136 comments which should give you an idea of how it works in practice.

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                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17 2014, @02:33PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17 2014, @02:33PM (#44639)

                  It's broken by default if it needs JavaScript to work. They better keep Nested as an option...

            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday May 17 2014, @04:59AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Saturday May 17 2014, @04:59AM (#44583) Homepage

              On slashdot, used to be "threaded" expanded everything from your threshold on up. During the last big 'upgrade' (I think?) this got busted, but not severely (mostly it no longer expands some +3 comments; my threshold is +2). However, it's really broken here -- sometimes even +5 comments are not expanded. Not enough comments over on dev to really tell, but looks like it might be fixed there...??

              Anyway, I shall use "nested" for the nonce as it seems to be playing nice.

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              • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday May 19 2014, @09:25PM

                by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday May 19 2014, @09:25PM (#45382) Homepage Journal

                It *does* work, but probably not in the way you expect it, you need to set the Breakthrough value in preferences to make comments of that score automatically expand. I'm aware this is hugely unintutative, and Improved Threaded is a major improved for it.

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                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 20 2014, @12:11AM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 20 2014, @12:11AM (#45446) Homepage

                  Okay, thanks, I'll experiment with it a bit. I've been kinda leery of changing settings as I recall having hell's own time getting it back to how I wanted it on Slashdot, at least after they'd messed with how it worked.

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 1) by Magic Oddball on Saturday May 17 2014, @03:24AM

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Saturday May 17 2014, @03:24AM (#44562) Journal

      It's easy to set it to show you most or all comments at once... Here's the settings I'm using to get it:

      Display Mode: Improved Threaded
      Sort Order Threshold: Oldest First
      Highlight Threshold: -1 Uncut and Raw
      Reparent Highly Rated Comments ON