SoylentNews

As we get past our first anniversary, its time to sit back and talk about future site updates. While I alluded to it in a journal post, we're getting ready to roll out a fairly large update to the site, which is in line with the first major update we made in April 2014. For those of us who were with us back then, you'll likely remember that the site finally got to 'mostly usable' status with that upgrade which fixed many of the broken CSS (such as users.pl) and the like.

Given the unique nature, we're breaking it into two parts. The first is Slashcode 15.03, which is mostly a housekeeping/bugfixing update. This will be the final update of the legacy mod_perl 1 branch, and our final update using Slashcode. Here's what you can expect with this feature-packed installment.

Slashcode 15.03 - Changelog

• Moderation Improvements (better handling of Spam mods, template fixes, etc) (credit: TMB)
• Require prior moderation to use Overrated/Underrated (credit: TMB)
• No karma hits for someone moderated Overrated/Underrated (credit: TMB)
• Add karma floor of 10 to be able to down mod, tweakable in vars (credit: TMB)
• Monthly and Semiannual Subscriptions (credit: paulej57)
• User Selectable Pricing, with minimum (credit: paulej57)
• Auto Renewing Subscription option from PayPal (credit: paulej57)
• Reorganized the moderation dropdown list to avoid miss-moderations (credit: paulej57)
• Mod-bomb detection page for admins: this can now get you banned from moderating the same as if you'd abused Spam (credit: paulej57)
• Closed out the following bugs:
  • Fix for issue #412: fixed login redirects to user Apache request_uri string.
  • Fix for issue #411: added mod_banned info to admin user screen, now with date validation
  • Fix for issue #405: removed users email from the daily stats email.
  • Fix for issue #401: remove coremetrics scripts from few templates.
  • Fix for issue #378: updated moderation FAQ to reflect new mod system.
• SN-specific: Retiring nitrogen, carbon, and beryllium back-end servers (in progress)
• Other Miscellaneous Fixes

If you can't wait to see what this is all about, take a look at our development version of the site. Feel free to create an account and try things out. If you find a bug, please Report it on GitHub or let it be known on the #Soylent or #Dev channel on IRC using your favorite client, or using a web-based interface.

If you want to know what this mysterious 'Rehash' is, check past the break.

Introducing Rehash

One of the long-standing complaints is that we should finalize our break with The Other Site, by renaming slashcode. In what has been a running theme with SoylentNews since golive, naming stuff seems to be our Achilles heel. While calls for renaming to SoylentCode, or something similar have been long been made, the fact is this site, and the engine that powers it is something more. Rehash is our port of slashcode to MP2 (mod_perl version 2), and introduces the first set of upgrades to allow greater community building and interaction.

The name came about due to paulej72 renaming my work folder on lithium to "rehash", and well, I liked it (before this, the Apache 2 port was 'imaginatively' called Slashcode 15.03a2)

One of the longest points of tension within the community is what SoylentNews aims to be — what our focus should be. Even now, I'm not sure we could define it in one specific sentence. Some of you may remember when I wrote up the draft of the site manifesto, which lays out our goals and values. As a reminder, here is both the preamble, and mission statement from that document, which goes into why we were founded, what we stand for, and what we intend to do:

Preamble

In recent years, many alarming trends have surfaced regarding the free interchange of news and ideas on the internet. The practice of selling users' information for profit, without their approval or even knowledge, has become rampant. People are being prosecuted simply for expressing their opinions. A "Big Brother is Watching" mentality from both state and commercial actors, with universal surveillance now becoming common, has created a chilling effect, preventing people from exercising their rights or speaking up.

Unpopular or unusual views are being actively suppressed, diversity of opinion is too often deemed a problem, and actively restricted, at the whim of corporate and political power.

Too often, the focus upon profit has led to owners forgetting that sites exist for the benefit of their community, and the leadership and staff live to serve that community.

Too often, useful help and input from a site's community is ignored by staff and management who are so out of touch with the very people they serve that they will destroy the support of the community they built, and eventually the business itself.

Statement of Purpose

Our aim is to stand in stalwart opposition to these trends. We will be the best site for independent, not-for-profit journalism on the internet, where ideas can be presented and free discussion can take place without external needs overshadowing the community.

With rehash, we're going to be able to *finally* deploy a long talked about feature: nexuses. We've talked about them in passing, but due to various technical issues, we've held off deploying them on production. For those who remember the other site of old, you may remember how the site was subdivided into sections, such as bsd.slashdot.org, apache.slashdot.org, etc. The initial deployment of this feature will allow editors to select a nexus for a story, and then individual users can select which nexuses they wish to read (or not read) in the user control panel.

In effect, this is our version of reddit's subreddits. Furthermore, having full nexus functionality allows us to implement features like hosting different languages of SN, and allow our community to create their own sections of the site for any topic they want. Want to talk about DIY projects, Pokémon, or similar? Well, soon, that will be possible.

A little known feature of the codebase is that its built on a plugin architecture which makes expansion easier and allows for multi-hosting. That is to say, we can have multiple sites out of a single installation; i.e., soylentnews.jp and soylentnews.org can both point to the same installation, but show a different mainpage. While we're still somewhat far off from supporting this kind of user-generated content, this upgrade sets the framework for allowing it to happen. The mainpage of SN will remain as it is, but allow the community to form and discuss any topic they wish, all handled under the same familiar interface you use now.

I'll probably write more on the topic of nexuses in the coming weeks, but I figure this sneak-preview on where we're going should introduce some interesting discussion. As always, I'll be reading comments below, and responding.