from the blame-ncommander-for-showing-me-how-to-write-a-wall-of-text dept.
So it's not the end of the world as we know it, but it's nearly the end of the calendar year. How'd we get here, where are we at, and what have we been up to? Oh, and please send us some monies.
Background:
It all started with slashdot attempting to push a redesigned UI (User Interface) onto the community (aka the "Beta"). There was tremendous discontent with the decision which culminated in the The Slashcott. Some like-minded folk getting together and bashing an unmaintained open-sourced version of slashcode into working order. For some of the early pre-history of the site there is a very readable entry at https://operationsysadmin.smbfc.net/. This was a Herculean task, but they somehow managed in a couple week's time to get something running and opened it up to the world on February 16, 2014. The site had some "stability issues" at first, but these tenacious folk persevered and we are now fortunate to have a stable and functioning discussion system that is fast approaching five years of operation!
Some Statistics:
Since that inauspicious beginning we have seen:
- 125 polls offered
- 1,000 subscriptions to the site
- 1,770 days of operation
- 3,655 stories published to users' journals
- 7,228 userids registered
- 25,038 stories published to the site
- 30,747 story submissions
- 37,744 poll answers
- 524,622 comment moderations
- 772,179 comments posted
Check out the Hall of Fame for some additional statistics.
Volunteers:
It bears mentioning that this site and its operations are supported entirely by volunteers. Nobody has ever received any payment for their efforts. In my own case, I work retail and have no two weeks' schedule the same. During the holiday season work hours are extended; as an example, I am scheduled to work past midnight tonight and the same again tomorrow. There have been many times I have popped into the site during a break and (painfully) used my mobile phone to push out a couple stories. Others here also have outside activities and commitments yet make the time to keep this site up and running.
Deucalion keeps us cats herded and keeps an eye on our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) daemons. The Mighty Buzzard handles the vast majority of actual site maintenance and security certs as well. Audioguy and Mechanicjay quietly work behind the scenes and take care of e-mail as well as other sysadmin-y tasks. Ncommander and paulej72 hover around in the background to help out when needed. Then we have fyngyrz, xyem, and FatPhil who pop in and help out from time to time. Lastly, there are the editors who are the main face of the site. Theirs is the seemingly thankless task of choosing story submissions, making corrections as needed, and queuing them up to appear on the main page. To all of you, I offer a profound and deep "THANK YOU!"
[TMB Note: He's being modest and left out that he's both Editor in Chief and HMFIC of breaking all of the things.]
I would be remiss in not mentioning the many others who were critical in the site's creation and launch who have since moved on to other projects -- though they no longer contribute to the site, their efforts were key at the time and we would not be where we are today without their efforts.
We have a tight-knit group behind the scenes, but generally go about things with a sense of humor. If you'd like to be a part of what makes this site what it is, and are willing to work with our sometimes curmudgeon-ly group, just send an e-mail to "admin [at] soylentnews.org" or mention it in the comments.
Funding:
Though the staff is entirely volunteer, there are still actual costs to keeping this site operational: monthly server bills, domain fees, accountant charges for filing taxes, and the like.
We have never carried advertisements on this site. Thanks to the continuing generosity of the community, we hope to keep it that way.
As of this writing, of our $3,000 funding goal for the second half of the year, we have received approximately $1142.48 -- that's just 38.1%.
If you have already contributed, THANK YOU! (If you are in a position to do so, please consider extending your subscription.)
We have approximately 110 users who had previously subscribed to the site, and have logged into it in the past 30 days, whose subscription has lapsed. I'll be the first to admit that our reminders are not the best! Maybe that happened to you?
If you wish to remain anonymous, designate your subscription as a gift; by default it goes to "mcasadevall" who has UID 6.
You can check your subscription status on the Subscribe page. Specify whatever amount you'd like (the amount presented is the minimum required for that duration) and submit it. We accept payments via PayPal and Stripe. (NOTE: For Stripe payments, Javascript must be enabled as we link to their payment processing page and it requires Javascript.)
Whatever amount you choose IS appreciated!! Please subscribe now.
It's not just the numbers!
The thing that keeps me volunteering here, though, is not the minutia of site operations (though I have learned so much by watching pros at work!). It is the community. I've come to know and appreciate the points of view of many regular commenters here. I'm regularly reminded people just don't fit into simple, compartmentalized boxes. Certain grand strokes may be consistent, but I've lost track of the number of times when a post has caused me to step back and go "Whoah!" Some deeply-held thought or belief gets re-examined and I'm a better person for that introspection.
The Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) also keep me coming back for more. These folk know stuff about areas that I didn't even know were areas! I am humbled by their contributions; more detailed than the press kit blurbs, but not so erudite that I need to grok the entirety of their specialty.
Whatever your interest or contribution, SoylentNews is People! Thank-you seems so little, but mine is heart-felt. Thank-you to all of you who contribute to this site, whatever way that may be.
Related Stories
First off, it's been a week since we published Meta: The End of the Year is Nigh; End-of-the-Year Summary and Subscription Request and I am pleased to report we have received nearly $1000 in site subscriptions. Please accept my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all who have contributed! We are looking for another $1000 to make our funding goal. If you can help out either by starting a subscription, or extending a current one, that would be greatly appreciated! We have had a few people subscribe for $100; any amount you can provide will mean a lot.
As for IRC: it was brought to our attention a couple days ago that there was an issue in gaining access to SoylentNews' IRC securely.
tl;dr: Secure access to IRC should be functional; please reply in comments (with steps to reproduce) if you are still having issues. Read on for the scoop.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday December 23 2018, @09:03AM
it's nearly the end of the calendar year. How'd we get here
One day at a time
where are we at
At the bottom right of the last page of the calendar
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:12AM (8 children)
I'd buy you a green dress...but not a REAL green dress...an Aristarchus green dress! :)
I'm good to go, subscription wise!
I too would like to thank youse-guys-gals: this has been a hard last half of the year for my wife and I and my daily feed on Soylent has helped me through it (need more Microsoft going down stories!).
If I had a million dollars......
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:28AM (6 children)
I've always wanted a monkey.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:51AM
Come on, finish the sentence: a monkey wearing a green dress....say it with me....
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday December 23 2018, @12:19PM (4 children)
[Insert joke about TMB spanking it]
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:10PM (3 children)
- morning.
But she was passed out - and was once a Boy Scout - so I decided the monkey deserved swift and stern punishment.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:11PM
maybe it's all her cigarette smoke hanging in the air.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday December 23 2018, @07:35PM
I love how this is modded informative.
WhatWhatWhat? :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Vocal Minority on Monday December 24 2018, @04:32AM
Vaguely familiar. Catch 22?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:09PM
So she ran out and bought that CD for me.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:48AM (11 children)
As of subscription reminders: Maybe add to the user box (the one which tells you your user name, email, Karma and read/unread messages) an entry “subscribed until …” or “not subscribed”, so you don't have to go to the subscription page to see your current status. Mark the “subscribed until” with a yellow star, so that it gets more visible when the star goes missing. Maybe change the star's colour to orange when the end of the subscription is near.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:35PM (9 children)
> Maybe change the star's colour to orange when the end of the subscription is near.
And when your subscription expires, make your star go supernova!
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:28PM (8 children)
Or turn it to a poop emoji?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:45PM (7 children)
Do you want to motivate the user to subscribe again, or to annoy them away from subscription?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:06PM (6 children)
With this crowd? It'd probably do even numbers of both. All joking aside, making the star flare in an obvious but unobtrusive manner every ten seconds or so, only for the subscriber in question when they're nearing expiration, might genuinely not be a bad idea.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:15PM (3 children)
Here's one. Give anybody whose subscription has lapsed a red star for 30 days.
A badge of shame!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:27PM
Both maybe. Can take an unscientific poll later while it's getting tested on dev.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 23 2018, @10:02PM (1 child)
Well, if somebody's withholding their monies and being a Scrooge, I think a six-pointed yellow star with some black pixels resembling a four-letter word in the middle would be a lot more appropriate than a red or blinking star.
And I am of course guilty of that this year. Next year, though, it looks like I'm gonna be back on track to have sheckels again, maybe even the will to start submitting again. I can also be a subject-matter expert in current-events and electronics.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @03:50AM
Man, you know my sense of humor. If anyone were going to get a star of David by their name it'd be you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday December 24 2018, @12:20AM (1 child)
Yeah. On other sites people would probably wait just to see the animation. On SoylentNews they'll hand over big bucks just to make sure they don't have to look at animations! ;)
You know--That's a nice user interface you have loaded up there in that browser of yours. Very slick and clean. Pretty interface. T'would be a shame if anything were to happen to it...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @03:58AM
Like reup or get your theme forcibly switched to Vomit? Nah, cruel and unusual punishment. I'm currently thinking replace the "This page was generated by a Mob of Overworked Mongols for The Mighty Buzzard (18)." banner up top with a notice your subscription is about to expire or has expired within the last month. Possibly a small, non-animated but noticeable image next to it so it doesn't get automatically overlooked. Hell of a lot easier than figuring out why the bloody emails quit sending twice a year. I mean, you'd think they'd eventually surrender and stay working or at least not find an entirely new way to break for at least one billing cycle but nooooo...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:27PM
Something along those lines is on the todo list, yup, but without specificity. One of these days I'll start getting some todos done again...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:08PM
It remain surprisingly popular, as does another about how Mt. Gox could have been prevented by a forensic accountant. To Wit:
If you know anyone who still hangs at the green site, please advise them to have a read of Slashdot Media [slashdotmedia.com], which explains to potential advertisers why DICE's eyeballs are superior to the eyeballs of competing ad vendors:
Do you know of any _active_ SourceForge projects? There are lots who still release there but it's been years since I've found any checkins anywhere on the site.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:56PM
You guys have built and continue to maintain an awesome site. It's an example of how powerful and useful the internet can be. I keep coming back to read through some pretty amazing posts by various SMEs too, especially the rocket and space people.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @04:31PM (3 children)
I'm an expert in the biomedical sciences, but I don't bother most of the time anymore because the topics either barely have comments or are full of off-topic trolling.
For example, the recent story about new strains of Hepatitis C only had 2 posts about the virus while the remaining 36 were about race, IQ, liberals vs. conservatives, and bombing Africa and Muslims:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/12/19/0025245&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&page=1&noupdate=1#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
The only suggestions I have are to stop replying to off-topic posts, down-mod off-topic posts, and to ask questions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @09:03PM (2 children)
Racism and trolling are pretty heavy around here and 100% encouraged by a decent chunk of users, and "hands off" from some others. I just LOVE seeing Ethanol Fueled's racist shitposting that pretty much never gets modded down.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 23 2018, @10:13PM (1 child)
My karma went from 50 to below 10 in the span of like a month, and I've only been posting on weekends this year, so to claim that I never get modded down is pure horseshit. I can count the number of spam-bans I've had on two hands. And I'm definitely not the only "controversial" poster here.
Perhaps you should get yourself a less-puritan sense of humor. The world is not a perfect, fair place, and the best senses of humor are the ones that acknowledge that unfortunate fact rather than pretend otherwise.
Though I sympathize with the AC to which you responded, as a subject-matter expert myself, I wish there were more accepted submissions of Stuff I Know Shit About™.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @10:32PM
It is important to appreciate dsrk humor but you go well beyond that. Want better subs? Stop driving people away, subject matter experts generally dont want to read discussions where racist dogma is routinely spewed. Whether you're really joking is beteeen you and your conscience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @05:47PM (3 children)
idk why soylent couldn't collect and pay people who work on the site. maybe set up a separate payment/donation "channel" and use privacy focused cryptocurrencies like monero.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @04:20AM (2 children)
Why I haven't coded something like that is mostly because it'd be a lot of work to produce a system that would never be as secure or anonymous as mailing cash wrapped in aluminum foil. If you lot really want to unvolunteer us volunteers though, I'd cheerfully take out a PO box, forward the funds to the relevant party, and use any included correspondence to light my smoker with. Assuming our fearless leader and money wrangler didn't want the responsibility that is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @05:39PM (1 child)
you wouldn't have to code much. if you want to accept only monero their are libraries for that. if you want to accept multiple cryptocurrencies without having to deal with wallets and what not you can just use the coinpayments.net html button and have an IPN listener. otherwise, i don't see the problem of having a separate PO box for donations that go towards labor instead of costs. without status and goals and/or other incentives/peer pressure, etc you may not get much of a response.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 30 2018, @07:38PM
We start handling the money that goes to volunteers, there's a good chance us volunteers become employees, with all the international labo(u)r laws chaos that entails. We could set up direct payments via crypto coins but the main reason we don't accept those for the site is processor/API chaos. Trying to keep crypto payments going was more work than the entire rest of the site. It would also put us in a position of having to safeguard bank info on the volunteers; I really don't feel comfortable doing that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @09:21PM (9 children)
But then the site became a refuge for the alt-right and only a fee users push back against that swamp of stupidity and hatred. Go re-read AthanasiusKircher https://soylentnews.org/~AthanasiusKircher/journal/3516 [soylentnews.org] for a good break down.
Like a classroom it only takes a few bad students to derail everything. The mod system might work, but one of the biggest trolls on this site is an admin who encourages shitty behavior. In every story we get bombarded with racist talking points, yet Aristarchus' submissions are regularly refused. There is censorship here and it has a very clear bias.
I will no longer donate to the site due to these issues, as you say there is very little decent discussion.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AlwaysNever on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:49PM (2 children)
I hear you. I'm not donating money for the Mighty Buzzard to keep his trolling.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @04:24AM (1 child)
I haven't done any significant trolling in half a year or better. Are you sure you're not simply intolerant of anyone holding ideas that conflict with your own? Worth examining.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @06:42PM
Da fuq? Is TMB completely lacking in self-awareness?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @01:15AM (5 children)
Don't pretend like Aristarchus' submissions are being refused without reason or just due to political bias. Aristarchus makes some great points, when he's not trolling (sometimes even when he is), but a lot of his submissions are garbage or they vastly exceed the "One Politics story per day" rough guideline.
Complain about bad stories that get posted, don't argue for opposite crap to even it out.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 24 2018, @04:32AM
Yup. Ari's comments are often top notch trolling and occasionally even insightful. His submissions are generally shit though. I'm not sure whether he's just trolling the eds, setting up false oppression to point to, or both. He absolutely knows the difference between a submission that will get posted and one that will get binned though and yet continues to write them in a manner so as to make sure they get binned.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @02:06PM (3 children)
Who of us is without a political bias? I've had perfectly good submissions rejected. I've been considering leaving.
I once liked the old site. I once like this site. Oh well.
If you aim for an echo chamber, keep the course. If not, some adjustments are called for.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
Indeed.
Let all articles through and allow users to up/down mod, allow users to hide/show stories on mod value.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 25 2018, @01:58PM
I was pretty sure becoming reddit was not what we wanted around these parts. Has this changed recently?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 25 2018, @02:01PM
There's having a bit of bias then there's being so full of bias that it makes rational discussion unlikely. One is understandable and likely to be published, one is not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.