All of the trend lines on this site are positive except one: story submissions. After an initial surge, they have been gradually declining despite users and page views climbing. Tonight the submission queue ran dry. Janrinok and I could go scrounging, as we sometimes do, but this needs to be addressed.
We have around four thousand registered users, and who knows how may AC's reading along. We can do better.
I challenge each of you to submit stories on a regular basis, at whatever frequency you find comfortable. Really, if even half of us submitted a story once a week, we would have more than we could ever use. Once a day, once a week, once a month, whatever you can handle, send it in.
Bookmark this link: http://soylentnews.org/submit.pl - use it. Give us so many stories that we can select the cream of the crop and stun you with how amazing our community is. Make it happen.
I'm going to leave this story on top for a while, and see what is waiting for us when I get to work in the morning. Wow me, please.
This is our news site. There are others like it, but this one is ours. Its success is in your hands.
[UPDATE: We have received, in less than 12 hours, more submissions than we had the whole rest of the weekend. THANK YOU SO MUCH, and please, keep them coming. Even one story a month matters. Let the party re-commence. :) ]
(Score: 5, Informative) by LaminatorX on Monday March 24 2014, @06:19AM
Development and status stories have been in the main story feed and NCommander's journal. Development is active and ongoing.
The delay in the FAQ update can be laid squarely at my feet, I'm afraid, for which I apologize. There has been a perfect storm of sick family, short-handedness at my day job, and making up for inactive editors that have all been eating the time I wanted to devote to the FAQ. All of those distractions are being resolved, and the FAQ update should arrive this week.
(Score: 1) by gonz on Monday March 24 2014, @06:53AM
> Development and status stories have been in the main story feed and NCommander's journal.
Okay, but how is the casual visitor supposed to find that? Soylent News will succeed or fail on audience counts, most of whom will start out as once-a-week or once-a-month observers. They don't have time to read most of the articles (which, let's face it, are a tiny fraction of what Slashdot offers). The draw isn't the articles anyway, it's the vision and the adventure of watching a site being born. So a little packaging would go a long way, is all I'm sayin'.
And thanks for your hard work. I like the concept of Soylent News and hope it succeeds, but give it to me in English, professor!
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Monday March 24 2014, @12:33PM
I seconded this thought. While airing all the dirty laundry was maybe a bit much drama (though it helped in understanding), what I missed was a somewhat weekly "report" of how the site is doing. Are we growing, fading slow, holding steady? I hate to sound wonky and all, but performance numbers can help motivate people, especially if presented, not as "ra ra" corporate speak or white washed negative numbers, but just facts for people to process.
That is something /. did not do, air the numbers and I would like it if SN did.
The other thought I'd agree to regarding submissions is one made about responding to content. I love hard science. Reading about the gravity wave finding was amazing, reading about some specific "things" is cool, but unless I am directly in the knowledge pool, what is there to say? I did with the Gravity wave and discovered I Was waaaaaayyyyyy off in my thinking and only got a couple of bruises. Showing how little one knows is not always good on the web.
It is easier to comment on topics that are more opinion based, more impacting on day to day lives and I see that in the comment numbers (like this thread). I applaud the editors for trying to find a balance between the two for it cannot be easy keeping the interest of a broad spectrum of members.
Well, I lost my thought so I'll end with, I'll consider submitting a story (one I am curious as t o SN viewpoints), but up front, it is not purely science or completely technical, but if the foundation is ignored, it encompasses both.
The more things change, the more they look the same