SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the I-thought-the-name-was-bacconmuffinnews dept.
After several early attempts, we have settled on a process for deciding on the final name for this site currently known as SoylentNews.org. You'll need to log in and go to: userprefs/homepage and check the box marked "Willing to Vote" if you'd like to participate (do this now, the submission round will go out soon). The vote will occur using an email-based solution loosely based on the Debian/Condercet method that we cooked up. Note: checking this box will indicate that we are scraping your email address from the database for participation (this is completely opt-in). If you wish not to participate, just make sure this box is unchecked (this is the default).
We are opening the floor to name suggestions. If you have suggested a name earlier, you'll need to re-submit it through this email voting system. Though we prefer available domains, if you have pre-purchased a domain (eg: to prevent squatters), by submitting the name you are stating that you are the owner of the domain(s) and will give it without strings attached to this project if it were to be chosen.
The criteria for an acceptable name:
- Unique and free of obvious trademarks
- Ideally be a bit technological/geeky and signal the site is "news"
- Domain should be available in all permutations: .com/.net/.org
- Easy to pronounce
- Easy to type
- Easy to 'market' or has a "hook" (imagine a mug with the name, a logo, slogans, plays on words, etc.)
- Passes the girlfriend / wife / significant other / random person at work - test
This is how it will work:
- The first round will go out asking for name submissions
- Submissions will remain open for 7 days
- The community will vote to yield 5 names
- Staff will vote and produce 5 names
- A final vote on all 10 names will be held
- At this point, the staff will have a second full vote on the same ten items the community voted on
- The result of this vote, and the community vote, including its runoff, will then be published
- The staff vote is the final decision. We have to live with this. But the community will have a powerful influence on the final staff vote.
If you're interested:
NCommander adds: So its finally here, and I wanted to apologize for the long delay before this actually happened. To the editoral team, please bump this to the top of the index for the next 24 hours so everyone gets a chance to see it (click 'fastforward' then save to autoupdate the timestamp). I promise a Featured Story option is coming in the next major update so we don't have to deal with this!
(Score: 2) by AudioGuy on Friday April 11 2014, @07:17PM
Of course the first issue is that if your email bounces, you will never see the voting stuff at all - so make sure that address is actually valid.
Use plain text email only. And make sure any line wrapping is set to 70 characters or above - or off.
There are several thousands email programs and variants out there, -your refrigerator can probably send email-.
There is no practical way to write a program to decode all variants of html and other email in a week or two. Even large companies have trouble will all the variations and bugs.
So we have fallen back to the basic mode that is simple to parse and was the original format of email.
What is a plain text email?
Here is, in raw form, what a real plain text email looks like:
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Return-Path:
X-Original-To: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org
Delivered-To: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org
Received: by boron.soylentnews.org (Postfix, from userid 1001)
id 2CEBD27A69; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 06:50:23 +0000 (UTC)
To: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org
From: "Soylent Staff Vote"
Subject: [Soylent Staff Vote](FirstStaffP) Submissions for vote requested
Message-Id:
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 06:50:23 +0000 (UTC)
The actual poll question is:
What KIND of name should we use for the new Soylentnews name? (not
looking at names, but simply types of names)
What this is really about, however, is testing this new system. ...
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
.
Just 7 bit ascii characters, line wrapped at about 70 characters.
What is NOT a plain text email?
Any kind of html, mime, special encoding, etc.
Here is an example of an email that is NOT plain text (despite it claimimg to be):
.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Message-ID:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_025bb878-695c-4212-bf15-ef78a3f8630e_"
From: Sixpack
To: Soylent Staff Vote
Subject: RE: [Soylent Staff Vote](FirstStaffP) Submissions for vote requested
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 19:31:33 +1100
Importance: Normal
In-Reply-To:
References:
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 31 Mar 2014 08:31:33.0719 (UTC) FILETIME=[9F985670:01CF4CBB]
--_025bb878-695c-4212-bf15-ef78a3f8630e_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> To: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org ...
> From: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org
> Subject: [Soylent Staff Vote](FirstStaffP) Submissions for vote requested
> Date: Mon=2C 31 Mar 2014 06:50:23 +0000
>=20
> The actual poll question is:
>=20
> What KIND of name should we use for the new Soylentnews=20
> name? (not looking at names=2C but simply types of names)
>=20
> What this is really about=2C however=2C is testing this new=20
> system. Specifically I want to make sure that:
>=20
--_025bb878-695c-4212-bf15-ef78a3f8630e_
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>=3B To: staffvot= ...
e@staff.soylentnews.org
>=3B From: staffvote@staff.soylentnews.org
=
>=3B Subject: [Soylent Staff Vote](FirstStaffP) Submissions for vote requ=
ested
>=3B Date: Mon=2C 31 Mar 2014 06:50:23 +0000
>=3B
>=
=3B The actual poll question is:
>=3B
>=3B What KIND of name sho=
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
That is mime encoded, further 'quoted-printable' encoded, and the second part contains html. That is NOT what we need to see.
You can email yourself and look at your own mail as a check, most email readers have some sort of 'raw' mode so you can see what is really there.
What if you have no way to send plain text?
We anticipated a few people might be in this situation. So we have made a good faith effort to TRY to decode this stuff, if possible.
If your mail is in -standard- mime format with a plain text and an html section, we may be able to decode it. No guarantees, but we have done some tests, at least.
On the other hand if you are using an old version of Outlook that ONLY sends non-standard 'x-html' mail with no plain text section and too long lines, it will most likely NOT be decoded. The same is true for all the really ghastly progams such as 'IncrediMail'
Sorry, but that is the best we can do for the moment.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Wednesday April 23 2014, @05:17PM
Will there at least be a warning if your reply was impossible to decode?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by AudioGuy on Wednesday April 23 2014, @08:16PM
Anything not decoded properly will be kicked out and hand checked.
If a -human- can't decode it, no promises. :-)