It all started when Slashdot rolled out a new, "Beta" user interface that was soundly disliked. In response, they posted a story calling us an "audience". That did not go over well. At all. Cries of "Buck Feta" were numerous and frequent. Then came a call for a Slashdot boycott — a "Slashcott" — scheduled for the week of February 10-17, 2014.
While the Slashcott was going on, a handful of intrepid nerds pulled down the (horribly out-of-date and unmaintained) open source code dump of Slashcode, forked it, and started whacking it into shape. This culminated in our announcement to the world: Welcome to the World of Tomorrow... Today!.
Now, one could argue as to the exact date of our birth. Was it when the domain "soylentnews.org" was first registered? (2014-02-09T01:50:26Z) How about when the first user was registered to the site? (2014-02-12 06:00:06 "NCommander") Or, maybe, the very first story posted to the site? Welcome Testers ... (2014.02.11 21:28 UTC)
Whichever one of those you choose, it has now been at least FIVE years...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOYLENTNEWS!
We've had hiccups along the way. Even the past year was not problem-free. Server reboots so our hosting provider, Linode, could roll out mitigations for the Spectre and Meltdown attacks. Then we had a server go down on us, which would not be such a big deal except its mirror had already predeceased it, so there was nothing to fail over to. A couple more issues with Apache and nginx going off to who-knows-where and needing to be restarted. Oh, and our mailserver decided to stop serving mail at one point, too. There may have been another couple of things which happened over the past year that escape me at the moment, but all-in-all I would like to think we are doing a pretty good job of keeping things up and running. Consider we are an entirely volunteer organization. Consider, too, that big-named sites like Wells Fargo, TSB, Google, and others all had site-wide outages in one or more of their services... we've got a good group here and it has been truly a wonderful experience to be a part of what keeps this site running.
A quick look around the site reveals some interesting statistics. That by week's end, we will have posted our 26,000th story. To that, add the 3,994 journal entries that have been posted by the community. We had our 800,000th comment posted to the site just this week. We have had, however, comparatively few comment moderations: ~540,000. We have 7,333 registered users, too!
Many thanks are in order to those who have helped keep everything up and running. Not just the sysops who lurk in the background, but also those of you who have opened your wallets and bought the subscriptions which pay the server bills, domain registrations, as well as the CPA for filing taxes, and the like.
Ultimately, this site is for you, the community. We focus stories on those which have a technical or science (aka nerd) angle with maybe a politically oriented story posted each day. And an occasional story that looks like it might engender discussion. There are plenty of other sites which cater to the latest Hollywood gossip, political machinations, recipes, and cat pictures... you've made it clear you don't want a bunch of that here. Submit stories. Make journal entries. Post and moderate comments.
Yes, we have had many accomplishments over these years, but we know nothing is perfect. We are overdue for a site upgrade, but it's likely nothing much will happen for a few months until TheMightyBuzzard can free up some of his time to work on it. Complaining is easy, but if you have concrete suggestions on what we could do better and how we might go about it, we can't promise anything (one man's drink is another man's poison), but we will certainly give it serious consideration.
If you should run into an issue with the site, please send details to admin (at) soylentnews.org noting the date/time/timezone and any data you can provide to help us locate and isolate the problem. That includes the URL for the story or journal entry. If it pertains to a comment, then please also include a link to that, as well. (That is the link under the (#nnnnn) in the comment header). Fair warning: complaining in the comments about a story not being accepted or about the moderation of one of your comments is generally off-topic and often moderated that way. Exception: if you accidentally modded a comment as spam, or have had a comment of yours moderated as spam that you think is incorrect, please send an e-mail to the admin address and we will take a look at it. We are running a bit lean on staff ATM with several of us in the midst of time-consuming things IRL, so please be patient.
Thank you.
Thanks to all of you who have helped this site persevere all these years!
Related Stories
EDIT: Struck a naught word -- NCommander
Thank You!
On the occasion of the site's sixth anniversary, I thought it fitting to mention some of the many ways that fellow Soylentils contribute to our community. This also seems like a good opportunity to mention some of the site's history, relate some staffing changes, mention other contributions by the SoylentNews community, and to wrap things up with some site statistics.
Please accept our thanks:
These thanks go out to all of you: my fellow members of the SoylentNews community.
To the Anonymous Cowards who post comments to our site (be they inciteful or insightful). To our registered users who not only post comments, but are also the only members who can moderate comments. No matter how long you have been here; whether you have just arrived (Welcome!) or have been with us from the very start... Thank You!
Speaking of which, thanks go to our staff who bludgeoned and duct-taped an ancient unmaintained open-sourced version of the code underpinning slashdot into some sort of basic functionality, and who have since made it the site you are enjoying today. Thanks, too, to our behind-the-scenes staff members, who keep the underlying services we depend on, running 24/7. Other staff members are more visible, like the editorial team who spend several hours every single day processing the stories that get posted to the site.
And let's not forget the members of the community who purchase subscriptions and thereby fund the operations of this site. We do have real world expenses: paying for our servers, domain registrations, and paying a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) to do our taxes.
Read on past the fold for all the rest!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Apparition on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:12AM (1 child)
Soon you'll be in Kindergarten! Thanks for five years of hard work and for providing one of the best news aggregating sites.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday February 17 2019, @10:53AM
I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, February 17.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Appalbarry on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:14AM (7 children)
And NATALIE PORTMAN too!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:26AM
Oh wait, it's Saturday evening. I was drinking anyway. Cheers!
(Score: -1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Sunday February 17 2019, @06:36AM (5 children)
and niggers niggers niggers!!! woohoo go niggers!
oh memories of that sweet nigger dick. has anyone else here watched "gay niggers from outer space?" remember pipedot?
happie birthday you hippy retards. damn fine job for stupid hippies. damn fine.
niggers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:18AM
You GNA people are rather amusing. You'll bash the gay niggers in public, but when the sun goes down, we know where to find you. Lined up at the back door of the GNA bar, hoping to be allowed inside, where you can slurp a huge black cock.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday February 17 2019, @10:41PM (3 children)
You forgot to post A/C.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:04PM (1 child)
At least we know who this troll is now
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 18 2019, @12:18AM
Every cloud I suppose.
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Monday February 18 2019, @03:30PM
Actually, I've posted ac at the beginning of this site. I have not posted ac once since creating this account so I could save preferences. I don't troll - I shit in your mouth to your face; now open wide. if you knew some russian and korean you'd get the joke in my username - it's about the cum all over your face after you watch your porn, you ugly fat fuck.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:20AM (23 children)
And not a single advertisement *cough* Pepsodent *cough*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:24AM (20 children)
My biggest regret in life was not moving quickly enough to get a 2 digit UID as you did.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:34AM
Easiest way to get one was to get in on the alpha testing but that had extremely strict qualifications. You had to be present and paying attention in the IRC channel when NCommander asked if anyone wanted to be an alpha tester.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:37AM (2 children)
I would have gotten a lower one but was off line at the time.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Funny) by Foobar Bazbot on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:22AM (1 child)
Sucks to be you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:32PM
Yup.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:50AM
Booyah!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:06AM (8 children)
I've heard tell you slip TMB a few exotic lures and database glitches happen.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:11AM (7 children)
Beer and liquor are also on the approved bribes list.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:11AM (6 children)
And hookers as usual, right? I mean, the ones who put the bait on the fishhooks. Or hook the fish, or whatever it was you told me to tell everyone the last time.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:00AM (4 children)
Nah, tookers too expensive. Tities will do just fine for TMB
Unfortunately, ASCII art triggers the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:58AM
Naa, we can splurge- it's a celebration! We'll sell some advertising, but use a server plugin that will make the ads only show on the advertisers' computers.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:31PM (2 children)
( o Y o )
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:47PM (1 child)
That's not art, that's tagging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @12:52AM
It's true. I can't even draw good stick figures. I think my lack of artistic talent is the universe's way of keeping me from being declared a god.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @05:59PM
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:20AM (4 children)
As you can tell from my UID, it was several weeks after the Slashcott that I found out about this place: Thanks to whoever was posting links in the comments on the green site at the time.
For that matter, how high does the UID count go these days?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:22AM (2 children)
Ah, it is hiding in TFS up there: 7,333.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DECbot on Sunday February 17 2019, @09:16PM (1 child)
That number needs to double before I think I could successfully auction off my account. Speaking of such things, how many 3-digit and smaller UIDs are idle (not logged in for 2+ years)? Perhaps every few years SN could auction these UIDs as a fundraiser. Give the account holder 6 months to claim their account and login. If never claimed, it is considered abandoned and the UID becomes available for auction. Now there will be quite a bit of work to get Rehash to support multiple accounts using the same UID, but I'm sure Buzzy is up for it. :D
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:04PM
Not a bad idea, but I'd make it a year at least. People come and go.
My longest time between logins... year or so back I needed to do something on the roll-your-own-SuSE site. It wanted a login. On a hunch I tried my old Novell login that hadn't been used since 2001. And it worked! Damn, some servers never throw away anything....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday February 17 2019, @09:42PM
Heh same here, it the green site didn't shite itself I wouldn't have found out about the flip side.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:48PM
Yeeep
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:21AM (1 child)
How did you know I use Pepsodent? Fantastic stuff just don't swallow, the first ingredient is sorbitol.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:26AM
You should try Cuke: it's heaven in a can!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:35AM (1 child)
Aristarchus is buying!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:03AM
Certainly, but as the transport of Μπύρα over TCP/IP is not yet feasible, I will gladly buy all the free speech any solylentil needs! Here's to five years!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:38AM (9 children)
Granted, we know how to circumvent bans. But are we gonna?
Well my answer was hell no. If you don't want me here then I'm gone. Never been back. Go look me up if you want, frozen in time with maximum karma.
Fuck beta, fuck javascript, fuck anyone who thinks they are entitled to use your CPU against you.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Quicksilver on Sunday February 17 2019, @09:50AM (8 children)
And the bonus is that Soylent has actually focused on science/tech news!
Slashdot has a large percentage of articles that are puff pieces, non technical, or even old news. In the last couple months they even had a political smear piece that was purposefully deceptive and obviously inaccurate.
Keep up the good work Soylent!
(Score: 1) by linsane on Sunday February 17 2019, @10:53AM
Concur
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:04AM (1 child)
And alt-right, don't forget alt-right (grin)
(the most commented news are mostly in "Politics")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:37PM
The site naming story is still in the lead by six comments. The call for name suggestions one is in sixth place. There's also a religion one and four about assorted shootings. Only three are really proper politics.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday February 17 2019, @01:13PM
TBH I do enjoy the political articles as well.
We live in strange times.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Tokolosh on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:25PM (2 children)
The level of discourse at /. is abysmal. The signal to noise ratio is very low. I go take a look now and then, and it is soothing to return here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:09PM
I just can't read it anymore.
Maybe if it were possible to collapse comment threads it would be ok.
As soon as you hit the second page it's just a mess.
The commander of tacos must be rolling in his toaster over the current state of his creation
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @06:49AM
I've noticed a much higher level of authoritarianism on Slashdot, such as comments professing support of things like the NSA's mass surveillance and the TSA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @07:14PM
Thank goodness stuff like that never happens on SoylentNews! *cough*Discovery Institute*cough*
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:54AM
No small feat to keep the site improving all this time, you're all legends!
Looking forward to much more soylenting...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:57AM (3 children)
SUBSCRIBE!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday February 17 2019, @07:02AM (2 children)
I did today :-) (errr, yesterday actually at this point)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @01:33PM (1 child)
Ah, if only there were MORE perfect people like you: perfect, wonderful, probably handsome/gorgeous, definitely intelligent people, JUST LIKE YOU!
Well done, sir.... ma'am... thou...... .......?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:40PM
Ah yes, money. The only thing to get a conservative to care about gender pronouns ;)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:27AM (6 children)
No rush as far as I'm concerned. Everyone here is why we're here. Nothing is perfect, ever. We like it here. We keep coming back. The personalities, the ACs, the faults and all of it. I contribute what I can because I like this place. Maybe money, maybe comments, maybe heartburn :) So thank you all!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:40AM (5 children)
The gimmick of a fast and clean user-interface free of bullshit is alone valuable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:03AM (2 children)
Indeed. It's like salt in food. If we think the site needs more bullshit, we're not shy about adding our own.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
I thought buzzards produced birdshit instead...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @12:54AM
Given our diets, I wouldn't spend much time even speculating, much less investigating.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyper on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:16PM (1 child)
This type of site is becoming rarer. Hosts it's own scripts? Degrades gracefully in the absence of js? Look and feel and usability? No external advertising? Other than personal sites this is not found very often nowadays.
SN should be congratulated for delivering a news site that is open and easy to use focusing on its users rather than how much revenue can be generated.
It still boggles my mind that the green site screwed up as badly as they did.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @05:03AM
Yep, I was going to type this but instead just "yup". Thanks coders and editors and comment participants all; thanks everyone, for making this community worth being part of, in an environment (no js, screenreader compatible) that's not abhorrent.
-AC since very very early.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:38AM (30 children)
A good question to ask in all of this is where does Slashdot stand now?
It's still there. At a glance it is covered with advertising, even with an ad blocker. I guess the dumbed down mobile-ish "beta" never really took off. It looks like they never fixed some of the browser rendering problems with their comment system.
Who owns them today? I thought I head that they left Dice, but I'd guess they are still some unrelated corporation.
I got tired of the community years ago. Commenters were getting dumber. Comments would get modded in to oblivion even if it was just an opinion that did not fit in their groupthink.
Quite sad really.
It is good to have soylentnews around. Not sure I'd recommend it to everyone though. I think the sarcastic description of "a news site started by former slashdot trolls" is too accurate really.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:10AM (5 children)
As far as I know, /. has done fuck-all since being acquired by the most recent corporate daddies. They haven't done anything at all on unicode support even though they announced they were going to when they got bought out and I offered to help if they needed it.
I'd say more pissed off people than trolls, though we do excel at that as well. We're definitely not for the faint of heart though. If you can't handle both well thought out dissent and someone telling you that you're going to burn in hell in a conversation about dark matter, I'd suggest another site.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:20AM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:30AM (2 children)
Blame Aristarchus. He dreams of converting this place into a leftist utopia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday February 17 2019, @09:19AM (1 child)
Dream of reality: People who can see reality. Truth and justice as far as the eye can see. Yes, that is it, and it is not leftist, it is reality, and justice. Thus Colbert said, "reality has a well known liberal bias", which when you parse it, says, Reality is reality, and all those rigiht-wing nut-jobs are off in la-la land. Build the WaLL! The Huang-di commands us! Bury the scholars, they criticize the Huang-di! And the Cnin Dynasty lasts 21 years, because they forced the people to build a Wall. Steven Miller sucks donkey dicks, on a regular basis! He is a self-hating Jew, a non-white white supremacist, and a motherfucking alt-right incel not married cocksucking neo-conservative sucker of cocks, especially dick "Dick" Cheney cocks, and "Newt" (I have no cock) Gringrinch cocks, and Seah Hannity "my cock fell off for the sake of a Cardinal, and I am not talking about a sports team" Hannity. Of course, the goddess of death, Annie Coulter, has decided to split. The President is an idiot, and that is our national emergency? She figured that out all by her self? Maybe blondes are not as dumb as the folklore suggests, except, with Kaleigh and Tomi, and Kellyanne, maybe they are.
So where were we? Leftist Utopia? Hell I would settle for a Realtity based community. And libertariantards are not that, even.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @01:47PM
How about sucking Kellyanne (I have a tiny cock) Conway cocks....I like THOSE kinds of cocks! (Disclaimer: NOT specifically saying HER tiny cock) ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @09:53AM
24 khallows, for the bad faith.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:12AM (20 children)
I know most people here are techno-primitivists (that's a thing, shut up) and think a real computer is a beige desktop connected to a CRT, but it would be nice if SN could also work on a mobile browser. I try to use it on my phone and tablet sometimes and it's a pain; lots of pinching and zooming to read text that's set too wide and too small.
I prefer the desktop site, it's very efficient and functional. It would still be nice if it degraded gracefully for smaller, narrower, higher DPI screens.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:26AM (10 children)
I read your comment on mobile and I was doing the "thumb dance" at the time.
I'm planning on doing a new CSS theme, so I might look at mobile at the same time.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:43PM
We have a mobile version sitting in my email, it was just written for the version of the site that was current at the time as opposed to all the fun stuff that had been merged into the master branch ahead of it, so it didn't get included due to not having the time to refactor it to reflect all the changes. If I ever manage a free day again, it's on the list.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:19PM (6 children)
Thumb dance. Nice.
A lot of sites don't scale well for mobile. I am happy to thumb dance is that is what it takes.
Open a beta channel for mobile users to test and provide feedback?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:25PM (5 children)
See TMB's reply.
As for my theme, it will be a red version of VT100.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @12:57AM (4 children)
Hey, man, if you want to take the contributed CSS for the mobile version and tweak it referenced to what's on dev, I'd welcome the hell out of it. My plate's so full at the moment between life and such that we'll be lucky to have another site update of any kind by summer.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 18 2019, @01:33AM (1 child)
Email it to me?
What do you mean by "tweak it referenced to what's on dev"?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:26AM
The site's CSS has changed some since it was written (before it was written actually but it didn't leave dev until later) and it would need to be updated to account for that since it replaces base.css I believe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
What project software do you use?
Git/hub/lab? Jira? Trello? Wiki? Etherpad?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:32AM
Github [github.com]. I think there's a link on the main page somewhere. Most of the coding is done in vim and tested on our dev server at the moment because the redistributable dev VM hasn't been updated in a long, long time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:11PM (1 child)
I use a Stylish theme called "SoylentNews Night Mode Red". Pretty and restful. Please don't break it (as sometimes happens when CSSs are layered).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 19 2019, @09:20PM
I'm planning on making 2 new themes in the list of themes to pick. VT100, except red/pink, monospace and non-monospaced versions. Other suggestions welcome.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @06:59AM (3 children)
Yep. Looking terrible and working terribly on mobile is one of two of SoylentNews' biggest faults today IMO. The other is that I really wish there was a five or ten minute window to edit comments to correct misspellings and such. I strongly suspect that I'm in the minority on the latter, however.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:33AM (2 children)
Mamy of is just dont caire aboot our tipos
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:12AM
FTFY, 'coz sum do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:45PM
Yes, we absolutely do care about typos. cmn32480 has a required class to make sure all new editors can keep up the number of typos we expect from a story, despite the red wavy lines.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EETech1 on Sunday February 17 2019, @07:39AM (2 children)
Use Opera browser!
Text Reflow!
Force Zoom!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:02PM (1 child)
+1 Opera browser.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Monday February 18 2019, @01:01PM
Chinese browser are safest browser!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:18PM (1 child)
Not at all. I'm writing this on a black laptop, and I haven't connected any computer to a CRT monitor since many years.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Sunday February 17 2019, @10:34PM
To be fair, I'm not sure what the original color was for the box on the far end of this cable. Come to think of it, I know this host name, but I'm not sure what actual hardware it runs on any more. Anyone remember the name of that utility that would flash Morris code on your hard drive LED? Hopefully I won't be confusing some poor server monkey at a VPS provider asking him to look for some random LED flashing "abracadabra."
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 17 2019, @08:28AM (1 child)
I just clicked on them. Page loads almost instantly, without a single ad visible. I have half the world's advertisers and trackers blocked at the router. It's hard to say which of my addons takes care of the rest, but I'll give most of the credit to Ublock Origins. Perhaps with another browser, I might see some of the crap. I have Cyberfox configured more strictly than some of my other options, so I never see an ad with it. I have Opera pretty much unshackled - I'm not willing to wander randomly around the net with that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:16PM
I don't even do that -- just naked SeaMonkey, a good HOSTS file, and NoScript (but no adblocker) so all JS is disabled, and modern Slashdot looks just like old Slashdot. No ads or other crap.
Looked at it with Borealis (kinda FF60 in a Palemoon wrapper), which doesn't support add-ons, and then there's some sponsored content, but easily ignorable. Guessing it's a lot more noxious on mobile, tho.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @05:43AM
Their new "D2" commenting system is software designed to control the narrative. Comments are regularly "filtered" from the main thread of a discussion and don't appear at all. To see them you have to use the classic interface which has everything except ease of commenting.
Right of reply does not exist, so if someone says something stupid to your insightful comment, sometimes your reply isn't displayed.
The entire moderation system has been hijacked. Compare the classic and D2 system and you see comment that are modded up in classic are 1 in D2 and visa versa.
People I argue with are just as censored as I am so I haven't cracked the motivation behind the censorship.
One thing is certain, whatever the narrative is, it certainly isn't the "community's" anymore. I've been spending more and more time here as /. breaks down a into a troll forum for those who communicate irrationally.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:15AM (4 children)
Intrepid makes me think of Adm Richard E. Byrd, or Roald Amundsen, or Robert Scott. I spent a minute or more searching for "intrepid nerds" and found just about nothing. Alas, the world has failed to notice Soylent's intrepidity. There is no justice in this universe!
Maybe we should gather at Milliway's and wait for our proper recognition? Everyone get your pennies ready . . .
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:20AM (2 children)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:46PM (1 child)
What another person too squeamish to give their order to their steak? Sucking on the nutrient corner is pretty sad when you'ee at Milliways!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @01:32PM
I prefer not to eat a meal that has just spoken to me.
regardless of its willingness to die to be my dinner
at the very least it can go off to the kitchen to expire and not introduce itself
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @04:37AM
s/nerds/trips
http://cyber250.pacinfo.com/first.html [pacinfo.com]
(Score: 2) by pgc on Sunday February 17 2019, @07:39AM
Keep up the good work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @07:50AM (7 children)
The result is that it forces a "superwide" page size, which then drags the right edge of the coment box far off the right side of the browser window. Just add some spaces around the pipes so that line will naturally wordwrap, and at least one SN irritant would go away.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:07PM (3 children)
del & strike do the same thing
delstrike--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:21PM (2 children)
If only we had a place to post bug reports
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:56PM (1 child)
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
--- 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 February 18 2019, @01:30PM
Pffffft
this is not Microsoft!
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:50PM (1 child)
This [soylentnews.org] work for you? Zero-width space so it doesn't take up extra room but should break before the pipe characters. Did it during my morning coffee because it was quick and easy. Won't hit the production servers until the next update though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @08:07AM
Yes, please! Not the original requester, but equally thrilled if this fix went live.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @05:00AM
Don't add a space, add a nonprinting character. The aesthetic is good. The "word" just needs to break on the real word breaks.