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Breaking News: Russia Seizes Power in Crimea
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:09AM
So are we doing news for nerds, plus all other major headlines here? I'm not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but this is the sort of topic I can find discussed to nausiating lengths anywhere on the Internet. Slashdot was my haven for neutral technical oriented news, and then it became more about click bait and inciting the same circular arguments over and over.
I don't deny this is important, but what kind of person does this bring to the site? Soylent may be people, but the editors will choose who stays. By that I mean this site can become the same politically charged click bait bitch fest Slashdot turned into (minus some of the garbage, although the woman and her sewage issue article makes me wonder about that also). Or it can choose to be neutral on things which don't involve technology. You can have both you might say, but I'd argue as soon as a tone is set, the kind of people retained and driven away are what this site becomes. What kind of people are encouraged to stay or leave by posting this? Food for thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:24AM
Couldn't agree more
(Score: 3, Informative) by Barrabas on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:41AM
Talk this up!
This is exactly the type of feedback we need to gauge community interest. We look at responses such as these to tune our editorial policies.
If there's enough push-back on this article, and in the parent comment in particular, the editors will notice.
(Score: 1) by lubricus on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:52PM
agree 100%
... sorry about the typos
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Reziac on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:43AM
Conversely, I liked it on Slashdot, and I like it here (at least in limited doses). Only on such a forum do we get opportunity for the level of intelligent, interactive commentary. I don't want to be flooded with mundane news articles, no. But these discussion sites ARE my main news sources, precisely because someone on the spot is very likely to pipe up with better insight that I could get from any of the mainstream media (let alone the discussions there). So, when it's something that could upset all our applecarts... yeah. It's news that matters, and I want to learn what my fellows here have to say.
Up above, I read a perspective on the situation that I certainly would not get anywhere else.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Yow on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:26AM
I agree with both points. Soylent definitely offers free form debate from people I would rather read than other "news sources." But I'd feel really very sad if this place just turned into just another, you know, site. I almost didn't click on the headline because of all I already read today.
(Score: 1) by Reziac on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:46AM
I had just seen something in passing elsewhere that wasn't at all informative, so I was happy to see the story here, and some very informed comments. I live in a cave. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:52AM
This is good stuff. We don't want to become a mere marketing channel for apple, like the other site. It's also very naive to think that technology isn't political. The two are always married. The real world is complex, deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @07:17AM
"It's also very naive to think that technology isn't political. The two are always married. The real world is complex, deal with it."
Wow, I couldn't have said it better myself. I, for one, am very glad to read and participate in this discussion.
(Score: 1) by G-forze on Sunday March 02 2014, @08:24AM
This. I can read the Reuters news story on any site, but only here can I read a meaningful discussion without (too many) uninformed trolls and perhaps even someone with insight that the news organizations copy-pasting from each other don't have. I thus don't mind (quite the opposite, actually) important world events being discussed, even when not directly related to technology or nerd culture, but they should stay a minor part of the submissions.
If I run into the term "SJW", I stop reading.
(Score: 2) by excelsior_gr on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:11AM
You're forgetting the other half of the motto, "stuff that matters". These things matter. Yes, we love our techie topics, but we can't remain oblivious to what is happening to the rest of the world. We'll leave that to the younger crowd.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ancientt on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:23AM
This goes for me as well. I don't come to SN for the news, I come to it for the commentary by people who understand and discuss the news from a perspective I appreciate. Certainly I'm usually interested first in the tech stories, but the other discussions on the important news of the day keeps me here instead of getting a second rate discussion from cnet or huffpost instead.
This post brought to you by Database Barbie
(Score: 1) by clone141166 on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:07AM
I agree, I found it interesting reading the comments tftp made above. I think informed comments/points of view like that can be tough to find on many mainstream sites.
The article was marked as "Breaking News" too, indicating that it might be something a bit different from the usual technical stuff. I think a few people mentioned elsewhere [sorry I can't remember the exact thread] that it would be nice to have breaking news marked and released ASAP on the front page, so it's great to see that the SoylentNews team is always listening. :)
(Score: 1) by scruffybeard on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:05PM
I am also okay with these kinds of stories. This is a significant world event. Having two to three of these a month would not be a big deal.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by regift_of_the_gods on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:24AM
This isn't clickbait, it's an opportunity for the site's community to post their perspectives on breaking general news.
This [google.com] is an example of what I'd consider clickbait.
(Score: 3) by unitron on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:27AM
Those whose primary motivation is to run around the internet looking for a place to talk about Ukraine and/or Russia aren't likely to wind up here.
But a small subset of those who are likely to wind up here because of the usual topics (computers, the internet, etc, just like at "the other place") might also have some insight into the issue and the situation, and we can learn something from them.
There's trouble right now in either Chile or Argentina, I forget which, and in Thailand, and that sucks for people there, but those are pretty much "local" stories. The Ukraine thing could lead to armed conflict between Russia and a number of as yet to be determined European countries or maybe even NATO--making it "Stuff that matters", not because these people are "white" and the others really aren't or anything like that, but because this has much more potential to spread.
Whether some other planet has water won't really matter if we don't survive to get there, but that's just one of several other front page stories you could read and comment on instead of this one, so you aren't being cheated out of anything.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:54PM
because of the usual topics
You can politely ask people to discuss the tech related issues, even in the summary. So who's github isn't getting commits anymore because they used to live at ground zero of the riots or who's seeing interesting new tech in the battles or who's seeing new techniques of astroturfing and censorship, perhaps even here?
If the vast majority of the comment authors insist on talking politics, if a very small minority don't like that, there's not much they can do about it other than try to convince the vast majority not to like what they like. Complaints to and about the editors will not have any effect on the beliefs and desires of the comment authors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:41AM
Well... there's always pipedot [pipedot.org]. (which hasn't taken a stance either from what I know)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:42AM
-ok.
Everyone at Facebook, Reddit, DailyKOS are quite concerned, yet few have any real insight into the military-industrial complex.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]