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  • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:57PM (15 children)

    by Fnord666 (652) on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:57PM (#1140124) Homepage

    [x] I've read how un-ready some story submissions are, and don't think I could edit them into suitable form before accepting them. (the time, the patience, the maturity and sanity required)

    If by un-ready you mean nothing more than a link to a story, then you are correct. If you look at the submissions queue at any given time, 90%+ of the submissions will be by bots, meaning they are just a link to a story. The burden is on the editors to actually turn those into stories, even if they have no personal interest in the story itself.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday June 04 2021, @03:24AM (14 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Friday June 04 2021, @03:24AM (#1141665)

    I've only submitted a couple/few stories. My first one or two, I had _no_ idea what to do. Of course now I know- hindsight is 20/20. I'm not sure if there's a tutorial, how-to, etc. Maybe there is now. If not, it might help to give a good clear outline of what's expected.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Fnord666 on Friday June 04 2021, @06:33AM (4 children)

      by Fnord666 (652) on Friday June 04 2021, @06:33AM (#1141694) Homepage

      I've only submitted a couple/few stories. My first one or two, I had _no_ idea what to do. Of course now I know- hindsight is 20/20. I'm not sure if there's a tutorial, how-to, etc. Maybe there is now. If not, it might help to give a good clear outline of what's expected.

      That's good feedback and something for the staff to review. Maybe I should put together an "Ask Soylent" story to get a discussion going with the community. There are some guidelines at https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=editorial [soylentnews.org] but I'm too close to things at this point to be able to tell how useful those are for a newer person.

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 04 2021, @07:57AM (3 children)

        by RS3 (6367) on Friday June 04 2021, @07:57AM (#1141706)

        Thanks, you're truly one of the great workhorses of SN, and we could not thank you enough.

        There's some saying that I can't exactly remember, but it's about people who write about something- often write from their own perspective and knowledge. I encounter this constantly, esp. in tech manuals, instructions, etc.

        The FAQ you pointed to is awesome, and thank you. I'm thinking more of a template for a submission. IIRC, my first submission I just sent a link to an article. Someone (probably martyb) kindly gleaned out a summary. Then I realized what was needed. And it's all well and good, but when I spent a little bit of effort (not whining, really!) and got a rejection, I though: "okay, I don't really 'get it', like what's a good submission vs. rejection material, so I'll do something else." Sorry to ramble- tired and I type too fast.

        Bottom line: it may seem obvious, and maybe is to most, but a simple template would help us who are verbally disinclined. (English / composition was by far the most difficult subject for me in school...)

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Friday June 04 2021, @12:35PM (2 children)

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @12:35PM (#1141748) Journal

          You raise a great point, thank you!

          The code base for soylentnews.com (which is now called "rehash") is based on a version of the code base for slashdot. Slashdot started in late 1996(!). Sure there were updates over the years but it was designed and implemented by internet nerds for internet nerds. IOW, everyone was expected to know HTML.

          Also keep in mind that HTML was much more limited then! HTML 2 was published on November 24, 1995 [wikipedia.org] and HTML 3 was published on January 14, 1997 [wikipedia.org]. There was a short learning curve and it was the obvious choice at the time — why reinvent the wheel?

          It's now 2021 and HTML is less well known. I'd dare say most people are more familiar with using web pages than in writing them.

          Several years ago, I started to write a "primer" on basic HTML for soylentnews but that fell by the wayside. It seems there is still a need for it — thanks for the reminder!

          Thinking about it now, offhand, I am thinking these are the basic, supported tags (actually HTML elements) that would get a new user started:

          • <p>...</p>
          • <b>...</b>
          • <i>...</i>
          • <tt>...</tt>
          • <a href="https://example.com">...</a>

          Next might be:

          • <blockquote>...</blockquote>
          • <ecode>...</ecode>

          Not sure where OL, UL, and DL as well as LI would fit in.

          My plate is pretty full right now, so no telling how soon I (or someone else) could get to it, but this discussion has certainly given it a higher priority. Thank You!

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by DECbot on Friday June 04 2021, @02:27PM (1 child)

            by DECbot (832) on Friday June 04 2021, @02:27PM (#1141771) Journal

            I can say that OL, UL, LI are supported, but I think you can only nest 2 or 3 levels deep before it breaks as there are some "optimization" in the slashcode/rehash that covers for the lazy editor that forgets to close a tag. I use the UL, LI tags all the time for the poll submissions and OL for the 1., 2., 3. ???, 4. Profit memes. Never used the DL personally, so I can't say.
             
            Also <quote> tag works if you're too lazy to type out <blockquote> like me. We also support <user> if your trying to link a user in your post like this martyb.

            --
            cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
            • (Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:44AM

              by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:44AM (#1142019) Journal

              Thanks for the feedback!

              My focus on the GP post was to aim for a minimal subset that could help a person -- who was new to HTML -- to get started. IOW, if I were new to the site and am looking at a blank text-entry field... what do I do?

              Agreed, the other tags ARE useful. Looks like this is turning into a mult-page "primer". =)

              I use <blockquote>...</blockquote> very frequently, so it was helpful to *me* see <quote> mentioned as it looks like it will save me time and typing. Thanks!

              I have directly used DECbot before, but had forgotten about <user>DECbot</user> so thanks for that, too!

              --
              Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:04AM (4 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:04AM (#1141997) Homepage
      The easiest way to submit a story is to just say ``=submit ${URL}'' on the main IRC channel. A bot will load the page, strip the title and what looks like the main story off the page, and stick that in the sumbission queue for you. Probably the majority of the stories arrive that way. You won't get any internet points from submitting things that way, but I don't even know what internet points you get from doing it the manual way anyway, but supposedly there is something.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Saturday June 05 2021, @12:02PM (2 children)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 05 2021, @12:02PM (#1142022) Journal

        If a story submitted by a logged-in user is accepted for use on the site, their account currently gets 3 karma points.

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:04PM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:04PM (#1142073)

          Thanks, I wasn't aware of the karma points. That may explain why some people like to submit a lot of stories (trying to recover lost karma due to so many downmods.)

          Soylent News math: 50 = 50 + 3

          I wonder if I can get my supermarket's cash registers to calculate that way... :)

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday June 08 2021, @02:47AM

            by DECbot (832) on Tuesday June 08 2021, @02:47AM (#1143009) Journal

            It only works that way when you're giving the register $53 dollars.

            --
            cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @08:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @08:54AM (#1143470)

        hmmm... if I'm going to submit the least I can do is try to whack it up in some fashion using the web form.

        Meanwhile.. I submit stories when I see then, post replies, and pay money when I can.. is that enough?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 13 2021, @12:53PM (3 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday June 13 2021, @12:53PM (#1144791) Journal

      Submitting stories is easy. I use a template that takes about 2-3 minutes to complete. It's:

      From [Link to story source]:

      [Representative excerpt copy & pasted from article (most news articles have a suitable one)]

      [Some sentence from you as an icebreaker/conversation starter]

      You can skim through headlines quickly for those that interest you. You don't have to be an expert in the subject, nor do you have to come up with supporting material, because the discussion in the community is the thing and even experts disagree among themselves.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 22 2021, @01:45PM (2 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 22 2021, @01:45PM (#1147997) Journal

        That's... amateurish.

        How about:
        1. confirm the story from multiple sources (if it's not from a reputable news agency)
        2. find the one that put the story into perspective from multiple angles. Sometimes there need to be 2 stories to reach enough perspective
        3. avoid stories exclusively syndicated by NewsCorp and the like - effing shits publish the same story in UK, US and Australia to baloon it up and nobody else's s interested
        4. if it's sciency, dig up the DOI for it, Maybe trace it down to the Uni or lab press release source, cause I hate IFLscience and the pseudo-sci pseudo-journos.

        Even the stories I push on IRC go through all the above.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 22 2021, @06:12PM (1 child)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 22 2021, @06:12PM (#1148092) Journal

          That's...a persnickety response.

          Nobody gets paid to go to that length. If you want to volunteer your time to do that for your submissions, great, but don't volunteer my or anyone else's time to do the same.

          Many don't submit stories because it seems too complicated or time-consuming to follow a method like that which you bumptiously insist on. Many also never submit stories or contribute to the site in any way because they don't have the time or energy to deal with reactions like yours.

          My method is simple and fast that others can use if they want to (and it works [soylentnews.org]). If they want to do something else, great.

          And, in the end, the community is not about creating the perfect bibliography, but about the discussion.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 23 2021, @03:40AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 23 2021, @03:40AM (#1148266) Journal

            TIL: persnickety, bumptiously.

            If you want to volunteer your time to do that for your submissions, great, but don't volunteer my or anyone else's time to do the same.

            Did I volunteers your time? I fail to see how.

            I said: your approach is amateurish, that's my opinion (and I'll maintain it)
            You said: it works, however it would may be.

            I don't see any contradiction between the two. If you see one, I'll be grateful to be enlightened.

            And, in the end, the community is not about creating the perfect bibliography, but about the discussion.

            Discussion is also my reason for going the extra in choosing the source of the stories I submit: I want more discussions and less bashing - in my mind, there are better chances if the sources of the story present a variety of angles to view the object of it.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford