Update: 10 March 2014 20:20 UTC. Follow here for the latest.
Update: 10 March 2014 19:10 UTC.
At this point Barrabas reports he is exchanging email with the buyer but refuses to say anything. Until we hear from them, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst. If this link goes down, please go to the linode site where we will regroup. We will use that link as a fallback if necessary.
Update: 10 March 2014 18:30 UTC.
Barrabas reports in IRC he has received funds for the site and has sold the domain name. The terms of this sale, as well as its buyer, have not been disclosed. We await additional information. If you have information on this, please contact us at admin @ soylentnews . org
Update: 10 March 2014 16:30 UTC.
Due to NCommander's personal involvement with the situation he is recusing himself from negotiations. I (Mattie_p) am currently working with the staff to figure out how to address this incident. We have posted a poll which is available and should show up shortly on the front page.
Original text:
We've been held hostage by John:
Working with NCommander
Am I The Bad Guy
Right now, I can't write a coherent response properly (I'm writing this from a Mac Store right now as some sort of response was necessary). Despite John's offer, we never used the Linode's he purchased for hosting slash, and the two services (forums and wiki) that were hosted on them were migrated. I had hoped that this would have been a private issue between me and John, to be handed by email with a proper agreement, but the site itself is now at risk.
Right now, I'm organizing a response with out staff now, but I won't be home for several hours so MrBluze is currently handling the crisis. He can hand off to mattie_p when he returns, or myself when I have proper net access again. John's offer does not reflect myself or any of the staff here, nor does he have what he says he has. The web server, dev server (fusion forge), and database were always hosted on Linode's on my personal account. John DID have access to the Linode account which was revoked when he left staff, but to my knowledge never had the root password or shell accounts on any of the boxes. That access was revoked. It is possible he has a copy of the database, I do not know for sure. He does not at this moment have access to any of the hardware powering the site. He does however control the DNS register and can possibly yank the site from under us. If that happens, I can send a mass email to every user account to inform them of what happened, and where we are now. We supposedly have until Friday until John drops everything in the trash unless someone pays him $2000 USD. As per the posts, I was willing to pay him, but I had some issue with the expenses as written (my emails are genuine, as is the email I received from John), but I'm currently in Asia, and have no practical way to send him a check until I return to the continental United States on Sunday; I informed John of this on IRC originally.
We're currently in scramble mode to try and organize a new name, and getting migrated as soon as possible. I was serious when I said I was done with the drama but it appears John isn't. I'm personally sorry to have to inflict this on the community, and if you wish to leave us, I shall not blame you in the slightest.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:23PM
I had hoped that this would have been a private issue between me and John, to be handed by email with a proper agreement, but the site itself is now at risk.
Email and chat to solve emotional issues only leads to flamewars. Talk face to face (or by phone if f2f isn't an option) if you want to find a solution.
(Score: 2) by Khyber on Monday March 10 2014, @02:09PM
"talk face to face"
Gee and I had offered such a method to do that online. But no, geeks don't want a very advanced video chat so they can talk face to face.
Oh well, won't stop my work on a Linux client and osx client. Windows is almost done.
The community keeps losing it seems.
Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 16 2014, @09:55PM
Are you the one who wrote:
"Even your linodes can't take the 400TB aggregate bandwidth I can carelessly tosg at you (I run one of the most advanced video chats on this planet.) Would NCOMMANDER and BARRABAS like to deal with a bankrupting bandwidth bill? All it takes is aiming my servers with auto-refresh at you. Legitimate transactions, cloud-based, unstoppable. I'm now sick of being held hostage and I'm about to fight back and I'm going to fight DIRTY. Both of you can either talk to me, or I bury you. See you in IRC, boys." (http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=580&cid=14 436 )
Oh, and about banning:
"We're sick of your ill-cultured assholes coming in and telling women from our area "Show Vagyna" or "Opyn Tyts Plz" SCREW TURKEY AND ANY SIMILAR COUNTRY. BAN THEM ALL FROM OUR WORLD. There's a reason almost every video chat program worth a shit has them globally blocked by IPv4 and IPv6. They take the program and advertise it as a sex chat, where we advertise it as a meeting and hangout place. T'HELL WITH TURKIYE AND ANYONE RELATED TO IT." http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=521&cid=130 14 [soylentnews.org]
I am simply a lurker here, but I am glad to see somebody like you gone. You are probably 15 and don't know life yet. Go learn somewhere else.
(Score: 1) by Cyberdyne on Tuesday March 11 2014, @12:34AM
As long as you take along a voice-recorder for later transcription.