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I will post the next journal about the privacy policy on Thursday, but this is relevant to privacy. I invite comments from anyone, AC or otherwise, to discuss this as well as janrinok's recent journal. I am calling an audible because of janrinok's journal and what is contained within.
To the Board of Directors for the SoylentNews Public Benefit Corporation:
When I registered for SoylentNews, I did not have to indicate agreement to any terms of service. Instead, access to this site appears to be governed by policies and various texts throughout SoylentNews. This includes text such as the following about journals and comments, respectively:
The Fine Print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Although this text is intended to indemnify SoylentNews from damage caused by content posted here, it has a secondary effect. Nowhere have I granted any sort of license to use content I submitted for any length of time, let alone in perpetuity, nor have I waived any sort of royalties associated with it. Because of this, I retain full ownership and full control of my data and content, including how it can be used and where it can be stored. Instead, community members like me share our data and content with SoylentNews as part of a good faith but implied agreement that SoylentNews will act responsibly, in the interests of the community, and be good stewards of our copyrighted work that we share with this site.
Janrinok's recent journal raises especially troubling questions about how this data will be used and potentially monetized. I am deeply concerned that this trust is about to be violated. The silence about these plans and apparent non-disclosure agreement are particularly alarming. If this is merely an effort to address the technical debt and make this sustainable, why is secrecy required? Why are the long-term plans for this site not being discussed openly but instead in private with three people: yourself, Matt, and kolie?
Moreover, the database contains hashed IP addresses that go back to the very beginning of this site. Because I interact with SoylentNews in good faith, I do not make an effort to use a VPN, Tor, or other anonymizing services when connecting to this site. Although my IP address is dynamic and occasionally changes, these hashed IP addresses have the potential to link together information that I have shared across multiple comments with the intent that my anonymity be respected. If one were to piece together the various comments that I have posted anonymously and from my account, it is conceivable that they could gain a far greater insight into my identity and my life. As recently as Saturday, June 10, 2023, a comment was posted on this site calling for the murder of another user. Because of the malicious behavior of at least one member of this site, any and all users of this site are justified if they are concerned for their safety and well-being if their data is not kept safe. It is greatly troubling that no details have yet been publicized about how my private data will be stored and protected.
Because I own the copyrights to the work that I have shared with SoylentNews, I am not required to idly sit by and simply trust that my data will be used in good faith. Neither am I required to continue allowing SoylentNews to use or disseminate my copyrighted work. I own all the content I have submitted to SoylentNews and I reserve all rights pertaining to it. I am under no legal obligation to allow SoylentNews to continue using my copyrighted works. The use of my work and data on this site is part of an implied good faith agreement. Recent developments raise serious questions about whether SoylentNews intends to honor its part of this implied agreement. To my knowledge, no members of this community have waived our ownership and copyrights to the content we graciously share, and that is essential for this site to exist in anything resembling its current form.
I do not pretend that I speak for all users or even many users of this site. But I caution you that users of this site tend to have a greater understanding and concern about their privacy and their rights than typical internet users.
I am calling on the board of SoylentNews to promptly explain how it intends to store and use the copyrighted and private data going forward that community members have graciously shared with this site over the past 9+ years. I look forward to your prompt and detailed response to these concerns. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Dalek
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dalek on Wednesday June 14, @07:37AM
I've read over the discussions this evening in IRC, too. You'll need to copy and paste this into your browser instead of clicking the link, but here goes: http://logs.sylnt.us/%23soylent/2023-06-14.html [sylnt.us]
Except that's not why businesses do this. It's a form of advertising. They're not merely getting a plaque for the office. It's about trying to make a favorable impression with potential customers, that the business cares about the community. Perhaps it's just another way to get customers to see the name of the business. There may be good intentions, but it's also a form of marketing.
SN has been self-sufficient, through merchandise sales and primarily subscriptions. Although the PDF files are currently unavailable, SN used to post financial statements publicly: http://web.archive.org/web/20220601192437/https://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/Finances [archive.org].
This is 100% correct. SN regularly reached and exceeded funding goals.
Janrinok has also provided some recent insight on SN's expenses: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=1308435&sid=55644 [soylentnews.org].
SN had been self-sufficient, and then the expenses were reduced. If anything, this makes it easier for SN to remain self-sufficient in the future. Based on the publicly available financial information, there appears to be no reason to suspect that SN should have difficulty remaining self-sufficient.
From https://soylentnews.org/meta/article.pl?sid=23/06/04/226212 [soylentnews.org]
Here's the real explanation. The site was self-sufficient previously. The existing expenses were reduced, which should put SN farther in the black. Except that SN 1) wants to increase cash flow, and 2) use at least some of that money to hire at least one paid staff member. Paying the staff isn't a bad thing, though the staff haven't asked for this. Let's look at the reasoning for this:
This suggests that NCommander believes the problems that arose were because staff didn't have a reason to be concerned with the success or failure of the site. This differs markedly from what NCommander wrote a few months earlier in https://soylentnews.org/meta/article.pl?sid=23/01/31/2318246 [soylentnews.org]:
At the beginning of February, the technical debt was because there just wasn't enough documentation, either as comments in the code or external documentation. The people who had experience working with the backend were no longer part of the staff. The remaining staff didn't have the ability to reasonably work with the backend, fix the issues, or install updates as needed. This was true on February 1. Why has the story changed over the following four months to now blame the current staff for the lack of maintenance on the backend and to suggest they weren't sufficiently invested in the success of SN? If that's the justification for needing a paid staff member, to increase cash flow, and to change SN's revenue sources, the whole thing appears very suspect.
Note that NCommander's post on June 4 indicated that he intended to discuss changes to the cash flow with kolie and Matt, but he didn't say anything about involving the community in these discussions. Why isn't the community involved in this?
A significant portion of what has been said appears to be contradictory. I'm not the only person who sees this. When the discussions about the future of the site are taking place behind closed doors and kolie's work is broadly covered by an NDA, coupled with that many of the public statements seem to contradict each other, this is why many people are very skeptical. If this is just a misunderstanding, then address the community and get this cleared up.
This evening, kolie said he had posted a journal to update the community on the situation:
I cannot find this journal on the site. Can kolie provide a link to this journal?
I don't have kolie's email address. However, just as I've extended an invitation to NCommander to talk and clear up any misunderstanding, I extend the same invitation to kolie. I haven't yet heard from NCommander, but I'm absolutely willing to talk to him and/or kolie.
My offer is to do this Slashdot-style, where I post a journal and solicit comments from the community. I'll pick the highest-rated comments and those that address the most pressing issues and email them to you for NCommander and/or kolie to address. When I hear back, I'll follow up if needed for clarification. Once everything is clear, I'll run the story in my journal. If kolie and/or NCommander would like to do an interview, let's make it happen.
EXTERMINATE