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prospectacle writes:
"An important choice remains for this site. What kind of organisation will we be, practically, legally and financially?
A for-profit, shareholder corporation seems out of the question, by general consensus (correct me if I'm wrong), but other questions remain. The basic choice is this:
Will we be like a charity, a co-op, or a recreational club?
- (Like a) Charity:
Being like a charity means operating for the public benefit. What we produce is news and englightened commentary for the benefit of the world. All our finances and operations would be geared towards this aim. All excess revenue is reinvested into the site. - Co-op:
A co-op is for the mutual financial benefit of individual (possibly paid) members. Three main sub-options for this exist that might be appropriate for this site:
2a) A retailer's co-op. Members use a common organisation in order to make individual profits. For example if members used this site to display their stunning intelligence, and then put their resume or website links on their profile page so people could hire them. Maybe there are services built into the site to find someone to hire who fits your requirements.
2b) A worker's co-operative: Employees share any excess revenue. Some revenue would go to expenses, some would be reinvested, whatever remains is shared among employees.
2c) A buyer's co-op. We exist to get discounts, or to buy together what we can't afford separately. Maybe we're buying well-written news and analysis from professional authors. Or maybe we're bulk-buying electronics, etc, so the price-per individual can be lower. - A Recreational Club:
This takes membership fees to provide access to equipment, organize competitions, etc. Maybe paid members would get to use extra services, like an email account, or storage space, or their own discussion thread area, or software project hosting, or chat-rooms, etc. Non-members could still be permitted, with fewer privileges, and would have to pay-per-use for the extra services (or pay to become a member).
This is a gross simplification, but gives some idea of the options involved. Feel free to offer alternatives. So what should we be, what is our purpose, really? And what kind of a structure is required to make sure we serve that purpose, and that money doesn't end up in the wrong pockets?
Bonus question: which jurisdiction should we set ourselves up in to fulfil our mission most effectively?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:06AM
I think the number of "meta" stories is too high. This is a problem because it can make a lot of people go away.
I understand your goal is to involve the community, but I'm sure there are other ways (for example with a banner on top of the page with a link to a discussion page, or by including the current discussion topics in the weekly "state of the site" story.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:15AM
Indeed. I wasn't going to say anything, but they really need a separate section for this kind of thing.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1) by pillo on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:22AM
<kidding> Up to recently we could have called that 'drama' </kidding>
(Score: 2, Funny) by Kell on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:27PM
So what you're saying is "Fuck Meta"? ;)
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:38PM
Isn't this exactly what irc, wiki, forums, and all that other stuff they waste time on should be for? Keep the meta on meta channels!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:33PM
Wiki, maybe, But IRC is NOT a place for recording decisions, or even discussing them in a public way.
See those 4 or 5 Icons at the top of the page? Use them.
Maybe we need a new one for Organizational issues.
And if an occasional "meta" (organizational) article creeps into the current front page, that's fine. We are ALL here due to some dissatisfaction with the level of transparency of /., and therefore it just seems wrong to be bitching (with a two digit id, for crap sake!) about one or two stories a week dealing with our fledgling structure.
You can not be both Involved, Informed, and have a Voice, and at the same time totally isolated from any attempts to Involve you, Inform you, and give you a Voice.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ticho on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:10PM
The thing is that if I want to be Involved, Informed and have a Voice, I should actively seek out proper channels for that, and not have it pushed on me via channel I expect regular articles to come from. I honestly thought that since SN staff decided to spend so much time setting up mentioned side channels, they were going to use them for exactly this. If not, well, they seem rather pointless to me.
As you said, occasional meta article is fine, but past several days are already far from occasional.
p.s. I am not here because of my dissatisfaction with /.'s transparency, I am here because of my dissatisfaction with the user interface.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jimshatt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:51PM
But had they interfaced with the user in a more transparent way (or, at all, really, before it was too late), you might not have been dissatisfied. Decisions have to be made, but one can choose to involve the users or not. I prefer the latter, and I don't mind if that means a few frontpage articles. You can always choose not to read them.
(Score: 1) by dast on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:11PM
Wow, I wish I had some mod points. We don't need to be kept in the dark about the governance of this new site. One or two stories per week isn't going to kill anyone. Maybe we all need to think more about the topic so that this place doesn't get passed around between owners like a cheap hooker.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrbluze on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:35PM
It's early days. You have to expect discussion on the foundation of the site, in a years time this will be business as usual more or less.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dast on Thursday March 13 2014, @02:56PM
Exactly. This early on, I'm extremely happy that the staff is keeping us up to date. This will die down after a while.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linsane on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:40AM
Better to get it all the dramas and policies sorted out now imho. The other place will continue to bleed visitors and they need a nice home with stable long term framework and a good base community. I'd rather that than have a hiatus in 6 months time when someone flips the site into a bundle of trash.
I personally don't frequent IRC as I tend to be viewing from random devices / locations however it seems that a lot more goes on under the surface away from the front page already. Perhaps one of the overlords could conduct these formally via the Journals, Launch News or Necessary readings, as well as continuing with the Polls side of things so that us http types can continue to be involved without it being all over the news stream.
L
(Score: 2) by linsane on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:46AM
PS - option 1, with transparency regarding costs and salary policies on the basis, efforts should be appropriately compensated but if we are to donate or subscribe (yes please btw) then it would be encouraging to know where it was going
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:15PM
> transparency regarding costs and salary policies
As volunteers, two of us run a "non-entity" where students contribute a fixed amount to join. We spend the membership fees periodically on an expensive service that few of the students could afford individually.
The books are open--a spreadsheet showing all members and all expenses (the expensive service and also incidentals) is posted on the home page. The goods (results of the service) are posted on a password protected site for download.
According to my accountant there are no tax consequences (in USA) as long as no one makes any income. The money is held in a no-interest checking account.
It's been running for nearly 10 years now and we've collected well over USD $100,000 -- and spent it on the service in large chunks every few years.
Not sure what to call it, but it is satisfying to run. The students actually send their appreciation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by melikamp on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:43AM
Why would anyone go away? Just because there is a story or two every day regarding a topic they don't care about? I have absolutely no interest in about half of the stories on this site, and 90% on /. before that, and I am sure the situation is similar for most readers and posters.
(Score: 3, Informative) by codemachine on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:50PM
Seems the comments volume is down quite a bit on any story that doesn't involve Soylent News itself.
So much time and attention is being put into this transparency/drama stuff that the actual news site may be slipping away.
People have been turned off, some have turned away. The focus has to move towards posting interesting stories and discussing them, or the rest of the decisions made here simply won't matter.
We could run on this same server with this same obsolete code and we'd be okay for quite some time, as long as there were good stories and good discussion.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:41PM
Actually comment volume is creeping up.
I haven't seen a story scroll off the main page with zero comments in a long time, and 20 or 40 comments for a group of this size is quite impressive.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by weeds on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:08PM
Agreed,
We have a place for this type of "meta" discussion - on the forum (http://forums.soylentnews.org/). Exactly what it is there for.
This site and these pages are for SoylentNews. News about SoylentNews belongs in the journals or in the forum.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by linsane on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:23PM
Concur - a link to the forums from the main site would be good if there is a topic picked out for debate please.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:31PM
The forums have fallen into near-complete disuse, due to the plethora of other communications systems available. The plan is to nuke the forums from orbit (as soon as relevant info is migrated to the wiki).
As to your request not to have these updates on the main site, I think it is valid. The commenting system here is very useful to get an idea of what the community thinks. My vision would be to have a separate "topic" for these discussions so they could be filtered out. Currently that would require some dev work so it's on our list.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by weeds on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:03PM
Well, OK... But, you are adding to the dev list when you have a solution already in hand. The forum is ideal for this and as I have mentioned elsewhere can be a chat center too.
As a development manager, I almost always put new features and bug fixes before reworking old code. I pretty much never build what I can get for free.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mmcmonster on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:27PM
I would disagree with this.
If you move these discussions away from the home page, you end up discussing it with only the people who remember where it's moved to. Even if you put a permanent link to it -- people aren't expecting a link to ongoing discussion anywhere except the stories and polls.
So make it at most one story a day. That makes you pick the topic carefully.
And give it a meta tag and icon so people can avoid it if they want to.
(Score: 1) by sbgen on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:25PM
I second this. If I cant see it on the front page I am not going to actively seek. At the very least provide journal entry for such news at the top where I can see it.
Cheers
Warning: Not a computer expert, but got to use it. Yes, my kind does exist.
(Score: 1) by SlackStone on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:24PM
I like seeing this unfold on the main page. The whole 'beta' thing has been very entertaining and enlightening to watch, kind of like SCO back in the day. I'm very interested in the evolution process of SN.
Not that it matters, but the new stories have just been so-so at matching my interests, I'd like to see more tin-foil hat stories that generate fun discussions. Most of the other news here is a bit dry for my taste, but still damn good compared to the rest of the WWW.
And as for the IRC poll, SoylentNews has done a great job of reminding me how much fun IRC can be. As for FreeNode, isn't it primarily for Open Source projects? SN hasn't released back any code updates, so it doesn't seem like the right place for SN folks.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:49PM
The plan is to have all the code open-source. It's all on github:
https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode [github.com]
There haven't been many updates recently due to the NCommander being overseas, but there is a lot in the que as I understand. Excuse my ignorance if this is not what you mean, I'm really not a dev.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1) by BradTheGeek on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:06AM
This +1
(Score: 1) by kbahey on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:43PM
We should have a limit on meta stories (e.g. two a week), not totally eliminate them.
The discussion happens right there on the site using the same mechanism that we all know.
No need to fork the discussions in IRC, or forums, ...etc.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 1) by dast on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:04PM
How about just one weekly post summarizing what is going on?