from the trying-to-please-the-Momma-Bear,-the-Papa-Bear-AND-the-Baby-Bear dept.
We get a lot of story submissions here on SoylentNews. Well over 37,000 so far and still counting. (THANK YOU!)
We occasionally see a story submission from an Anonymous Coward or new user that is an obvious attempt to increase the number of views of the linked story. We regularly decline to publish those stories. The self-seeking or self-promoting aspect is rather obvious. Or they have a political viewpoint they want to spearhead. They stand out from the more mainstream stories that you have seen posted here over the past 5+ years.
The next-scheduled story gave me pause.
I was somewhat hesitant because of the foregoing reasons. But, I decided to accept it anyway and I'd like to explain my reasoning. One, the story submission comes right out and candidly admits it is from the author. Two, the story provides a level-headed description of a technical problem, its causes, and suggestions for mitigations. Three, it provides reasons why the suggested changes would be beneficial to all readers; not just people in the target audience. Further, the submitter has been an active member and contributor to the site — even before it went live. I've seen him at work and have never seen any self-seeking behavior or pushing of an agenda of any kind. Quite the contrary, all of the contributions I have seen have been strictly for the benefit of the site and the community. Lastly, the submission had been reviewed by another editor and the only question is the one that is now posed to you here.
What do you think?
Is this the first step down a slippery slope? Should we have a "bright line" policy that strictly rejects even the appearance of self-promotion? Should the editors just use their best judgement, based on their past experience and informed from the feedback to this story? Other?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:28AM (8 children)
What is supposed to be happening here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:56AM
He's talking about this:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/11/23/0047258 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:12AM (4 children)
Are you over 50? Perhaps SN needs to be redesigned to be more useful to you? :p
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:20AM (3 children)
No, I'm under 50.
That ended up being the problem!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:35PM (2 children)
Perhaps another Internet should be designed for millennials. After all, you guys can't even figure out what gender you are.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:22PM (1 child)
Ok boomer
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:50PM
Gen-X can't stand you either. We're just nihilistic by nature, so instead of fighting all the time we're letting you drown in student loan debt for the rest of your lives and smirking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:17AM (1 child)
I don't get it either. What's the problem here? It's a good story.
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:57PM
The concern is about: how much self-promotion should be allowed on SN, redrawing boundaries, etc?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:35AM (2 children)
FWIW I had the same thought, but the story has had a few thousand hits and a very positive reception, so I took a chance.
Incidentally, Smashing Magazine has a wealth of great content.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:18AM (1 child)
Oh, I get it now.
I like original stuff like this!
I think we should support personal projects even if they are plugs, within reason.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:48PM
I agree. If the item is good or interesting, whether it promotes a soylenter or not is beside the point. If we reverse the question it seems the answer is obvious: should we reject awesome content if doing so might help a soylenter? Obviously not.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:42AM
Swear to us this will never happen again, but this time everyone agrees it was just fine. And if you do ever do this sort of thing again I expect the article disclaiming reasons for it to be twice or maybe four times as long. Where are your principles for Bob's sake?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:47AM
We'll scream at yous (more than usual) if we think it's slashvertisements :)
As far as I'm concerned, the content is far more important than the messenger.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:50AM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by braddollar on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:53PM (2 children)
Agreed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @10:39PM (1 child)
> Agreed.
What is going on here today??? No one ever agrees with khallow (3766).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 25 2019, @02:10AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:26AM
A little over two years ago, I submitted this story about my MailTask program, which was accepted:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/05/28/2035212 [soylentnews.org]
So, this type of story doesn't seem to me to be much different from that, except that the article is hosted elsewhere. I'd say use judgment and, if you think the submitter is acting in good faith and the article is relevant, post the story.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:43AM (2 children)
I would be against articles getting published(or declined) solely because of who submitted it.
SoylentNews runs articles from sites all over the web, often without any concern about the individual authors. After all, we're interested in the articles or the conversations/comments.
The fact the author also happens to be here and can comment is a bonus in most cases. I would compare it with some of the higher quality journals and their activity. I know it's slightly different since it's a story, but journals have been pushed as stories from time to time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:14AM (1 child)
Some forms of self-promotion are more obvious, but there is a gray area. As in it's some person who may or may not be a bot posting an article from their own blog/news site. Content might be completely legit for discussion but scraped from somewhere else. We got a few stories like this from some guy's discount phys.org. Replacing the source link is an option.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:55PM
Can I submit my AKP app? I smothered /. with it and got famous almost overnight.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:24AM (1 child)
We should follow the EU's lead on this. Submissions that add no value to the site are cool. Submissions that add value should be taxed. You need to collect some tax from Appalbarry for that submission. To determine that tax, add up all the annual wages paid to all of SN staff, and multiply by some reasonable tax rate, like, ohhhhh - 25%. Send the bill to Appalbarry, with some warnings about late penalties and fees, and don't forget the compounded interest on late payments.
Huh? What's that? Your computer barfs on a divide by zero thingamabob? Not my problem, you should have upgraded to Windows 10 by now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:17AM
Value-added tax for Runaway! He'll never have to pay it! Ha, ha!!!
(Score: 1) by yuhong on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:50AM (10 children)
I just submitted a new draft of my Google DoubleClick Mozilla overview:
http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2019/11/google-doubleclick-essayoverview-third.html [blogspot.com]
Is any reader interested in the topic?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:20PM (1 child)
Submit it and if it gets rejected, put it in your journal. Or put it in your journal and if it's good, likely someone will suggest you submit it or do it themselves.
That's what the rest of us do, mostly.
Out of curiosity, do you earn money from ads on your blog? If that's your goal, you'll likely not get much out of this bunch, as most of us use ad blockers.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by yuhong on Sunday November 24 2019, @01:30AM
No, I don't do ads on my blog, but the entire point of the essay/overview is about the history of Google advertising.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:35PM (7 children)
If its a draft, we'd rather wait until you have finished it.
If it is the 3rd version (maybe it is an update of version 2 because things have changed etc) then it is not a draft.
Finally, explain why you have written it and why you think it is of interest; if you do that then you will stand a better chance of having it accepted. "Google DoubleClick Mozilla" doesn't actually tell us as much as you think it does. What is 'DoubleClick', why does it need reviewing?
There might be nothing wrong with your 'overview' but I'll bet that nobody has gotten around to reading it yet.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday November 24 2019, @01:07AM (6 children)
Wait? Someone who doesn't know who DoubleClick.net [wikipedia.org] are? They've been a favourite for a 127.0.0.1 entry in /etc/hosts for a very, very long time.
(Score: 2, Informative) by yuhong on Sunday November 24 2019, @01:18AM (5 children)
What is hard to find is when they merged the DoubleClick data with other data like AdWords (from 2000).
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday November 24 2019, @01:42AM (4 children)
Fair point. I guess much of the knowledge has come from steady perusal of sites like SN and Slashdot over the years, with no one place/article that has the full story.
(Score: 1) by yuhong on Sunday November 24 2019, @01:43AM (3 children)
I really wish the press would cover the topic.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday November 24 2019, @02:24AM
One issue I guess would be that it's of a technical nature and thus not readily digested. Another would be that they might just not be aware of it. If some geeky person or other actually collected all the information and submitted to <paper of choice> as a scoop, there might be some traction.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday November 24 2019, @08:09AM (1 child)
We might publish it ourselves - once it is finished and no longer a draft. If you follow the suggestions that I made a few posts back then it could be a very good choice. But remember your audience - people here are usually much more tech savvy than the general public.
Bear in mind 'double click' means different things to different people - is it a multiple click of a mouse, is it an ad management program, and does it belong to Google or Mozilla? I never see any DoubleClick garbage because my ad-blocker prevents it. All cookies are deleted whenever I shut down my browser. So just quoting 3 or 4 words does not provide a very explanatory title to someone who is not familiar with your work and area of interest. Does your blog explain why DoubleClick is good or bad? If 'bad, does it explain how to defeat it or, if 'good', how to make better use of it? The advice immediately below the title field on the submission page says "Be descriptive and concise! " - it is good advice.
Finally, and as a slight aside, I can see that there have been 4 comments made to the page of your blog that we are discussing, but they have all been removed by a 'blog administrator'. While there are sometimes good reasons to delete comments, without any further explanation it could look to the unfamiliar reader that you suppress comments as you see fit. You must surely know that here on this site we encourage free speech and our community likes being able to express their own opinions without having them removed.
(Score: 1) by yuhong on Sunday November 24 2019, @08:39AM
Mostly spam comments. I assume that most SoylentNews readers are tech savvy, this is not Slashdot.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by spiraldancing on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:54AM
I'm probably being naive here, but my take on it is, if the submitter openly self-identifies as the author, and our EditorOverlords believe it's a good article that Soylentils would enjoy ... then, of course, publish it.
What else is there to consider? Maybe tag it with some kind of 'self-submitted by author' flag, but that's about it. I don't even see the need to limit it to 'real' (ie, not just joined 3 minutes ago) members.
Lets go exploring.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dtremenak on Saturday November 23 2019, @09:07AM
If the content is good, and the submitter is honest about his conflict of interest, why worry? Let the editors decide if it's valuable for the community or just self-promotion, that's what they're there for.
And besides...if you screw up too much, you'll surely hear about it in the comments ;)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @09:54AM
I believe that there is nothing wrong in so-called "self-promotion", as long as the story is interesting. 'cmon, we're "promoting" other big sites by putting links to them in published stories, but doing the same thing with a "small" author is somehow a no-no? If this cannot be called "discrimination", then I don't know what could be.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @10:08AM (4 children)
I am impressed, firstly, by the fact that martyb is thinking and asking about the issues he raised, and secondly, by the positive nature of the replies from other people in the comments so far. I wish other sites had more editors and readers like this. I take it as a sign of the high integrity of SN, its editors, and its readers.
As a new reader of SN, I have been enjoying SN's selection of high-quality science and technology stories. I really appreciate how science stories are supported by proper citations to science journals, using a consistent DOI citation format.
Thank you for a great site.
I was planning in any case to make a donation to SN at some point. After reading this article by martyb, I want to donate a significantly bigger amount. Does SN have any alternative to Paypal as a method of accepting payments?
W
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:02PM (2 children)
You can use a regular card.
I'd also add when you hit the Subscribe link you can buy gift memberships for other Soylentils. I do a couple of those every year as a Secret Santa sort of deal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:37PM (1 child)
Do you have a link to a page where it is possible to pay by card? I can find nothing at all related to card payments or any other methods of payment on any of SN's front page, the Finance page on the wiki, the FAQ, etc.
W
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:57PM
It's the 'Buy gift sub' [soylentnews.org] link on the left.
*if* you're logged in, that link is labeled "subscriptions."
Since you can't buy a subscription for 'Anonymous Coward', that makes sense, yes?
As such, if you wish to subscribe for yourself, create an account (top right of the main page [soylentnews.org]), log in and then subscribe. As you go through that process, you will be prompted for a payment method. One of those methods is credit card (via Stripe [stripe.com], as I understand it).
If you don't wish to create an account, but still wish to contribute, you can use the 'buy gift sub' link (see above) and purchase a gift sub. You can apply that to any existing user you like (e.g., NCommander is uid '6' and MDC is '2239').
If you have problems, I'm sure someone would be happy to help if you posted in this thread, or join the #soylent IRC channel [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:41PM
Hi! Thank you SO much for the kind words — they are VERY much appreciated!
As you may not be aware, SoylentNews receives absolutely NO outside funding. ALL of our funding comes from subscriptions by its members. Though all staff are volunteers (nobody here has ever been paid anything for their work on the site), we DO have expenses in the form of server hosting, domain name registration, tax filing (and a CPA to do same), etc.
As for how to subscribe, there are two "paths." It depends if you want to sign up anonymously (as an "Anonymous Coward") or as a registered user.
Registered users get a nickname under which they can post their comments (but one can still post "anonymously" if so desired). They can also moderate comments posted here to help increase visibility of Insightful, Interesting, Informative, etc. comments as well as reduce the visibility of Troll and Flamebait comments. Further, you can then set preferences as to what level comments you want to see and how you want to see them arranged on the story page. There's much more, but that should give you a rough idea.
Registered users who subscribe get benefits such as a shiny star graphic attached to each of their comments (though you can toggle that off in your preferences) as well as relaxed restrictions on comment posting frequency. See the Why Subscribe FAQ [soylentnews.org] for details.
We have just over 8800 nicks registered to the site, so you can still get a coveted 4-digit UID (User ID number). I, for example, registered very early on and have UID 76.
Important: Before I go any further, we do not perform any processing locally; you need to enable Javascript before loading the Subscription page so we can present the payment processor's form.
When completed, we get notification through a backend process that a payment has been received, as well as the gross amount, fees, and net amount.
Anyway, back to subscribing, yes, you can subscribe either using PayPal or using Stripe. PayPal, obviously, allows you to use your PayPal account.
For those who do not have a PayPal account, or choose to use a different form of payment, we offer Stripe. They accept most major credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, JCB, and UnionPay.)
Links to the subscription page appear under our affectionately nicknamed "Beg-o-Meter" where you see graphical and textual depictions of our funding goal and progress so far (where it says "Subscribe Here"). Registered users also see a "Subscribe" link on the left-hand side of the home page under "Navigation" and then under "You". Either way it links you to our Subscription Page [soylentnews.org].
The layout varies if you are accessing that page as a logged-in, registered user or anonymously. You can either buy the subscription for yourself (registered user only) or as a gift. Select the recipient's UID or yourself, as appropriate, and then proceed to the Duration and Price part of the form.
This is important: the dollar amount shown is the minimum amount required for that duration. If you so desire, you can replace the suggested amount with any larger value. We are extremely grateful for any extra contribution you may wish to make. The vast majority of subscriptions are less than $100.00, but we have see more than 40 subscriptions exceeding $100.00. Lastly, though rare, we have had 7 subscriptions ranging from $500-$1000 for which we are exceedingly grateful!
I hope this has been helpful. I expect I've omitted something here, and if so, please accept my humble apologies. As your experience may be helpful to others, feel free to reply here. Or, you can reach out to admin(at)soylentnews.org, or pop onto IRC (Internet Relay Chat) [soylentnews.org] and ask around on there. It's not as active as it used to be, but if there's someone around, they are usually quite willing to help!
I am proud to be a part of this community which pulls together their resources — each contributing as they are able — to make this site possible. Thank you for your interest in supporting our efforts!
--martyb
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:20AM (1 child)
NOBODY EXPECTS, the aristarchus submission! But we could have had one here, instead of this mulling about, about nothing. aristarchus submissions are never self-promoting, they are always in the public interest, and of general philosophical intent. So #FreeAristarchus, I say.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:29AM
True, Aristarchus submissions are never self promoting, unless they happen to be self promotional. That, and Aristarchus submissions are always self flagellating, or at least self fellating.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:49AM
And by once I mean please don't post the story again in a few days... an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of dupes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:13PM
If a person writes an article, and wants to "get around" the bright line that prevents self promotion, all that person needs to do is get someone else to submit it.
An interesting article is an interesting article. If it gets through the submission review process, then post it!
I, for one, prefer the simple honesty of, "I wrote this, and I think it is worth sharing." If nothing else, that means that I know that the submitter has a very strong chance of seeing my reply.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:18PM
well facebook is all about self-promotion to the world.
moderators there are lazy but will reluctantly drink some coffee to climb out of the previous-night beer bing to click on a "hide" button that requires admin prives.
i'd prefer SN not to turn into facbook.
however, one should be able to find some "else" to promote ones stories and offer to promote theirs in return. it works for the nobel price ...
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:17PM
One rule that has worked well on journalism list-serves (remember those?) is allowing a once yearly "se;l-promotion" post where you can sing your own priases. Not sure how that would work here, but maybe worth considering.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:43PM
I say, as editor, you should use your judgement.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GlennC on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:26PM
I read the article referenced, and I agree that it is a thought provoking addition to the site.
Afterwards I re-read your submission and found what I think would be a useful decision tree.
If all of these criteria are met, I think that the risk of publishing spam can be effectively mitigated.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday November 26 2019, @03:25PM
"Bright line" "no tolerance" policies wind up being intolerant. Like the archetypal middle-school gym teacher, they punish everyone for the transgressions of the few. I am willing to rely on the editors judgement, and I call on readers to complain about *individual* cases rather than blanket categories - and to complain nicely, like "I found this article more self-promotion than generally-useful" (if such be the case) (not judging the user-interface article).