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We've finally reached the end. The name will be....
...SoylentNews.org!
I know, it's a bit anti-climactic, but we've gone over the results and our current name won by a significant margin. We'll follow up with a post detailing the voting results in a few days.
Edit: The results data are available in responses to this comment.
For what it's worth, there were a lot of us that would have like to see the name change. The staff even had a chance to override this decision, but instead we decided to support the community's choice.
I'd like to thank everyone who spent a lot of time (and in some cases money) suggesting domains, voting, and bearing with us through this long complex process. It turned into a huge, non-trivial task to pull off, and I appreciate your patience and understanding. We listened to your criticisms of the process as well and we've learned a lot about how we can significantly improve this process for the future.
Okay, now cue all the "I told you that SoylentNews would win!1!!1!!" comments...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Saturday May 31 2014, @05:10PM
Seriously though it was already established as the name for some time so it was a foregone conclusion. If you wanted it otherwise it probably would have been best to figure out the name before you had soylentnews.org registered and everything and implying that it wasn't anything but a codename. I know that given the circumstances that couldn't be done, but honestly who cares. There's not enough soylent in the world (the stupid disrespect-to-the-name food doesn't count, just like it shouldn't count when you think of why this name isn't good enough).
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zizban on Saturday May 31 2014, @05:11PM
I thought the name was good from the get go but my second choice would have been apt-get-news, which makes the geek in me happy. A proud nerd here!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Lagg on Saturday May 31 2014, @05:19PM
I liked that too (even though I don't use debian for most systems anymore) but it's too debian-centric, and ubuntu-centric as sad as that is. Would have also implied that this is some kind of apt project site or a news site for debian itself.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 31 2014, @09:32PM
If you ask me, it doesn't actually make sense if you stop to think about it either.
apt-get update - doesn't take an argument, and you don't read the ensuing file/output anyway
apt-get install news - you only likely do this once, so it doesn't work as a recurring metaphor for fetching news either
apt-get upgrade/dist-upgrade - often takes a really long time to run...is that the message we want to send? And again, you only actually look at the output if something goes wrong.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Saturday May 31 2014, @11:26PM
Yeah, especially if you consider the debian guidelines saying stuff should only output for unexpected conditions and errors if it isn't intended for a machine to read (e.g. piping to something). I guess you could just say the awesome power of soylent wrote an extension subcommand for news. But now we're really entering nerd territory.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Sunday June 01 2014, @01:59PM
"This APT has Super Newspaper-Fetching Cow Powers."?
(I would insert ASCII art of a cow holding a newspaper, but slashcode wouldn't like it, so y'all gonna have to use your imaginations this time...)
(Score: 5, Informative) by NCommander on Saturday May 31 2014, @07:34PM
This was one of the big issues I had as part of the build up of me taking over as head of the site. The should have been well under way before I ever was head of operations. Instead, it didn't even get started until I took over, plus the other issues that go. I've got more to write about it, and that will go up with a post soonish.
I'm not hugely happy that SN won, but it was by such a significant margin that it would have been a slap to the community had we gone with anythng else.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrbluze on Saturday May 31 2014, @07:42PM
If it was the apparent will of the community, then there is nothing more to say. I wish the project all the best an encourage anyone who has the slightest inclination to put themselves forward and help out. Cheers everyone.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 01 2014, @01:50AM
Me, I'm glad SN won -- but I'm more glad you guys are going with the community instead of against it. We've got a lot of years to come in us. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by islisis on Sunday June 01 2014, @02:01AM
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from leaving things late then. It's possible people simply got too used to the name to process any change.
Considering some of the staff comments in this post, it may have been useful to have heard their reasons before the vote, too.
(Score: 1) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday June 01 2014, @02:15AM
Well yes, but I'm sure there were a lot of more immediate issues with which to deal as things were getting started.
I certainly agree with this. I kind of get the feeling the staff wanted a change for some reason as I never saw any posts from the community complaining about the name. Perhaps if the staff would have simply presented a case for a change the community would have rubber stamped it. Maybe they thought it was better to stay above the fray, but ultimately if the staff is unhappy I see little chance the community will survive.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday June 03 2014, @04:00AM
There were many actually.
From the "Name Finalists [soylentnews.org]" article text:
Many people had already mentioned issues with this name, I didn't personally feel it was necessary to reiterate those thoughts. Some hate the name, but many more seem to like it.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 01 2014, @06:12AM
There were numerous deficiencies in this. It's a crying shame.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 02 2014, @04:48PM
For the record I believe this name choice is a mistake and the process was poorly designed and executed. For this reason I have left the project, and this should serve as a warning because I am not the first to have walked over substandard management in this project. Nonetheless I sincerely wish the project best of luck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 02 2014, @10:47PM
Wait, even NCommander himself agrees that the site name is TERRIBLE? What a travesty. He should have taken the initiative to change it and use something presentable.
There's NO reason he couldn't do it anyway. The "community" voted for a known quantity because of fear. Don't let their stupidity and fear ruin the site you're dedicating so much of your time and money to, NCommander.
SoylentNews is an awful, ridiculous name that damns this site to obscurity.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday June 03 2014, @03:45AM
He didn't say it was "terrible" he just said he "I'm not hugely happy that SN won". It's a matter of opinion really, there are comments damning the name, comments praising it, and pretty much everything in between. That's why we rolled with the majority of the community's choice. I'm not sure what you mean by they voted out of "fear," but not respecting that decision is worse in my mind.
(Score:1^½, Radical)