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SoylentNews is people

posted by juggs on Friday May 29 2015, @04:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the random-thoughts dept.

This is a topic that comes up all too often in comments, lambasting editors or praising them.

As it stands, editorial is a black box, they accept submissions, fettle them, then they appear as stories. Recently, the Original Submission link appeared on stories so you can see what went in and what appeared out of that black box, yet still the complaints come.

Just how much transparency is necessary? (This is an open question not rhetorical)

I like to believe that SoylentNews is the people that form it as a community, and the editing should reflect that.

Should we adopt some version control for subs so everyone can see who edited what through the pipeline that goes from sub to front page?

Thoughts on a postcard please.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday May 29 2015, @05:13PM

    by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Friday May 29 2015, @05:13PM (#189739) Homepage

    True, I appreciate your sentiment, however we do try to listen to the community. It's a hard line to walk sometimes between listening to suggestions/complaints and simply getting the job done; we all work very hard (and will continue to strive) to maintain that balance.

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday May 30 2015, @02:10PM

    by zocalo (302) on Saturday May 30 2015, @02:10PM (#190108)
    Understood, and I'm sure that it's appreciated by many of the site readership. Having given it a little more thought, I think a good compromise would be the following:

    Automated inclusion of original submission. Not really fussed where, but it doesn't need to be in your face.
    Basic spelling/grammar errors fixed silently (it's vs its, their vs they're vs there, etc.)
    Fixed links done with acknowledgement lest anyone think it's a change to OP's intent
    Deliberately included typos, etc. indicated with "[sic]"
    Significant edits for tone/language/content etc. acknowledged in the story as a heads up for those that care
    Follow-up edits to the story after posting, especially those made by other editors, noted inline or at the end of the story

    That keeps clutter to a minimum, gives a reasonable audit trail, and should provide enough accountability over who said what to placate most people. There will always be some that want more but, as I noted earlier, we should be focussed on discussing the topic of the submissions, not the worthiness of the submissions themselves. Implement a few simple "fixes" and wait - I'm pretty sure things will settle down and be forgotten about soon enough.
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