SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Greetings, Soylentils. First of all, I want to thank you, the community, for the outpouring of support during these past few weeks. The participation has been amazing, and I'd like to personally thank each and every one of you for your help in a successful launch so far. Unfortunately, I can't thank every one of you individually. As of this writing, there are over 3500 registered users!
Now, we promised to be transparent, and we intend to deliver. Our first (and right now, only) all-hands staff meeting is at 1800 UTC on 2 March, and will be held on our IRC channels.
The staff will be holding the meeting on #Staff at irc.soylentnews.org. Only staff will be able to log into and speak on that channel. However, our IRC folks will be re-broadcasting this on the public channel, #Soylent. If you aren't familiar with IRC, please review Landon's recent post (we have a web client available as well). Many of our staff members will be monitoring both channels, and we will try to have the opportunity for questions. Conducting this meeting will be one of many learning experiences for us, so feel free to pipe up and say your piece.
Items on the agenda include a vision statement from our founder, an overview of staff organization from me(draft available here), general status update from each group, as well as proposals for future development. You may notice some missing names in the org chart. Please contact us at suggestions @ soylentnews dot. org if you are interested in volunteering or working here.
As always, thanks for being a part of this great community!
~mattie_p, general manager
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:51PM
Every couple of days I have to bang my head against the wall when I read stuff like this. First we shall abandon Freenode for some private IRC server, then we are asked to submit ad videos to youtube, now there is some community meeting announcement where half of the userbase cannot take part in because of timezones. There is a forum (apparently), a bugtracker where (like the forum) I need a new account, twitter, something on google docs (?) and I'm sure I have missed out on the other 50%.
This fragmentation is a total disaster! I hope /. stays usable, if anything at least the community interaction is consistent there.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Landon on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:37PM
We would have enjoyed being able to schedule a meeting that fit 100% of timezones, but that's not physically possible :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:35PM
You didn't get the point. Side-channels are created that are _required_ to participate in community interaction. Community interaction that only part of the userbase can take part in is *fragmentation*, and that sucks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Open4D on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:36PM
Yeah, I think that proves that the AC you are replying to was a troll. If not, at the very least they should have suggested an alternative time and made a case for why it they thought it would have been a better fit for the community as a whole.
Further evidence: they complained about having different logins for the main site, the bug tracker, etc.. But it's pretty obvious that shared logins are non-trivial, and not necessarily something you worry about in the first few weeks - if at all.
E.g. Wikimedia's bug tracker [wikimedia.org] uses separate logins from their main site. And for Apache you need 2 different logins just for bugs! https://issues.apache.org/ [apache.org]
(Score: 1) by cloying on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:05PM
I think suggesting a troll here is unjust. All this fragmentation is awkward. And I too have found it so from the get go here. It doesn't seem trollish at all.
I'm know it's not all easy, and sometimes a new direction has to be found, but it does keep happening here. Even with the original forums the forum categories horridly overlapped so various conversations on similar topics were happening blissfully unaware of each other. Then it spilled out to various irc channels as well as the forums. Then we're all here. Yay! But now we're back on another Irc channel, with a separate channel for those who are outside the staff circle. It's very chaotic and I'm sure causes alot of folk to not bother.
Also, the irc chat will come and go, and be gone, leaving no lasting data ( I think)
I was an advocate for using polls here, or other discussion to include everyone, regardless of timezone and without having to find one of several new channels you'd only find out about if the 'staff meeting thread' caught your eye. At least with the current poll we have a sensible guide to what we all think about the Colour scheme, and the comments with it help with what people think about various design ideas. And they are a permanent resource, and means everyone's voice can be heard.
Or, if you want just as staff meeting, maybe don't invite us at all, if our voice is muted, and half the world can't take part at all. Seriously, just get on with our without us and ask our opinion in better ways.
I know I'm coming across as negative, but a better direction for democracy or involvement that is consistent needs to be found IMO, and calling people trolls for expressing this is counter productive.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Monday March 03 2014, @07:18AM
I gave 2 good reasons to presume it was a troll. And that was without even bothering with the Twitter and Google Docs points, which I have dealt with elsewhere.
People have to bear in mind the difference between this and the old site. Both have a main community of readers & commenters. The difference comes in the people working behind the scenes. On Slashdot there were just a handful of people (Taco, CowboyNeal, Timmy, Samzenpus, etc.) doing that job, and the main community had little visibility of what was going on between them. Private IRC? Maybe even telephone calls!
Here there are far more people involved working behind the scenes. I like the fact that I could get involved if I had time. But I don't. So I don't feel entitled to bitch about how they organize themselves - especially in the hectic early weeks. (They've got phpBB forums and a self-hosted IRC channel! The horror!)
I do provide feedback of course. And I expect they like to see this kind of discussion going on, just maybe not the tone taken by the AC.
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:51PM
Disclaimer: what is expressed here is solely my own viewpoint from my own observations. I am NOT speaking in any official capacity. What follow are *my* thoughts and obervations, in no particular order.
I know I've only seen a small part of what is "behind the curtain" and the more I see, the more I am absolutely astounded at they tremendous efforts that have been, and continue to be, expended to build this site into what you see now
Personally, I'd like to see all in-house developed content accessible locally.
I think what we are witnessing is partly an intersection between several competing factors.
Several people are running themselves ragged just trying to get the code base knocked into shape and there's just not enough time to implement everything that they'd like to see here. Meanwhile, they are also trying to do this on top of a day job, family needs, and the like.
Others are trying to use this still-developing site to bring salient stories to us.
Still others are working hard at the infrastructure (hardware and services) which are required to host this discussion sytem.
We're looking at a work in progress. We're still in the alpha stage of getting the site to run stably.
There are some competing thoughts on what is wanted for this site. Can't please all the people all the time, but I can see a tremendous effort in place to provide a top-notch tool to the community.
IRC provides real-time many-many communications. It's a very useful tool for those who are trying to get the site into shape. Hosting IRC in house saves us from being beholden to the continued benevolence of an external entity.
As for youtube? I don't care much for it, personally. Then again, I like my text. I can skim a 1 hour video's transcript in 5-10 minutes and remember more of it that way. But, I also recognize that not everyone shares my view. I suspect (most) others share my view, but I commend them for being willing to try something new. If it fails (and I suspect it will) then it will be dropped.
The time of the meeting is a challenge for many. I understand that. There are folks from around the world working hard to make this site the best it can be. Some of them have expressed that they would like to attend, but cannot because of the time.
As I understand it, this is an effort to step back, take inventory, see where we stand, where we are going, solicit feedback, and try to keep things on track.
I cannot speak for the developers/staff/etc. but my understanding is that this is an interim step for communicating with the community. I fully expect there will be many more opportunities to come.
So, please, come to the meeting and help us make this the best site it can be.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by Barrabas on Sunday March 02 2014, @05:40PM
Let me see if I understand your position.
Because there are other things going on that you don't like, you're going to stop reading the newsfeed and go back to slashdot.
Half the readership won't read the meeting dialog in real-time and will have to read a summary or transcript later - and that's somehow a problem for you?
We try new things (youtube video) and respond to community feedback.
All of these things make you - nay, *force you* to stand up, go over to a wall, and bang your head?
I don't see a problem with that :-)
(Score: 1) by efitton on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:24PM
I'm just going to say thank you and that I like it here.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:45PM
Obviously you misinterpret. The point is, _the community interaction is not consistent here_.
On /. your low user ID is worth something because everyone knows you by the consistent interactions that are comments. People know and judge you by that interaction alone. With your way of running things this is no longer true and may destroy the spirit and feeling around the original /.