So, as per usual, I like to occasionally check the pulse on the community to make sure that people for the most part are happy and satisfied with the day-to-day operation of the site. For those of you who are new to the community, first, let me welcome you and explain how these work.
When I open the floor to the community, the intent is to provide a venue to discuss anything related to site operations, content, and anything along those lines. I actively review and comment on these posts, and if one issue pops up multiple times in comments, I generally run follow up articles to try and help address issues the community feels is important before someone decides to take rehash and form a spinoff. Feel free to leave whatever thoughts you want below.
In contrary to my usual posts, I don't have that much to say to this, so to both the community and editorial team's relief, I'll cut this off right here before it becomes Yet Another NCommander Novel.
~ NCommander
Related Stories
One of the sources suggested in our Meta conversation yesterday (State of the Soylent: Community Roundtable) was the physics blog Cocktail Party Physics, which had this neat video, How to Cut String with Your Bare Hands in it.
It's reminiscent of the sort of thing Mythbusters liked to reveal.
Thanks to tonyPick!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @12:48PM
Needs more racism, homophobia, sexism, and political bickering. /s
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday November 07 2016, @01:10PM
I've got good news for you. President T gets elected tomorrow!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday November 07 2016, @08:40PM
I pity the fool!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @01:23PM
Personally, I think we just aren't doing enough to promote conspiracy theories.
(Score: 3, Funny) by ticho on Monday November 07 2016, @04:21PM
I think we would be doing enough, if not for the government is erasing all the best conspiracy-theory-promoting posts.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday November 07 2016, @04:52PM
Exactly! What we're left with are merely mediocre-to-lousy conspiracy theories and confirmed conspiracies. I come here to see the best conspiracy theory posts! Vote <REDACTED>!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @01:31PM
While we're at it, the site could use more JavaScript. You know, snazzy it up some.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Monday November 07 2016, @01:44PM
You might think the OP is funny, but there is a somewhat serious side to that. I've noticed that many articles here get very few comments. They are the sort of simple, decently written stories that one can just read, have nothing to say about or read more about, and scroll down to the next story.
If you have ever wondered why stories on a certain other site were half baked, incomplete, trollish, and so on, it was in part to built a comment base. Laziness and incompetence were just sort of a bonus :P . But more user comments translates in to a larger community, larger Googlable content base, and more page hits.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @03:53PM
You seem to think the OP was praising this site for not being full of shitposters.
I think you radically missed the point.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 07 2016, @04:23PM
But more user comments translates in to a larger community
Well, at least to a larger perceived community. Some news organizations with comment sections have actually looked into stats on comment sections, and generally only a tiny fraction of registered users (let alone site visitors) contribute actively to comments.
When NPR recently closed down comments [npr.org], it noted that only 0.06% of users to the site actually tend to make comments. And of that small group, more than half of comments were due to tiny group of core users (around 2,600), for a site that has 33,000,000 unique users in a given month.
Of course, things are a bit different here (and on that other site). NPR, like most major news sites, isn't really about the comment system, but the other site sort of became known for it... and we have something like it here. So having comments here might seem more important.
But I just wanted to note that if people are actually coming here for a good selection of news (or at least interesting stories), the comment numbers are not necessarily reflective of how large the overall readership community could be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:52AM
I've noted in other posts that we're growing on the whole, and our bandwidth and load requirements have steady gone up year after year. While we might be just 'medium' sized, we're much more active than many other sites, and we allow anonymous posting which helps a lot.
I may ask permission from the community to run some statistic logging again so we can get a better idea of traffic and site growth and such.
Still always moving
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday November 07 2016, @06:09PM
You joke, but this is in fact my #1 problem with the site, and the main reason why I visit rarely and post even less often. The community here is turning toxic. You get racist, sexist comments on any website that allows comments, but here, they've been getting modded to +5. Say what you will about Slashdot, but at least there the trolls get modded down instead of up.
Even outside the obviously-problematic comments like that, there's smaller problems everywhere. Politics gets dragged into everything, and the tone is always "the system is broken, we're all fucked". Same for the perennial hating-on-Microsoft, hating-on-Apple, and hating-on-Google. And the alt-right tribalistic hating-on-SJWs, which goes hand-in-hand with the racism thing earlier (I hate the SJW tribalistic hating-on-rightists too, but there's none of that here so it's not relevant). The overall tone of the site itself seems to be nihilistic despair. I'm a generally negative person but even this is too much for me. I get my tech news mostly from Ars, Anand and El Reg directly these days, because most of the stories here and elsewhere are links there anyways, or somewhere copying one of their articles. Hell, their comments are better than Soylent's, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @08:41PM
Toxic is exactly the right word to describe this place.
Want to fix it?
Allow only positive moderation, kill the +5 moderation cap, and make moderation non-anonymous.
(Score: 3, Touché) by zafiro17 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:08PM
It's everybody's duty to help fill this place with quality, intelligent conversation. The more good stuff posted, the more the crapola can be drowned out, or modded down into oblivion. Go tell your smart friends about this place.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @09:34PM
It's everybody's duty to help fill this place with quality, intelligent conversation. The more good stuff posted, the more the crapola can be drowned out, or modded down into oblivion. Go tell your smart friends about this place.
The last time I downmodded something one of the site admins disagreed with me and banned me from moderation for a couple of weeks. I haven't downmodded anything, even obvious trolls, since that little episode.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:53AM
Citation?
Mod bans are only handed out due to spam, or abusing the moderation system. I can see the mod logs, so if you link the post(s), I'll look into it and any staff members involved.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:25AM
Yeah, Citation Needed. The only moderations we override and ban for are misuse of Spam and mod-bombing. You're allowed to moderate as poorly as your little heart desires, you're just not allowed to abuse the system.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @10:37PM
> Go tell your smart friends about this place.
Wishful thinking dude.
The problem with letting enough shitposters have their way is that they chase out the smart people. It just simply isn't worth the effort of dealing with with the shit. What's the upside? To end up covered in shit? Fuck that. Easier just to move on and leave the pigs to wallow in their own filth.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday November 07 2016, @11:00PM
... and yet, here you are, posting. Seeing as how you plan on sticking around, make it worthwhile.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:00AM
I've been here from the beginning, I've submitted hundreds of stories and I have a LOT of free time due to being bed-ridden for the last year. Once I am healed enough to have a life again, the value calculation of putting up with the shitposters will change and I will drift away.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Monday November 07 2016, @09:20PM
I really appreciate the near lack of SJW-bait stories here. Let Slashdot be the "Women in computing" bitchfest. Soylent already has better story selection than Slashdot - just drop the SJW clickbait stories and not only will the trolling go way down, but story selection will be great.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @10:34PM
Oh look, exactly the kind of person gman was complaining about. Funny how that works.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:19AM
Well, I am guilty as charged. Though I would observe that politics is pervading everything and getting everyone down these days, so how would you expect that Soylent wouldn't also? We'll see if that continues past tomorrow, though probably half of America and most of the world will be pissed off either way, and the other half of America will be merely relieved. I would also observe that a lot of SN's community tends a little older than other online communities; we've been through a lot of tech ups & downs, trends, and innovation, and this era we find ourselves in isn't like those of efflorescence we've known in the past. The last strong tech economy we can remember was in the late 90's. So there you have two significant overlays that might be coloring what you're perceiving.
If you have significant cause for hope, please bring it. If you feel ebullient, share why. Today feels me like how the Byzantines must have felt on the Eve of the Fall of Constantinople, so if there's cause to hope it would be welcome.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:07AM
Entire countries have moved to renewables. There's a new Space Race going on with goals of actual colonization. Every major auto maker has electric cars either in production or in development. A self-described Democratic Socialist ran for nomination in America and was taken seriously. AI is starting to take off as a real solution to real problems.
There's plenty to be terrified about (I am literally packing a bug-out bag right now in case of post-election rioting tomorrow) but there is room for hope.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:29AM
Socialism of any stripe is not reason for hope but for despair. It takes those who produce and makes them slaves to those who do not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:49AM
On the whole, we are growing. Originally, we shot up from 100 user accounts to about 3000 when we launched. Since then, we've put on about 1000-1500 accounts per year (max UID 6399 as of writing). The problem I've noticed is a lot of niche articles tends to not get a lot of comments as a lot of users aren't knowledgeable in that subject and tend to stay quiet; this has happened with original content I've posted as well.
Unfortunately, the stuff that gets the most comment bait are the type of articles a lot of people dislike, such as politics and such.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @08:54AM
I do think about commenting on the more technical stuff or the original content stories, but I tend not to bother because when I have posted thoughtful, complex arguments before all I get in return is down-modded and shitpost replies.
Unfortunately shitposting is a really effective way to drive people off a site. All you have to do is copy/paste some standard talking points, carefully designed to frame every debate in the shitpost narrative. People soon learn not to bother responding because aside from the down mods they get, it's a complete waste of time. You waste your precious time deconstructing and refuting their points, and they just copy/paste some more shitposts in response.
I don't know how to fix it. It's a problem everywhere. Slashdot included, although at least there are enough good moderators there to reduce its effectiveness a bit. From what I hear the site owners have been wielding the banhammer quite a bit since the take-over, to try to sort this out.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:21AM
I suspect a part of it is that for many people, its psychological that they don't want to downvote someone. We have some breaks in the system as ACs start at 0, and you need high karma to post at 2. We could wield the banhammer with abandon, but that's just going to encourage more people to troll more; best way to get rid of is to ignore (and/or moderate it out of existance). ACs are de-facto banned if their IP subnet drops below -25 karma. If memory serves, logged in users drop to 0 at -10 karma, and -1 at -25.
I'm well open to ideas on how to improve it, but its not an easy problem to solve in the slighest.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:40AM
The only thing I can think of is reviewing mods personally. Meta-moderation is supposed to do it, but I think you need more users for it to be effective. People who moderate things troll, offtopic, overrated or whatever just because they agree should not get more mod points. Hopefully then the problem will self-correct over time.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:31AM
Yeah, the problem is finding someone capable of being absolutely impartial to do it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:07PM
The usual solution is to have simple guidelines that cover the worst abuses. Doesn't have to be perfect, only 80% coverage with low false positives.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:35PM
Yeah, I just don't trust guidelines when it comes to screwing with someone's speech. They may be good, they may be bad, but they're always going to be interpreted differently from person to person. Which is why I did my best to spell out really, really clearly what is and isn't Spam when that moderation came out. And there are still disagreements and butthurt to be found.
Mind you, this ain't all up to me; that's just my personal opinion on the matter.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:57PM
It's impossible to have perfect moderation, but if you don't try you end up with 4chan. So the real question is, where on the spectrum between 4chan and a moderated political debate do you want be?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:05PM
Nah, I trust you guys to shut the channer types down through numbers. When/If that starts to not happen it'll be worth revisiting but not quite yet IMO.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @12:54PM
My #1 gripe is that this story was posted at 8:44am which is still almost an hour away. Other than that I have to agree with the AC first poster.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @01:17PM
Yeah, looks like it's giving ACs either EDT or one zone east of EST for some reason. Really should just show UTC to them cause trying to figure out someone's time zone correctly is a mug's game what with TOR, VPNs, and just downright inaccurate geolookup tables.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Monday November 07 2016, @04:10PM
There is https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/DateTimeFormat [mozilla.org] (JS) if you are into that soft of thing.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @04:19PM
Nah, it's my personal mission in life to remove every last bit of js from the site without degrading site experience. NCommander or paulej72 might do it but then I'd just be forced to figure out how to do it in perl and remove that too.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 07 2016, @05:19PM
And it's my mission to put it back in with a userscript. Muahahahaha!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @07:01PM
UPDATE users SET nickname = 'darth takyon' WHERE uid = 881;
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:31AM
Darth Akyon.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:58AM
I believe the site defaults to EST if you don't have a timezone set. The default is whatever the AC account is set to; we'd have to edit the DB to change it. I suspect this would be an acceptable use of JavaScript and simply show times in UTC if JS is disabled.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 07 2016, @01:18PM
Is this something to do with not being logged in, or the very recent DST change, or what?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @01:34PM
DST thing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @01:32PM
Okay, it's now set to UTC for ACs. No more DST nonsense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cmn32480 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:06PM
We could use some additional submissions on technical items. We seem to be seeing a very high percentage of social/politics lately (not that it is a big shock).
An additional editor or two wouldn't hurt either.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @01:22PM
A largish portion of the technical stories are very insular to particular fields, and as such have limited appeal/understanding for those not invested already.
I try to breakdown what limited areas I'm knowledgeable about, but there usually isn't much discussion to be had for those stories.
Oh, and the stunt modding is becoming irksome.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday November 07 2016, @01:33PM
I like the tech articles even when it's not something I'm very familiar with. It's a great way to learn when you can ask stupid questions to people that can actually know the field (or pretend to ... there's always that danger).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday November 07 2016, @05:10PM
I like the historical "I didn't know that" kind of thing (like the BBC's Connection's show). I crave knowledge (my problem is due to lack of sleep and getting old, my brain doesn't hold info well at times, so i can watch Connection's over and over and over and sometimes go "I didn't know that" when i know at one time i did know it, lol.
History info. Stories that are odd. Stuff like the rise of Pinkerton's, or the lady who killed her husbands for their money just to remarry and do it again: then when she was about to get caught, it looks like she faked her own death in a fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gunness [wikipedia.org]
And anything about Hitler and Churchill/WWI/WWII... like a car crash: horrible, but fascinating (how close Hitler got to winning: if only he'd stopped and listened to his Generals at some point and hadn't started the second front war with Russia (which he said they shouldn't have done in WWI). Imagine that: he could have wrapped up England and THEN headed East.
Stuff like all this.
Wish i had more time, now, to post. Maybe after Christmas. I can dream, anyways.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:27PM
I love the history, politics and economics articles where the posts are backed by some stats/quantitative analysis. If I did another PhD, it would probably be something like this...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 07 2016, @05:52PM
another one:
have you heard the song "Hey man, nice shot"? It's about poor Bud Dwyer (video contains GRAPHIC/bloody material)
https://youtu.be/eVm88MX2Gw4 [youtu.be]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sarasani on Monday November 07 2016, @07:39PM
my brain doesn't hold info well at times
That's why I'm using DevonTHINK [devontechnologies.com] to file all the info I come across. It's by far one of my favourite tools.
I wish they'd make a version for linux though (so I'd have a way to migrate out of macOS -- which seems to be getting worse over time).
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:37PM
That's why I'm using DevonTHINK to file all the info I come across. It's by far one of my favourite tools.
I thought I was the only one using it. It's a great research tool and the summarize ability works well for putting together submissions.
(Score: 2) by Sarasani on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:23AM
Yes, it is a great tool. I don't normally spruik anything to my friends (or people I get in contact with), but I gladly make an exception for DevonTHINK. The UI looks a bit dated now, but hey, the tool just works -- that's all that matters to me. And I like how it becomes more useful the more stuff you drop in there (DT is not very useful for filing 20 items, but extremely useful for filing 20 million items). I nearly always instantly find what I'm looking for and I can't think of another application that lets you search your local files with advanced search operators such as these:
Wildcards: ? * [a-z] [abc] [^abc]
Boolean: AND, OR, XOR, NOT, "phrase"
Advanced: OPT, NEAR, BEFORE, AFTER
Part of word: ~term
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:22AM
and i'm on linux COMPLETELY. I struggle through, i guess, by trying to be better at placing important, constantly accessible folders/files on my desktop, with less imp. on my home folder.
Better folder naming, file naming helps. AND BACKUPS!
Once i get my raspberry pi setup as a file server with my harddrives plugged into it instead of my laptop (once Christmas comes) (and if i can ever get a good desktop computer... saving is soooo hard when the money you earn isn't your own, lol)
Might have to get my pi it's own web domain name so i can set it up for streaming to myself and others in my family/extended family: something to tinker with (if i everrrrrrrr get time!!!!!)
Makes me think Dog has something against me, and keeps stealing my space-time. :(
Also want to reinstall my operating system to an SSD (maybe Arch again, dual boot with ubuntu) to try to speed up my laptop.
So many wants, so little space-time.
Aaaaannnd back to Stargate Atlantis! (amongst all the work......)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @08:44PM
> people that can actually know the field (or pretend to)
If no one answers, VLM can tell you; he knows everything.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:37PM
Stunt modding? Please explain.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @01:57PM
You have comments that are modded back and forth multiple times depending on which sensibility is offended/promoted, which in itself wouldn't be so bad, but there is very little discussion that follows. Trolling and flamebait are essentially meaningless now.
As everyone has mod points, this translates into whatever dominant sensibility obliterating any other point of view. It's mob rule.
Some one else mentioned weighted modding after a comment goes past a certain number adjustments, and it just may be a by-product of the political season in the US, but it does seem the back and forth is more acute now.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday November 07 2016, @03:11PM
I think you'll find that mob rule goes back a fair distance before the current US election.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday November 07 2016, @03:33PM
Forgot to include the link! [soylentnews.org]
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:44PM
It's probably always going to be populist rule around here. I can't see myself deciding we need a ruling moderator class around here; at least and I plan on weighing in vehemently with that position should it come up again.
Thankfully, we do have a fair percentage of people who will upvote you even if they disagree with you though. It mostly balances out on average as far as I can tell, though not on every individual comment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:00AM
We discussed it a long time ago, search for the term 'supermoderation'. The reception was on the whole negative when we talked about it.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:55PM
Old Slashdot had meta moderation to address that. I don't know if we have crossed that threshhold, but it's an option.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @04:23PM
I think NCommander fixed that without telling anyone a while back but really that just increases the effect of the majority since the minority wouldn't get to moderate as much any more. The only real solution here is to find someone absolutely impartial and let them start handing out moderation bans. Which just ain't gonna happen because nobody is absolutely impartial.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @09:40PM
The only real solution here is to find someone absolutely impartial and let them start handing out moderation bans. Which just ain't gonna happen because nobody is absolutely impartial.
Apparently someone thinks they are that impartial. I don't know about anyone else but I got banned from moderation for two weeks for a single downmod that was borderline incorrect but I felt it was justified.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:13AM
Must have been Spam abuse. Has nothing to do with partiality there. We laid out what constitutes Spam and if you got your mod privs pulled it's because you didn't follow the guidelines. Also, it would have been for a month not two weeks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:57AM
Meta moderation (M2) was fixed some time ago, but is disabled. The current moderation algrothimn doesn't look at the m2 fields in the database at all. I'm not convinced its a way to fix the problem because very few people on the whole moderate in general, and meta-moderation just gets tedious after awhile to the point I'm concerned it would compound the groupthink, since the subset of those who M2 would have more control over who gets mod points vs. not.
I may be willing to try it on a trial basis, but I'm on the whole 'eh'.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:54AM
How about making down-mods have negative consequences after say the first 2 per day. That way real trolls can still get their -1s, but people who just go around hammering opinions they don't like will soon end up with no mod points.
The lack of consequences for bad moderation are what screwed up Slashdot. Meta-moderation was supposed to fix it, but after a while they just started abusing that too and it actually created a feedback loop that ended up helping the trolls.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:36AM
How about giving out ten points a day and only letting five(?) of them go to downmods? Been tossing that one around inside my head for a bit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:49AM
I like that, but maybe only 2 for down-mods. What we really want is people to up-mod replies that rebuff arguments they disagree with, not simply mod them down.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:33PM
Yeah, I expect it'll take some trial and error to find a good balance but we do want people to be able to handle a spam flood as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by moondoctor on Monday November 07 2016, @01:42PM
That's true to a point. I like reading comment threads between knowledgeable people on subjects I don't study. A lot of people here are pretty smart (aside from myself!) and can get a lot and sometimes contribute in intelligent discussions about fields we are interested in but not experts. Better to have more technical stories with few comments and let the gems spark conversation than leave them all out imho.
I did software for a living for many years and have transitioned to hardware in art/design doing sculptures and whatnot. My gripe? Overall it's not bad at all, but sometimes the condescension when discussing computers around here gets a bit pathetic... [see: circle jerk] Being annoying is 'whatever' but, the big one is that it detracts from the ability for a robust debate to develop.
All things considered, Soylent is fantastic. Thanks!!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 07 2016, @05:20PM
very insular to particular fields, and as such have limited appeal/understanding for those not invested
There is a certain pattern I've observed.
We see that in IT stories like "some linux distro made by two people to save the users the effort of typing a single line of apt-get install folds and shuts down" gets like 10 comments and "best language to start learning programming" gets way over 100 comments.
So from memory we've had more than a few "STEM stories" like "spacecraft probes uranus" but nobody comments (look closer guys thats kinda a joke there) vs the stories we don't get at all like "top four favorite chemical elements according to Gawker" or similar, were it to exist which it doesnt, would probably get 100+ comments.
I bet, were it to exist, that a story talking about the relative merits of the three possible post-pluto targets for New Horizons would get 100+ comments. Its too late for that specific topic because they already selected one of the three.
Or... again its a bit too late but how about a list of five folks in the running for the Nobel Prize in physics this year? That would get a lot of comments. A story of who actually won, less so. Of course that brand is kinda tarnished what with the whole Obama peace prize thing some years back, ugh how embarrassing.
There is the hidden issue that I appreciate the hell out of a story like "astronomical interesting foolishness" even if it only gets like 3 comments, more than an emacs vs vi flamewar with 100+ comments. Because maybe the metric of whats a "good" story isn't necessarily the most heat or the most comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:48PM
Maybe what we need are more community discussion submissions and ask soylents?
(Score: 2) by lgw on Monday November 07 2016, @09:25PM
I'd vastly prefer Soylent sticks with "EMACS vs VI" clickbait stories over the Slashdot-style gender/immigration political clickbait. I'm OK with the occasional holy war fodder to keep the post count up, from time to time, as long as it's geek holy wars.
But, yeah, more science stories would be nice. (Soylent is already noticeably better on having science stories than Slashdot though.)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 07 2016, @10:21PM
I'd agree with that more or less. In my own meandering long winded way I was pointing out that stories like "lets discuss where NASA should send its next probe" inevitably result in a hundred plus comments whereas "NASA probes Uranus" also inevitably results in less than ten comments.
Yet I find the content of the lesser commented stories very interesting, well at least sometimes.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:16AM
Sometimes a good read isn't necessarily good discussion fodder. Doesn't make it less of a good read. Worrying about whether an article generates discussion is what leads to shitty clickbait fodder and stupid "Does $foo mean $bar?" stupid-question-as-a-headline articles.
There's already enough of that elsewhere, so I actually appreciate that SN also covers the less discussion-generating stuff as well.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:56PM
A live example is the story up right now about the bronze age city discovered in Kurdistan.
Pretty cool. Very interesting. Theres one comment and its probably gonna die with that one comment. There's gotta be more to say about it? But what?
"Cool thx for the article" plz no spam
"This is particularly spooky because I just got the pathfinder card game "mummys mask" base set so hopefully we're not LARP out the whole adventure path, although that would be kinda cool" I would only make a post like this if I were drunk
"I got to play with a geomagnetic resistance meter once for a short amount of time, it was ancient so this is probably out of date but it was a cool combo of 4-wire metering AND AC measurement. Also I think it was doing something funky with synchronous detection to average/null out power line noise and geomagnetic field noise." The problem is, other than the other 3 or so EE here, no one would possibly care.
Although in that narrow realm it is interesting, because geologic resistance meters are pretty cool pieces of electronics. You give a noob EE the job of making a resistance meter and they poop out something not entirely laughable but technically works in the lab at least some of the time. Then you're like, oh yeah forgot to mention it has to work in the field, in the rain, be oil field roughneck proof toughness, static electricity proof, corrosion proof, able to run correctly near power lines and your radio communication stuff and survive semi-distant lightning strikes. All at the same time. Actually a story about "how the heck do you make a ground resistance meter in 2016?" is starting to sound like it could accumulate interesting comments.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:10AM
I like the social justice stories. Wouldn't it be nice if people could just scroll past the ones they don't like without having to troll the people who want to make genuine comments on them?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:48AM
It's not trolling to genuinely, fundamentally disagree with the policies of the regressive left.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:26PM
Sure, but if you can't state that without calling someone an "SJW" and down-modding them, that's trolling.
Honestly, I'd love to have a proper debate about some of this stuff, but even when they get too people in a room with a moderator it's hard to do.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:29PM
Re: calling someone an SJW. If the shoe fits...
Re: downmods. I don't downmod people I'm speaking with, as a rule with very, very few exceptions. And I never downmod someone simply because I disagree with them. Gotta set a good example on moderating or I can't be justified when I bitch about bad moderations.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:19PM
Those sound interesting to me. Can you submit one the next time you think of it?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 07 2016, @10:33PM
Yeah that's the problem they were obvious good stories in retrospect. I suppose the annual Nobel and academic rumblings and rumors is obvious topic for a little less than a year from now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:29AM
Maybe a helpful thing to do is start an editorial calendar to track such things. I've noticed that at certain times of year there are more science-y stories than usual. It probably coincides with when proposals are due in to the NSF and people put out press releases on their research to juice their chances a bit. I don't know when those things are off the top of my head, though, so perhaps Soylentils who know can help fill in the blanks. Same thing with significant conventions, video game releases, etc.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:02PM
Maybe a helpful thing to do is start an editorial calendar to track such things.
Great minds thinking alike, I've agitated for years for something like that to hold space mission content.
The technology is pretty far away from web log bulletin board thingies like this.
If the startup scene didn't totally suck and if it had any creativity at all, some kind of "community calendar" social media technology would seem to be very start up able. Good luck with the UI, dealing with spam, thats where all the secret sauce would lie.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @07:29PM
But what would a "community calendar" actually look like? Sounds like Google Calendar. Or Facebook events. Just spun off into a single focus website.
Most people want to import a specific groups' events into their personal calendar. They don't want to dig through events for every group in the area. Where they do it's generally groups that are part of a larger group (ie, student groups at a university; or groups within an office) and they just have a calendar for the larger group that includes all of them already.
Same goes for Soylent. Ideally we might want to find, for example, an ical feed from NASA of their events and just import that into ours. Of course, some organizations may not have such a calendar, and for those we'd have to track it ourselves. Which could get interesting. Thinking specifically about annual conferences, where the date and location aren't fixed but it still occurs at roughly the same time each year. So you could get interesting features like repeating events without a definite date...maybe it creates a "ghost" event on the same date next year just to remind someone to check and update it? But yeah that's veering way off topic now...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 08 2016, @07:57PM
Right but just like BBS software, or web discussion emulation of it, isn't a 3-d simulation of writing on notecards and sticking them on a physical cork board..
Another good analogy is I'm old enough to have experienced the last few years of log files being a printer typing out logs and the logs getting tossed into a fireproof safe. If you stay under a couple hundred lines per day its not that ridiculous and dot matrix is inherently line oriented (laser printers being kinda page oriented...) But something like a standard ELK stack (elasticsearch logstash kibana) are not 3-d vrml simulations of my last log file printer from '96 or whatever.
A "real" community calendar would have to handle both top down declarative stuff and bottom up suggestion workflows... have some kind of tagging of topics (I'm not into bio so some biology conference would be "eh" to me) some kind of moderation and likely metamoderation. And like you mention there's calendar entries that are pretty fuzzy like "rake up the leaves about this time of year".
Doing it right ends up being a lot more complicated than just sharing google calendars. Although that would be better than nothing, I guess.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:47PM
Can Soylentils recommend additional sources for technical articles? We have Wired, arstechnica, phys.org, bbc, and some others but that can run dry.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday November 07 2016, @02:06PM
http://spectrum.ieee.org/ [ieee.org]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/ [theregister.co.uk]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday November 07 2016, @02:08PM
You can try journals like Nature and Science. Part of their articles have dumbed down versions (in Nature it's news) which could serve as submissions. How about "Ant genomes rewrite history of Panama land bridge".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:33PM
Those are good suggestions. If we can find more like those it would help tilt the balance toward more technical articles.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @08:46PM
> journals like Nature and Science.
Ladies' Home Journal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @02:11PM
Can Soylentils recommend additional sources for technical articles?
I think the "T" in TMZ stands for "Technical".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @02:13PM
I usually submit biomedical articles from sciencemag.org and nature.com. Both sites have physics/engineering/CS articles as well but I often stay away from those since they aren't my expertise.
When the "Pending Stories" list is empty and I can't find anything then I go to SciCentral.com for scientific press releases.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:45PM
I think that's an important point to consider. If Soylentils who are subject matter experts submit technical articles from their areas of particular expertise on developments they consider important to their field, or that they know are fundamental for laymen to understand, then the chance that we all collectively learn from that goes way up. Me, I have areas of relative expertise, but when I submit a lot of stories I feel most comfortable going with general tech news like you'd find on arstechnica or the like because I take for granted that the information in them was vetted at some level by people with deep expertise.
For example, I'd love to hear more about CRISPR, but don't even know where to begin. If Soylentils who do work with it have sources to more accessible content with it, and can mediate technical information on it, it would be enormously helpful and attractive to all of us, I think. Part of that sort of happens organically, such as when users like VLM comment on EE subjects, but it might work even better if he could be the resident EE professor, sourcing and mediating that field for the rest of us.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Monday November 07 2016, @06:25PM
I like to approach it from the other side. I secretly harbor a fantasy of having my own science blog, but I'm too lazy to actually put in the work to do it (finding stories, contacting the authors and talking to them, etc. etc.). So I skim a handful of journals that interest me, or poke around the press release sections of various places, and try to find interesting articles that I can turn into story submissions. I find it fun to try to translate a scientific paper to a general audience because I learn a lot about the topic that way. However, this takes me quite a bit of time to do, which is why my submission count is not very high.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:44PM
I think that's an important point to consider. If Soylentils who are subject matter experts submit technical articles from their areas of particular expertise on developments they consider important to their field, or that they know are fundamental for laymen to understand, then the chance that we all collectively learn from that goes way up.
The issue that I come across is that a lot of papers in my field are still, even in this day and age, locked behind a paywall. It's hard to have meaningful discussions about the content of a paper when no one can read it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:35PM
Yeah that's the barrier I've run into in the past when trying to get better, crunchier stories--journal paywalls. I've thought about data mining the Open Data stuff that swept the scene a couple years ago, because that stuff is collected by the government and supposed to be free to you and me, but that's a lot of work for uncertain gain. I like geographical info and that sort of thing, but how many here do, too?
And that's part of the dilemma--there are a lot of subject matter experts who could write great stuff on what's state-of-the-art in their fields, but if it's too esoteric for a robust discussion to arise around it, it feels like a huge waste of time for the author, which means it would be the last time they ever did anything like that.
I've got a process down where I can put together a story submission in 2-3 minutes. Over my morning coffee I can submit 6-10 and get my news reading done at the same time--kills two birds with one stone. If any one of those submissions gets zero comments, it's not a big deal because it only represents 2 minutes of my time and meanwhile it at least supplied a headline on the main page that Soylentils can hearken back to if they want later. I try to spark discussion with an ice breaker or geek reference or lame humor, but it's not ideal.
So we work with what we have. Sometimes tech/science stories you can sink your teeth into come along in the dozens, and properly spaced out they can last you for a week. Honestly, though, most times there isn't much in the news to be gleaned. More sources can help there.
Or maybe we approach it like a traditional editor would, whereby they have stories people are working on that run when the "OMG did you hear what just happened?!" stuff runs thin?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:20AM
I'd love to hear more about CRISPR
I'll keep my eyes open for any interesting papers or will try to write-up a Slow News Day submission on the current state of research. What are you more interested in (e.g. medical applications, its use as a bacterial defense against viruses, designer babies, etc.)?
There will probably be some clinical trials using CRISPR within a few months and they would definitely be worth discussing.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Monday November 07 2016, @02:41PM
For general science stuff Jennifer Ouellette's Cocktail Party Physics [typepad.com] is a good weekly round-up of stories. Updated on Saturday, there's usually something in there that is worth a submission when I look.
Also most stories initially appear through her twitter feed [twitter.com], if you're willing to trawl that.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @03:56PM
That's a good source.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @10:39PM
Wouldn't mind cocking that tail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @04:51PM
https://www.sciencenews.org/ [sciencenews.org]
Published by a non-profit established almost 100 years ago to help the public become science-literate - i.e., it's not a PR outlet like phys.org or link spammers that show up in google news' science heading.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:37PM
Thanks, that looks good.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 07 2016, @04:57PM
Seriously, WIRED, the den of hypocrisy [twitter.com] that reviews privacy tools such as Disconnect with one hand and blocks viewers using those tools with the other? See also what Doc Searls has to say about this hypocrisy [doc.blog].
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:41PM
It's hard to disqualify sources for that sort of thing, though, or pretty soon you run out of sources, the queue dries up, and there's nothing to discuss or reason for people to visit the site.
For example, I really don't like the Register as a source because of their language and approach, but I still submit stuff from them fairly regularly if no other source has that same story that day.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:21AM
You could always skim slashdot's headlines and see if they've posted anything interesting. ;) The RSS feed is good for that, since the slashdot comments aren't usually worth it anymore, but occasionally they get a submission that's worth checking the original source. Just make sure to write your own summary, since the /. summaries are usually shit.
Same goes for sites like HackerNews. Sometimes people post interesting niche stuff that might be appealing, though it's usually just personal projects and crap like that.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday November 07 2016, @01:12PM
Would it be possible to also include the timezone whenever a time is given?
For instance this summary has a "@13:44" and it would be nice if it was shown as "@13:44 CET" (and the same with posts). ("@08:44AM" when not logged in, i guess that would make it "@08:44AM AST")
I know this is minor and you can set which timezone to show, but it is less of an effort to just glance at the TZ than trying to find out if you're logged in (often requires scrolling) and remember what TZ you set soylent to show/what it defaults to..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @01:37PM
Doable but it'll take a while to find all the places it needs to be done. Also, I'm not sure offhand how to adjust the zone name for DST where relevant. Might be easier to just give the UTC offset.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Knowledge Troll on Monday November 07 2016, @01:57PM
Please just switch to UTC - we are all grown ups here aren't we?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:47PM
Already done for ACs as of this morning. What zone you want your time configured for as a registered user is up to you though. The site itself runs on UTC, we just make allowances for people who don't want to math as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @04:37PM
It would be helpful if the timestamps actually mentioned the timezone otherwise people are simply left guessing.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:02AM
Timestamps are whatever your timezone is set to. For ACs, they're now UTC.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:24PM
Even better, I am a grown up in the UK...
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday November 07 2016, @02:01PM
UTC offset would also be fine (in many ways better).
Or, maybe add it (TZ, offset) in/at/near the boxes at/near the top of the page (would also be nice to see when a page was generated)?
Still would require scrolling but it would be constantly glanced when passing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:49PM
Cheers. I'll add it to the bug tracker now then. Might be able to get to it by this upcoming site update but no promises.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday November 07 2016, @01:59PM
An idea I've had is we could provide custom timestamps, along the lines of strftime() or whatever perl supports. (Eg.: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S UTC might produce:
"2016-11-07 13:47:29 UTC". Alternatively, might have an iso8601 choice.)
It's a far-from-trivial undertaking as there are so many places in the code that output date/time stamps... some of which are space constrained and others are not. How about having a choice for Long format, Short format, and TZ selection?
Feel free to poke holes at this; still waking up.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @01:14PM
It would be nice if the polls were updated more often or at a certain time (e.g. the 14th day of the month).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:42PM
You know, I don't even think to look at the polls when there's no Cowboy Neal option. How funny/sad is that?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by t-3 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:38PM
Pipedot has a lot fewer stories and a lot less commentary, but the stories are mostly interesting and few are posted here. Set up something to scrape the pipedot pipe and submit them all here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by t-3 on Monday November 07 2016, @01:44PM
Also, a link to the submission queue in the sidebar would be nice.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:52PM
Yup, it would. Pretty sure we can squeeze this in for the next site update. Issue added to the tracker for now though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @04:05PM
Or make the "queue low" message at the top of the home page into a permanent message.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @06:21PM
Yeah, just setting the threshold of showing up to something like 1000 articles should do the trick.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday November 07 2016, @06:52PM
If we make the Queue Low message permanent it just becomes meaningless and eventually is ignored.
Unfortunately, it often doesn't do what it is hoped it would either, or at least I haven't been able to correlate the number of submissions received with the appearance or otherwise of the warning notice.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:45PM
I definitely notice it. When it appears I always try to submit something, even if a slow news day means a thin story or two. In the past I used to have fun seeing if I could single-handedly make it go away, but thankfully these days many more people submit and it's seldom necessary.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:52AM
That's because you're a submitting badass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @11:08PM
When I see the message, I'll take a look at the queue and submit something if I have time. If the Pending Stories list is close to empty, then I'll basically force myself to submit something (even if it is a Slow News Day submission) and I'll pop into the IRC channel and put out a request to any available editors to review the new submissions.
My average submission rate is probably only around six per month, but they are stacked at times when they are needed.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:23AM
It's actually more or less work as intended. On several occasions before it existed, we ran out of articles entirely, and publication stopped. I don't think we've actually had the queue go to zero since it was implemented.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:34AM
Well, I'm not sure that the message can take all the credit for that. What we can do now is run 'Arthur', the bot which does the searching for stories and basic preparatory processing, and then we have some material to work with. It is not as good as a genuine submission, but it can help us fill the gaps when there is nothing in the queue worth processing.
Arthur can find at least 100 stories a day, and sometimes finds several hundred (431 is the highest for far in my experience), but it is not yet fully automatic and it is not always popular with the community.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:48PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday November 07 2016, @02:18PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 07 2016, @05:01PM
The /my/inbox view [soylentnews.org] is supposed to do that here, showing the text of all messages with a delete button below each. But clicking the "delete" button on any of them goes back to the /messages.pl view [soylentnews.org], which is the old list of checkboxes.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @06:34PM
Personally, I dig it that way. You can pop out a tab for every reply you need to read then hit delete on any comment to take you to the easy-to-mass-delete view. Your mileage may vary though and I've no objection to revisiting the layout.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 07 2016, @07:50PM
Here's another thing to try: Make each message into an iframe. Then once the user submits the form with the "Delete Message" button inside that iframe, change only that iframe into a notice that deletion was successful.
Yet another: Some way to group replies to a particular comment of mine. That way, I can open my comment only once to see all replies. I had been doing this on Slashdot and SN by hovering over the link to my comment and comparing the last four digits of the cid.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @08:15PM
Iframes is not my favorite idea for many reasons but turning the newer way of displaying messages into a form could work pretty easily. As for the other idea, I like it but I'm not sure how much of a pain in the ass it would end up being to code. Worth looking into for sure.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dbe on Monday November 07 2016, @03:22PM
I'm pretty happy with the mix of stories, in general, I should try to submit more often though.
My personal grip is a bug that was in previous /. but they seems to have corrected it since:
We have a "previous day" link at the end of the page, it would be great to change it to "previous stories" instead to avoid duplication of a few stories at the top of the list.
In other word most of the time the last few stories on the front page are also part of the "previous day" page.
In any case thanks to all the technical team, editors and community it is for me one of the best site I have in my usual link liste.
Cheers
-dbe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @03:31PM
I find this mildly annoying as well. Other than that things are great.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:54PM
Truthfully, it annoys the piss out of me as well. I'm just uncertain what percentage of the community would bitch if we changed it to "previous N stories" though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 07 2016, @04:37PM
I actually rather like the fact that the "archive" stories track by day. It was surprising at first, but I find it more intuitive at times now. It's especially nice when checking in on an older story to see if any new comments appeared, since it will continue to appear in the same place. It's also helpful to get oriented if I've been away from reading for a couple of days, since the "break" between what I already saw and what's new will occur in a somewhat predictable place.
But I wouldn't object to the other way.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @04:47PM
I'd kind of like to have a calendar where you could just click a day and it would display all of that day's stories then move the links on the main page to display the next N stories regardless of date. Best of both worlds but a goodly bit of work getting a calendar layout done properly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday November 07 2016, @03:27PM
On average, things are quite good and you're doing a great job, NCommander , along with the rest of your team.
Quite few months ago, I took a very brief look at the source and couldn't see (at least not quickly like an ADD ferret) how to add the number of comments to the story links. If it is easy for someone familiar with the source, then it would be fast way to show on the main page which stories have new comments since the last visit. undeadly.org does this, which is what made me look in the first place.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @03:59PM
Up until our sooper sekrit comment code update that should roll out about a week after paulej72 gets whatever he's got us on hold for done, it wasn't possible. It's doable now though and a pretty good idea. Added to the issue tracker and will almost definitely make the next update since it's closely related to work already done in said update.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zraith on Monday November 07 2016, @06:40PM
One thing that I really like about the other site is that they have a "Most Discussed" section on the right sidebar.
When I need to relax at work, I can see whats trending and see what people are thinking about it.
I don't know how much work that would be though...
Other than that, it must be good or I wouldn't be coming back. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @07:28PM
I happen to like our trending comment slashbox. It's in the user settings.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:37AM
It's actually implemented and present. Just not shown by default. Go into your settings and enable the slashbox for it.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by goodie on Monday November 07 2016, @03:44PM
SN is still one the main sites I visit on a regular basis. The UI is good for me, loads well even on my old crappy IPhone and the JavaScript is justified. My 2 cents still amount to being to gain access to some public data so that we can "mine" (don't like that word but I have nothing else) what goes on in SN and see how to improve it. This has been suggested in the past and in another reply for this thread (indirectly by saying we need more provocative stories to foster more comments), I think that gaining a better sense as to how we are doing through empirical data accessible to all could only help. I don't have time to write a scraper right now but I want to actually analyze the evolution of SN, even basic stats could be helpful in my opinion. But maybe you guys already do all that :)
Other than that I'm a happy camper :).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @04:28PM
Get me a detailed list of what you'd like to see and I'll see how much of it is viable for putting in the API.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @09:54PM
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:05AM
I don't know where (if any docs) we have for it, but https://github.com/SoylentNews/rehash/blob/master/plugins/API/api.pl [github.com]
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:09AM
Here ya go, boss guy: https://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/ApiDocs [soylentnews.org]
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @04:06PM
My usual comment during these roundtables is that I appreciate the community culture. I'd say that again now. If it can survive an election season like this, then it's pretty robust. Kurenai, Runaway, aristarchus, frojack, Thexalon, Buzz, and many others are still around, still posting away. That's a mark of distinction. There are no people with opposing viewpoints in many other online communities. Can you imagine aristarchus getting a fair hearing on Drudge, or frojack on DailyKos? It would never happen. I also appreciate that when a discussion is purely technical, the depth of knowledge here and the way it's addressed, well, you often can't tell what the user's other worldviews are, if you didn't already know. Those distinctions disappear. That's refreshing, and something I suspect more of us will crave as the next four years unfold.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 07 2016, @04:57PM
I for one definitely appreciate that our early adopters have really done a good job of staying away from the all-too-common translation of "I think you are wrong." to "You're a horrible person who should die in a fire."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 07 2016, @05:28PM
On other social media sites the admins show unfair favoritism leading to emboldened antisocial behavior... think of the disgusting censorship slum that is reddit for example. Without the mob rule mentality there's no reason for mob (virtual) violence.
I think some of it is just SN is too small to attract the attention of paid political shills. Those folks amp up the whole "die in a fire" thinking.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @06:37PM
The admins have nothing to do with it. Die in a fire.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:08AM
To be fair, we have a "Disagree" moderation which has done wonders at stopping downvotes due to well, disagreeing. We also have a fairly large culture of discuss and not shitposting which helps a lot.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:59AM
Yup, I'm pleasantly surprised on how often it's used (usually on my comments). Kudos to everyone practicing good moderation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @04:15PM
I look at the submitted stories once in a while and find some interesting ones disappear without being published. It would be nice if logged in users could vote yes or no on submitted stories.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @04:42PM
That's doable but I'd prefer A) it only be in an advisory capacity and B) it not get implemented until we roll out some nexuses so people can filter out things they don't want to see. Personally, I'd like to argue politics with intelligent folks like we've got around here more often but there are plenty of people who are understandably sick of politics right now. A politics nexus that you could turn off would solve that problem.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday November 07 2016, @06:30PM
I'd like to point out a potential problem with this suggestion, although that in itself doesn't mean it isn't worth considering further.
As a site, we pride ourselves on the ability to say what you want without censorship and the ability to join in anonymously should you wish to do so. With regard to the former, my concern would be that it would be easy to suppress stories if they could be down-voted before they even have a chance of being discussed. Buzzard's suggestion that any voting system be 'advisory' is simply to prevent such an occurrence.
For STEM topics this isn't an issue, but many of the recent politics submissions then do have a bias to them because of their content. That doesn't mean that they aren't worth discussing though. However, if a submission about politician A can be suppressed by supporters of politician B we would never get to the discussion stage. It is one of the roles of the editor - we do try to balance our output wherever we can although I accept that this not always possible, and at other times we simply do not achieve the level of neutrality that we strive for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @07:59PM
Then how about a "yes" vote as the only option? That way there's no bias.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fnord666 on Monday November 07 2016, @09:59PM
Then how about a "yes" vote as the only option? That way there's no bias.
That's what I was thinking. Just a click that says "I think this story would be interesting to see". The results would just be available to the editors and would just be an additional data point when selecting stories.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday November 08 2016, @07:52AM
Doesn't that imply that no-one wants to see a story with no 'Yes' votes? What do we do when we have insufficient submissions to fill the day? Do we publish stories that haven't garnered any votes? The queue runs dry more often than you might imagine. How long do we wait to see how many votes a story has? - if we wait too long some stories are old news or people complain that they have seen it on another site 6 hours earlier.
Some submissions have potential but require a bit (or a lot!) more work on them before we can publish them. If a story has been submitted via IRC it is only a headline and a link. They appear in the submissions queue just like any other yet there is little in there to indicate how good a story might be. Additionally, as editors, we might be tight on time to do the research and rewriting that such a link requires immediately. Between us we can tell other editors that we are saving a story for the weekend, or are researching the story more fully for release later in the day. However, the community has no visibility of this activity and, if asked to vote simply on the sparse information that is available, might decide that a story is not worthy of the front page. Once an editor starts work on the story it cannot be saved back in the submissions queue so it will never be put to the vote in the form that will eventually hit the front page.
Your suggestion is a good one but there is a lot more to consider than just counting votes. I'm in Europe and I do my editing when most Americans are still fast asleep. For that reason, a considerable portion of our community haven't even got round to voting but I have to make sure that there are stories queued up for the front page ready. We are, as you know, volunteers and most of us do our editing in batches to cover a 6 hour period or more. Some of those stories might have been in the submissions queue for quite a while, but some will be recently added. For this reason they will have received different numbers of votes yet that does not reflect the potential interest that the story might receive when published. In the extreme case, a mediocre story that has received 5 votes will appear more interesting than a very good story that has arrived in the submissions queue during the time America is sleeping but has yet to receive any votes.
For a voting system to be of any value the community must have faith that their votes influence what appears on the front page or it will be viewed as a waste of time or, worse, that the editors simply ignore the community. Nothing could be further from the truth. But whatever system is implemented must make allowances for the points that I have raised above, and be one that allows editors from anywhere in the world to contribute and operate efficiently at times that suit their other real-world commitments. Anything else will run the risk of actually fracturing the site and the community without providing any real improvement to the quality of output.
My own opinion - which is worth no more than any other in our community - is that the regular submission of good quality stories is the best indicator that we are getting it right. However, your suggestion and the others here will be discussed by the editors on IRC to see if we can produce a workable solution based on a voting system. Thank you.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:56PM
Perhaps it would be most useful as a metric on a story that gets published, as in, "15 users really wanted to see this, 4 users said 'meh'." That way we as a community can have a better idea what kind of content we like to see, beyond judging from the discussion it generates.
For example, many people say they like science & technical articles, but they don't tend to be discussed as much as other subjects. So, if all we have to judge by is the number of comments, then we either conclude that 'nobody cares about scientists sequencing the entire flatworm genome' or that 'people are interested in sequencing the genome of flatworms, but few Soylentils know enough about that subject to comment meaningfully.' The up/down vote on stories in the queue would tell us which that is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:38PM
This would also allow submitters to see that even though the story only got 3 comments, the community really DID like the story.
There was talk further up about low comment counts discouraging people from submitting certain stories. Having a way to high-five the submitter without resorting to worthless comments might help.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Monday November 07 2016, @04:27PM
If I didn't like what was happening here, I wouldn't waste my time here.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:34PM
If I didn't like what was happening here, I wouldn't waste my time here.
A little more specifics about what you do (and don't) like might help the site developers take your views into account. Otherwise they're forced to guess, against pretty steep odds of getting it right. I doubt your quiet arrival (and quiet departure if things change in a way you don't like) would give them much useful feedback, or any useful metrics, to base a conclusion on, and telepathy is a remarkably unreliable method of divining what you, or anyone else, is thinking.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @06:39PM
Pffft, I'm always right. You lot aren't though so sometimes you disagree.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:08PM
Allow the submitter five minutes to edit or delete their submission after posting it to the queue; a cookie could be used to identify the session.
Speaking for myself, this would prevent a LOT of embarrassing typos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @06:14PM
I agree. Sometimes copy & paste doesn't work correctly and if you miss that it may look weird or wrong.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday November 07 2016, @09:10PM
If only there were a preview button...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @06:48PM
Dev Note: We could do this based on ipid if the user weren't logged in. We'd have to exclude the TOR gateway from this functionality though and people would be able to delete subs from people behind the same bit of NAT (not a huge problem since you can walk into the other room and smack them silly if they do).
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @08:13PM
Or just a random five-digit code returned on the "Thanks for your submission" page. Low security is OK.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @10:59PM
Meh, once you inure yourself to wonkey_monkey's critiques on that score, no one can hurt you anymore...;-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by fliptop on Monday November 07 2016, @05:27PM
My $0.02: Where's Hugh Pickens been lately?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:51PM
It's been Slim Pickens from Hugh Pickens
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @11:03PM
I remember Hugh Pickens was criticized by some people for what he submitted. I don't remember why. But it seems that sort of feedback did have the effect in Hugh's case that it usually does--he went elsewhere. Too bad, because I miss Hugh. But it's also a reminder that SN's stories aren't submitted by bots, but rather by fellow geeks. IOW, please everyone deliver your feedback to people putting in the time here as kindly and constructively as you can.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Monday November 07 2016, @05:46PM
My personal opinion - and it was loudly outvoted a year ago - is that I prefer the tech articles to the social justice and political stuff. I'd prefer this were a hardcore nerd site covering robots, computers, astronomy, and maybe sci-fi articles, and omit the political stuff. That said, most others seem to like those other subjects. Room for everybody, I suppose.
I see a dropping number of comments and users though, and there have recently been very few articles I've cared to comment on. (Of course, I didn't bother to submit any). Hope that doesn't reflect faltering commitment to the site.
I find the site more readable when in my settings, funny posts are deprioritized - a lot of posters going too quickly for a funny mod without adding much knowledge at all to the discussion. That said, the quality of the comments over at /. are truly awful. They're posting interesting articles these days but the comments are usually pretty unbearable.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @05:56PM
A balance has to be maintained between quantity and quality of comments.
Jokes, personal anecdotes, and allusions to geek culture help keep the feeling of community. Quality isn't everything. I think it's understood that for the most part, comments are not the same grade you might find at a curated site.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday November 07 2016, @06:08PM
You make a good point. I'm referring mostly to a class of cheap, fast posts that don't bring much value. Happily, the tunable moderation/point system allows everybody to adjust upward or downward whatever they like - one of this codebase's brightest advantages.
Hope each of us is helping get the word out on other forums, to bring in new readers/posters/commenters and keep the place lively. That's really the responsibility of each of us, rather than "management."
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 07 2016, @11:17PM
I think we all prefer those topics. I know when I submit I really try to stick to tech & science, and even try to minimize social science and psychology stuff because there's a cadre of folks in the community that complain about those. But some days there are only so many good stories in the regular places. Fixing that is a function of more submitters and more sources.
I would say that my perception of participation differs from what you've perceived. The numbers of comments are about the same, but there are a lot of usernames I don't recognize that are posting more now. That's a good thing.
What sort of stories, specifically, would you like to see more of and discuss? Because if it's "graphene" or "Tesla," I can hook you up. ;-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:28AM
On the whole, our baseline numbers have gone up, and a fair number of the original 3000 users we got at go live are still active. I know that some people would like us to focus soully on X or Y, but I think in general, a wide variety is what keeps us interesting. You're free to disable topics and customize the home page in your preference; we've tagged political stories in their own topics, so you can turn on/off what you want.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:19PM
Actually, boss guy, you can't disable topics currently. Only nexuses and editors. Which is why I'm so keen on getting more nexuses out there and functioning.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:08PM
Wait, what?
That was working on dev ages ago. As far as I remember, all it required was a config change in options.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:30PM
Dunno, yo. I never noticed it working since ever.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday November 07 2016, @05:46PM
No matter how esoteric, more science and tech articles would be much appreciated, especially seeing what the green site has degenerated into. I've been calling it "Splashpot: news for turds, stuff that splatters" since before SN existed. Ars Technica runs a nice science cohort, and we wouldn't be far amiss if we just aggregated a bunch of their STEM content.
Also, though this one is a little more situational: have the lameness filter automatically catch and shit all over any post with the phrase "marry female children" or similar, or a citation of that particular Deuteronomy verse *rolls eyes.*
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 07 2016, @06:57PM
We actually do have quite a few in for that particular asshat. He just keeps changing it up enough to evade the filters every time we add a new one. Just as an FYI, a Spam moderation will knock his ip off being able to post anything for a while in one moderation. Do feel free to use it on posts like his, GNAA nonsense, or HOSTS garbage.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Monday November 07 2016, @08:56PM
Maybe it's just me, but for the last couple months, the site seems slow to load.
Specifically, the remote server seems slow to respond.
Other than that, I'm happy.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:06AM
Increased load, and a bad firewall rule (outbound traffic was being connection limited) caused some issues. If we start slowing down to a second a page load, I'll dig in and prepare for another round of site optimizations and speedups.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:21PM
Heavily commented stories like this one are especially slow to load in Nested/any sort of Threaded mode. There's a fix already sitting on github for that though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday November 07 2016, @09:50PM
Recently there have been many high-quality stories posted, especially about science (astronomy, comsology etc.). Keep up the good work.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Dale on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:43AM
I'm a little late to the party here, but I'd like to say I've loved the site since its launch. I'm glad there is a non-commercial entity controlling the fate of the site and would like to thank you for the work you put into it.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:56AM
-- When I moderate a comment, the page refreshes to the top and I lose my place in the thread.
-- Make your operational mission very clear to the public. If you can assure your contributors the community will not be hijacked by for-profit motives or the whims of a dictator, they will be more inclined to commit energy to the community.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:35AM
- Requires JavaScript. Not against implementing this but I suck at JS. TMB was looking at it
- See the manifesto in the left bar. We're incorporated as a public benefitary company
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:50AM
No, it doesn't. All it would need it to break that big moderation form into individual forms for each comment (so the comment which was moderated on can be identified from the post data), and an appropriate anchor on the URL of the after-moderation page.
Now it would probably need quite some work to do those changes, for IMHO relatively low benefit, so I don't say you should do it. But the claim that it needs JavaScript to be done is clearly false.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:24PM
Or you could just do like I do and hit the Back button.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:03AM
An awful lot of my browsing and reading is on the smartphone.
The lack of a proper mobile format is painful.
As much a you've cleaned up and improved the original slash code, the site really sucks for mobile users.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:35AM
We've asked for volunteers to help build one. As of yet, no one has taken us up on it.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:26PM
I've got quite a few tabs open with theories on how to best do mobile detection and layouts but there always seems to be something more pressing that needs doing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @03:13PM
What phone/browser are you using? This site works remarkably well on my 2014 android phone with opera mobile. Much better, in fact, than a certain "mobile-friendly" beta version of a certain green website ever did. I rather enjoy the SN site working well both on desktop and mobile, even though I know much of it is because the mobile browser is good at reflowing pages.
(Score: 2) by timbim on Tuesday November 08 2016, @04:18AM
I just hate all the gun nutters here
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:30PM
Welcome to the United States. There are more guns than people here. And that's never going to change.
Why?
Math.
If you were to have the police and the military go around house to house confiscating guns like you would have to, and every fourth gun owner killed just one police/military person, you would run entirely out of police/military before you confiscated even half of the guns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by timbim on Friday November 11 2016, @06:48PM
We dont need to confiscate all the guns. If we limited the sale of guns the problem would solve itself, you know, due to entropy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 11 2016, @09:09PM
You really believe you could manage that without starting another civil war? Boy would you have some surprises coming.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @06:56AM
I haven't used them much as of yet but I do plan to. Thank you and please don't ditch them.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:25AM
We have no intent of ditching them, though sometimes the onionhole has gone down without notice as none of the staff use it regularly. If its broken, get a staff member on IRC, or throw a story into the queue.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday November 08 2016, @09:56AM
Possibly http://www.sciencealert.com/ [sciencealert.com] ?
An editor could put themselves onto the PR mailing-lists of various universities, but the kind of stuff that gets promoted is usually way before commercial implementation, and I think a lot of people are interested in near-term future tech, not blue-sky research.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @11:03AM
Do not have a login, not interested in getting one. But I visit the site daily and intend to continue doing so. And I have never been back to Slashdot, not even once. I like the subject matter, the comments are generally on target and non-rabid, and there is just enough. PLEASE, do not post significantly more content, there are only so many hours in my day.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @01:12PM
Will this ever happen?