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In the dying hours of 3rd Dec (UTC) into the early hours of 4th Dec something significant occurred in the vicinity of the SoylentNews PBC boardroom. One witness is reported to have said "it was as though a light zephyr appeared unexpectedly, brushed by a pile of watermelons before shooting up into the sky as a vivid light", this has not been confirmed as an accurate portrayal of events and quite honestly we're not sure they weren't just making it up.
Moving to a more formal note. The timeline above is correct. In what seemed like a few brief moments of discussion and accord, NCommander stepped out of the position of CEO and yours truly (juggs) stepped in as interim CEO.
To quickly dispel any doubts or concerns, this was not some hostile power play within the board, more an amicable and pragmatic changing of the guard. It was notably lacking in any form of drama whatsoever.
Firstly, I'd like to thank NCommander for bringing us to where we are today - a thriving, growing community with a stable foundation from which to grow and many tomes of vision for what the road ahead may lead us on to build. I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping he sticks around and makes a reprise - I have a strong feeling he will.
As much as I'd like to mark my entrance with some grand vision - in the very short term I'll have to mostly concentrate on some very mundane but very necessary corporation affairs.
Longer term, I have a few nascent ideas in the back of my mind that need kicking into shape - but given the whole transition was out of the blue, I'm more at the sort the desk out and find the nearest coffee dispensary stage than the grand visionary stage. I do however fully intend to revisit NCommander's SN vision statements and go from there as an immediate starting point at the very least.
Feel free to use the Comments for questions, concerns or suggestions, I'll be sure to reply.
juggs
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:32PM
I have the impression SN is meant to be "libre Slashot", that is, Slashdot without Dice and their occasional meddling by planting self-serving stories and Slashvertisements. Wonder how often some business has paid Dice to run a story, or do a little astroturfing in the comments section. (But why pay Dice, when a business can have their own PR department do that?) However, I don't feel Dice has destroyed Slashdot. The users were quick to notice and call Dice out when an obvious plant was made, and it seems Dice has backed off a bit or at least gotten more subtle. Slashdot Beta is not being forced on everyone, though they default to it and make people work a bit to get the old style.
As to the users, especially ilk like paid shills, sock puppets, spammers, and trolls, I get the impression some came here in hopes of leaving more of that behind. I don't think that will work. What innovation in forum management could possibly cut down on the garbage even more? Already have a crowd powered moderation system that seems fairly good at silencing useless noise. I suppose that behind the scenes, domains known for spamming are simply blacklisted and blocked. Something has to be stopping spambots from flooding Internet forums with penis enlargement ads. Hard to imagine that a few people could be appointed as moderators in the style of moderated Usenet forums, just too much thankless work for a few to handle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:05AM
No, we came here hoping it was that, and we stayed out of boredom.
They run the same slashvertisements here as at the green site, they just don't get paid for it. There is at least less beta, more 90s slash code.
(Score: 2) by juggs on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:11AM
I'd be interested to know what you think we publish that is a "slashvertisement"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:41AM
Anything you repeat that already was on the green site, especially where it is an identical submission from the same person, that is what... over 50% of the content? Is it less than 90%? That is all just crap that is just free re-post for the other site. It serves a (very tiny) SEO function for dice, but it does nothing to replace the content that the other site had in the past, and that it doesn't have or has less of now.
If I go to google news and click "technology" or "science" I see lots of other content that doesn't hit here or the other site. There is, at a minimum, a failure to recognize users that cross-post and reject their astroturf.
The main differentiating concept here seems to just be to run the same stories, but later. Sure, you leave out half of them. But a user of the other site who also comes here doesn't find any new content.
That is why I don't login, even though I created an account fairly early. There is no reason to, because not only does this site not have enough users for serious discussion, there is nothing novel to discuss, and there is no reason to think the userbase will grow. I can tell somebody, "hey there is new site for nerds, it has news and stuff... and runs slashcode..." "why should I try it?" "uhh... beta sucks?" There is nowhere else to go there. I can't tell them it leaves out the crap, or has original content, or is like slashdot was in the 90s, or even that it is doing something different or new.
There are at least less trolls, though I'm not sure the actual troll rate is any lower.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tonyPick on Sunday December 07 2014, @12:39PM
If I go to google news and click "technology" or "science" I see lots of other content that doesn't hit here or the other site
But a user of the other site who also comes here doesn't find any new content.
Well, if you find any of the "other content that doesn't hit here or the other site" interesting, you could post it to the submissions queue?