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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!
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Saturday May 17 2014, @03:05PM
The results will be published in the end. This is done to keep from influencing the vote. Not sure on the specifics of how we will present the information quite yet, but this is certainly an interesting idea.
Beleive it or not, we really do appreciate all the feedback on how we can improve this process, no matter how negative some of it has been; however, changing the code at this point is not going to happen, the next phase has already begun (sorry). Audioguy has been quite thorough in ensuring emails are received and parsed correctly (even examining the raw votes and making sure they are entered correctly).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stderr on Saturday May 17 2014, @11:26PM
What happens, if we after months and months of voting, find out that a huge amount of votes wasn't received and counted correctly in the first round? I mean, enough votes to change the top 5 (or top 10 or whatever it is). Are we going to redo this round using the names from the real top 5?
How can he be sure all the emails were received? What if there's a bug in the mailserver, so it silently dropped an email after it was received?
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" #
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Sunday May 18 2014, @05:46PM
At the end of this last phase, it will be one month and 14 days since first post went out. Not reall "months and months". That includes the registration period (which many said wasn't long enough), submissions, 2 rounds of voting, registration of domains, etc. I've come to realize that we will be criticised no matter what we do, so we are just trying to the best we can with what we have.
What like they just got lost in the interwebs? Email is well depended-upon for good reason. If you mean a bug in the system, then that's always a possibility with any system. We did test it and we have been monitoring it. For example we had only one ballot that had to be manually counted because of non-standard quoted-printable encoding.
I'm not sure specifically what you mean by this.
In the rather unlikely event that everything gets completely screwed up, let's cross that bridge if we come to it.
Is that a common problem I'm unaware of? Wouldn't that still have been a potential issue if we had used devotee (a solution which you seemed to support)? If it's "an email" like you said, it wouldn't effect the final vote due to the hundreds of other ballots and the final runoff.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stderr on Monday May 19 2014, @11:08PM
According to my IRC log of #staff, I suggested geekcard.org and port119.net on March 10th. If I'm not mistaken, that's more than two months ago, not just one month and 14 days. So I'll stick with my "months and months" comment.
Yes, that does happen.
You really shouldn't...
How did you manage to monitor if an email was lost before it reached any of your servers?
Are one of you working for the NSA or something like that?
Maybe not common, but yes, it can happen.
Yes, the mailserver could drop the mail before it reaches Devotee. BUT when Devotee do receive a vote, it sends back an email telling you if the vote could be parsed or not. If you don't receive that confirm email, you know that something went wrong. Either Devotee didn't get your vote or you didn't get the confirm email, so you re-send your vote.
Right now I still (after a very long time) don't know if you received my vote. None of us do. (Well, maybe some of you know that your votes were received, but that doesn't really say anything about the rest of the votes.)
(I don't necessarily support Devotee, but I do support well tested software over new homemade software with obvious problems.)
If a mailserver can drop one email, it can drop hundreds of emails. You won't know until we get to see the numbers. At that point, I have a feeling it'll be too late.
As it is, I have absolutely no confidence that this whole voting circus is going to find the domain name, the users truly wanted. It all feels like a big waste of time for no reason other than to say "see, you got the voting, you were promised."... But no, I don't think we did.
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" #
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18 2014, @07:46AM
Does this mean that my highly embarrassing site suggestion and subsequent voting will be made public?
If so, will I get advanced warning so I can find a rock to hide under?