SoylentNews PBC had a proper business meeting on Friday, to discuss events since the shutdown notice was posted.
This meeting was attended by myself, Matt Angel, and kolie. I was on the phone for about two hours, combined with multiple follow ups in DMs.
Let's get the good news out first.
SN PBC has agreed to continue operations for SoylentNews.
We also had a very long extended discussion on what the future may look like and some points brought up by staff or members of the community were discussed.
Let's cover all the major points below.
We talked about the state of things to come for over an hour, and then I had one on one calls with Matt and kolie. The conversation was fairly high-level, and mostly consisted of a recap of the last few weeks, current progress, as well as what actually rebuilding the site is going to look like. Right now, we have a commitment to finishing the infrastructure overhaul, and upgrade it as is practical.
That would basically bring us to the "ok for now" status quo ...
However, the status quo does not address the dwindling signal to noise ratios or shrinking community. It does not address the lack of moderation or content standards. It does not address our problems relating to SEO or anything resembling modern human interface guidelines. It also does not resolve the long standing problems that lead to here.
We also had a fairly long conversation on the circumstances that lead to here and how we avoid a repeat of ending back on the brink.
We still have the question of what we will do in the immediate future.
I have no illusion that staff are happy to work with me, but I am hoping we can at least define some sort of formal truce in the name of the future of the site. However, members of the staff have been demanding for me to step down and simply get out.
I have been given the impression that if I was to step down, they would simply continue the site as is. I am unaware of any defined plan relating to fixing any of the problems plaguing the site, both as it is now, and those that have persisted long before this point.
I have also been given the impression that if I do not simply GTFO soon, they're simply going to quit.
That's fair and understandable given everything that has happened.
However, I am not the only stakeholder, as currently, Matt as co-owner, and kolie, as an interested outside party who is actively helping to fix the site, have both indicated that they want me to stay involved at this time.
Ultimately, dealing with the deferred maintenance is going to take priority. Given everything, I don't see how I can have a revised plan for SoylentNews any earlier than July, and realistically I expect it to take longer to have a solid agreement hashed out by all stakeholders.
The staff should be a part of this discussion. However, at this point, they have at this point only made demands, and have made no attempts that I am aware of to negotiate anything. Unilateral demands is not a negotiation.
This is part of a larger problem that, at the end of the day, the staff had no true stake if the site succeeded or failed. This is compounded by the fact that no one has been willing to put themselves forward to join as a member of the board of the directors since mrcoolbp disappeared, and since none are apparently willing to work with me, the person who is both president and 50% owner, well, it leaves us at an impasse.
The easiest thing to do is to allow them to present their case as to why I shouldn't be involved and show to everyone that they can lay out a realistic plan to deal with the issues that have long plagued this website. After all, if they're so insistent that I shouldn't be involved, then as a matter of due diligence, I need them to show a plan that involves fixing the site, and actual work being doing towards it.
For my part, I will do the same in the form of a new business plan for the PBC that will specifically explain why we are taking money in, how we will use it, how we are going to deal with raising capital in the future, and everything else that is involved in keeping SN going for another decade. Such a plan is going to require both kolie and I to discuss the specifics of what replacing rehash is going to require.
At the end of the day, regardless of who was responsible, SN decayed to the point that the database was suffering from corrupted tables. That has to be addressed, and ultimately, until some else steps up to the plate, and presents a workable plan, that falls to me
Infrastructure Rebuild
Of course, talk is cheap, so here's what I have actually done in the last two weeks with help from kolie.
We have been making slow but steady progress on this. The plan is to convert the entire site to an ansible playbook, which now exists. We have successfully started deploying site services on a fresh set of Linode accounts. So far, kolie has got the public wiki rendering, bringing it from MediaWiki 1.18 to a currently supported version.
Meanwhile, I've been digging deeper into rehash. In any scenario that involves the site continuing, we are going to need to be able to deploy code changes. Fortunately, when I did the work to get the site running on Apache 2, I left myself a lot of good notes on how it all works, as well as the "make build-production-environment" target which handles a lot of the worst parts of how to deal with the mountain of legacy Perl.
This is slowly coming together in building a Dockerfile that's on the public rehash repo.
As of writing, I have gotten it to the point it can successfully run the install target. I wrote some rather hacky code that handles shoving connection database information into the system DBIx::Password module, because that's what rehash requires, and I was reminded again why this is the codebase from hell.
We have also had a longer discussion towards implementing new services like status monitoring. A member of the community submitted a long and detailed plan to implement Prometheus for service monitoring. We're not quite ready for that, but we also need to talk about specifically access to the backend.
Infrastructure Access
When I formally announced the shutdown for SoylentNews PBC, I locked out all shell accounts to the backend as well as limited access to the Linode panel. This was done both to protect the site and as a matter of liability. When the circumstances changed, access to the backend was not restored. Access to rehash's administration panel however remained available, which is how janirirok and the other editors have been posting articles. The #chillax channel remains up, although I'm no longer in it.
I didn't restore access after the situation changed. There are quite a few reasons I could give, but given the sheer amount of hostility I have received from certain individual members of the staff, I could not and cannot rule out the possibility that someone would simply "rm -rf /" the production environment out of sheer spite. Also, these machines are going away. There isn't going to be shell access beyond this point aside from a control node.
Right now, the current plan is to simply get the site back to the level of functionality it had back in November, with as many parts of infrastructure being fully up to date as-is possible. This includes going through the configs, removing obsolete bits, and basically reviewing every aspect of the underlying nuts and bolts.
I am going to be taking a solid look at getting rehash ported to the current versions of Apache 2.4 and mod_perl. It mostly depends how much of the stack can be built on mod_perl 2.4 easily. At least with the site on deployable infrastructure, it drastically simplifies what it will take to move forward.
Timeline Moving Forward
Fixing SN is going to require people to be involved and dedicated to rebuilding and essentially relaunching the site as well as fixing many of the problems that have led to here.
To ask that without providing some sort of compensation is folly but without a defined plan, well, we end up in a catch-22 situation.
So, here's what I'm going to do and what I am going to ask of anyone who stays involved.
We will have the site migrated to less broken infrastructure by the end of June at the latest, and likely well before that point.
After that migration is complete, kolie and I are going to negotiate a contract that will handle either overhauling or outright replacement of rehash. This agreement is going to define any new functionality that will be built into what will essentially be version 2 of this website.
We also need to define what specifically is the role of various volunteers in the upkeep of this site, as well as defining our options in case we ever end in another situation like this five or ten years down the road.
If there's one thing I have surmised, no one is happy with this situation, but a big part of moving forward is having an agreement on how it will be maintained and have some flexibility going forward.
A major point of this is growing SoylentNews's cash flow to the point that it can reasonably afford to have at least one paid staff member and provide some actual incentives to keep people involved in its upkeep and overall maintenance.
I have quite a few ideas on how to approach this, but I rather have a chance to write them out in-depth and explore them.
As part of this, I also want to deal with raising the overall signal to noise ratio, increasing the number of comments per article, and hopefully bringing in new blood to the site. It's very hard to have any idea as of the state of the health of the community as we don't have any analytics, and have historically only ever run PiWik for a short period of time.
I think we need to consider doing that again, if only to have an idea of where we are in terms of actual readership and engagement.
Finally, there needs to be a reason why someone might post inbound links to SoylentNews, and once someone clicks on them, sticks around longer than a few seconds. That also makes finding such content easier for both humans and search engines.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head. Realistically, I'm going to need to sit with a pen and paper, sound out which ones are practical with kolie and Matt, and then start taking steps to implement them, with whomever is willing to join us going forward.
I will keep you all posted,
~ NCommander
Related Stories
This is the post I never thought I would have to make. I am also writing this post on behalf of SoylentNews PBC, the legal owner of SoylentNews, and not as a member of the staff or the community.
SoylentNews is going to shut down operations on June 30th.
This wasn't an easy decision to come to, and it's ultimately the culmination of a lot of factors, some which were in my control, and some that weren't. A large part boils down to critical maintenance to the site not properly being performed for a very long time. To pay back the mountain of technical debt we've built up, it would require relaunching the site from scratch.
I'll discuss this more in depth below, but I can't personally justify the time any more, especially due to the negative impact that SN is having on my personal life.
Before we shut down, at least for the foreseeable future, I'm going to outline the situation as I see it, my own personal responsibility, and what happens next.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @01:00PM (11 children)
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=23/06/04/226212
So it is now being suggested that the cause of all the problems is the staff. You 'believe' that the site - which we have kept operational for 9 years - is under threat from us. That is so different from the truth that I am absolutely furious. Once again, you have accepted no responsibility for what you have done, indeed you portray yourself as a site saviour which is quite the opposite to the truth.
You are completely blind to what has happened while you were elsewhere. Three members of our small staff have lost their spouses. Can you, NCommander, name any of them? Can you demonstrate any empathy towards them or are they just people to blame? Several others have lost close friends and relatives. One person on the staff has had 2 major strokes which has left him partially sighted and with limited dexterity, yet he still continues to contribute. Another member of staff is currently struggling in South America and surviving on short term jobs - yet he still finds time to contribute. And despite these and other setbacks we have kept the site operational. Priorities have had to change too. But we didn't resign in 2020 and just disappear, unlike you, NCommander. We kept the site going. Everybody who has assisted in that effort has done so willingly and never failed to keep stories on the screen.
There has also been a pandemic. it affected many people on this site as well as all over the world. Both staff and community have been struggling to keep their jobs and businesses, to care for their families. and to keep food on the table. Some of those businesses, being run by SN staff and community members alike, have employees who were also depending upon their jobs. The priorities of many of us have had to be reassessed. Many people cannot afford to make a subscription at the moment, nor give you their 'spare time' because they haven't got any. The site could not always be the most important issue in anybody's life. But throughout all of that we have kept the site operational.
We did not begin an ill-conceived 'update' program without consulting anybody. We have not created a site that has less than half of the services that it had before your unexpected return and intervention. We have been locked out of the system and therefore cannot help when you get warnings of technical interruptions but fail to notify anyone else. Yet we have stood here and been prepared to assist - we have asked publicly in previous journal entries and elsewhere to be allowed back onto the site so that we can start to repair the damage that has been caused. We were still ready to keep supporting the site.
We also did not announce [soylentnews.org] [soylentnews.org] without any prior warning that we were going to close down the site, despite having only weeks earlier given an commitment that we would at least work through until our 10th birthday in February 2024. You did. Somebody suggested that you never meant to go through with it - it was a device to coerce the community to promise you something that they are unable to do in the current economic and professional circumstances. If you did make it as a threat then it appears to have backfired spectacularly. Would you care to comment?
We have not said that there is no future for this site, but you have :
Your heart is still not in it. You are simply trying to save face, perhaps earn back your stake. However, we believe that there most definitely could be a future for this site. We know which 'specific misstep' led to the current situation.
So there will be no consultation - we just have to accept what you want?
And how will you generate the trust necessary for that 'truce' be a realistic proposition? Trust has to be earned, not demanded. This is not the first time that you have behaved this way. Why should we believe it is the last?
Have you tried asking us what our plan would be? How do you know what we are thinking (that's rhetorical by the way)? Let us tell you what we think is the best route ahead. Perhaps there is a compromise that we can all agree on. We do not want you to dictate something completely new and then say that we all have to simply follow you. And that also means unlocking the system. Trusting us as we are being asked to trust you.
You said that you were leaving - was your decision, but now you have changed your mind again. "You have an impression" that we might do something? Again, try asking us. It is not our fault that you are changing your mind and intentions every few weeks. But just leaving our formal posts and returning to the community might not seem unreasonable to some. Are you surprised by that? However, now you are sowing the seeds that if we do decide to leave then the collapse of SoylentNews will be our fault, which is not the case.
Do a hundred shit-posts or personal attacks become more important than a single intelligent comment because of page hits now?
Our knowledge and experience is of no interest to you? I note that again you are not asking the community. The alternatives being suggested are that we, as a community, can either do exactly as you 3 decide and dictate, or we will be ignored. And if you are intending to consult with the community why does your post tell us what you are going to do rather than asking that community what they think you should do?
Finally, you stated less than 1 month ago that you could not go on, that you had lost interest and enthusiasm for the task ahead, your professional workload was too great, and that the site was having a significant and adverse affect on your private lifes. But having perhaps been surprised by the positive response from the community and the realisation that you cannot fix this problem alone or with Kolie, you feel it necessary to blame those who have stayed here for many years, supporting the site by their subscriptions, thousands of hours of unpaid work, and those who have made journal entries, comments and moderations. You are blaming much of it on a community that 'did not step forward' and a team that were not consulted before you started the update, nor have been listened to since. What has brought on yet another change of heart from you - is it thought that you could claw back your stake investment? Do those who paid subscriptions get a refund too? Have you forgotten that others have offered significant funds yet those offers have been ignored?
I repeat something that I said a few weeks ago. NCommander, you did NOT build this site alone. It is not your private train set. It belongs to all of us, and we demand and have the right to have a say in who manages it and how. You haven't been here for several years. The board that you keep mentioning is currently 2 people, yourself and a person whom I could guarantee very few on the site could name until you mentioned him above - our treasurer. He has done great work, even while you were not here. What other contribution has the board made to the site over the last 9 years? Who provided the leadership or direction? Who replaced the previous Board Secretary when he stood down many years ago? Nobody, you just carried on because you think that the board is just a piece of paper. The board has simply not been an integral part of this site for many years, only a legal document. It has not managed anything. Deucalion is the only associate member of the board that anyone here can speak to. He has worked hard through all sorts of difficulties, but where have you spelled out to him or to us his role? Where is the document that spells out my day-to-day management role? The one you promised you would provide in December, and then January, and then.... You want to recreate a Board as we had before - but how will its role and obligations to the community change? It clearly didn't work last time. I do not think that you know how to manage a Board or a team.
And now it will possibly be July before anything tangible will be seen. What you are achieving is finally repairing the damage that you have previously caused - but 6 months too late. Dress it up any way you wish, that is the crux of the matter. Yes, you will have automated the process of building a site, but that is something that could have been achieved in slow time after repairing your mistakes. You have not suggested how you might be able to resolve some of the the community's software problems, nor how anyone else can change the code if all they can see is a 'control node'.
If you see SoylentNews as your site then you have failed. Not the staff to whom you refuse to listen, nor the community who have been asking for bug fixes for a long time which require your Perl programming skills to fix (which work now appears to be beneath you), nor anyone else that you care to blame. It is all on your shoulders. How long will you stay this time before leave to do something else?
My loyalty is not to you or the invisible Board - but to the community that has been created and continues to exist despite you, and to those that stayed here when the going got tough. They have earned my respect. I am not announcing my departure - but I will considerably reduce my contribution if my opinion and efforts count for so little. We have worked without you before, you would not be missed. You do not leave a big pair of shoes to fill.
It should perhaps be a urgent priority for you to sort out your sock-puppet management. If I decide to vacate my staff posts and return to the community then my software will no longer work because I will no longer have the access, and you will certainly become aware of that fact quickly.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @01:38PM
I'm not sure you understand things, janrinok. It's all about NCommander. If Soylentnews doesn't stroke his ego, then Soylentnews has no purpose.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @05:08PM
Blah, blah, blah. Drama. Blah, blah, blah. tl;dr.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 06 2023, @02:15AM (8 children)
That's all well and good but:
1. Do you have a plan as NCommander asked?
2. NCommander is the legal owner (+/- the other owners/the LLC) So yes, he has the final say despite any effort the staff put in, and he is ultimately liable for everything, both for the site failing and any lawsuits that may arise from security issues.
Yes, NCommander is responsible for everything. And so what? It doesn't change reality.
He is perfectly in the right to decide to shut down the site that he fucked up himself, and the community has no say otherwise.
Therefore, it is very reasonable of him to ask for a plan from the staff/community, when he has no obligation to do so. Whether he fully owns up on any blame he may have had for the site's state is completely irrelevant. The staff winning the argument does not save the site. NCommander winning the argument does not save the site.
Come up with a plan, then we talk.
I might add, while you're pointing fingers, kolie actually stood up and did something. From the perspective of someone who has surface-level involvement with SN, you are proving NCommander's claim that all you do is try to shift blame without any action or plan to back it up.
You wrote a novel of a post blaming NCommander (whether rightly or wrongly), but not a word on how to fix the site. I hope that achieved whatever you wanted it to achieve.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @05:32AM (7 children)
We couldn't agree more. He will not speak with us. We are locked out of the hardware. He will not come to IRC (where all similar discussions have been held historically.) If you visit there you can join in. He is not listening to anybody - It isn't just us. He will not allow us to repair the damage to the existing site while he builds a new one elsewhere.
We are working on getting the site to rebuild with up-to-date software, and making good progress. We are looking at alternative infrastructures, alternative code, and alternative overarching management structures. And currently we are doing this with our own resources. And if we change anything, then it should be with the community's agreement not because one person says so.
Why do we have to be a PBC? With the exception of the Treasurer, the Board has had no significant input in the management of this site for many years. They are not even following their own rules regarding the Board's composition with posts being empty for years. It is rather a device that someone is using to say he has more rights than anybody else. It didn't used to be this way. A small group of community members, rotated from time to time, could achieve far more than a nebulous Board.
This site has been built by many people, willingly and freely. It has been paid for by the voluntary subscriptions from the community. The staff are all volunteers. I would have thought that Americans in particular would not wish to live under a omnipotent King again, however well intentioned he thinks he is.
This site does not belong to any one individual. Perhaps we could get more attention if we dumped crates of software into the harbour in Boston?
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by separatrix on Tuesday June 06 2023, @07:49AM (3 children)
You don't have to be a PBC. But you have to have written rules or they can be changed by the next dictator's whim. Also, you don't get what a board is supposed to be for. It's not supposed to run the day to day -- you call them "staff", which I gather you're a part of. Staff may not be paid, but they do the day-to-day. The board steps in when there's a crisis.
I've already seen you make unwarranted assumptions: you did it to me when I joined and you accused me of wanting a paid position or to be on the board. Here you call a board "a device that someone is using to say he has more rights than anybody else." No. A board for a typical local not-for-profit is elected by its membership. It's supposed to be a democracy.
What you're advocating is a collective, with no hierarchy whatsoever, everything decided by consensus. Before the unfortunate current situation, the site was apparently dwindling in volunteer enthusiasm. Are you sure this is the only form of organization you can imagine for SN?
There's another model. I've written a first post in my journal [soylentnews.org], where I try to lay out my idea about the governance of organizations like this. One problem you currently have is your CEO is on your already-too-small board, which is a no-no:
In other words, a well-constituted board is there for emergencies like this, and to otherwise ensure the proper operation of the staff so that emergencies like this can't happen. They have regular meetings, check the books and numbers, ask for performance evaluations by whoever is in charge. In fact, they should be the ones deciding who's in charge. Frankly, Kolie, even though he's rescuing the site, should submit to a board of directors, or you all run the risk of the same thing happening again.
I agree with darkfeline here: you wrote a novel of a post that did not persuade anyone, including NC, and you're making demands that are hard to distinguish from a monarch's yourself. NCommander isn't the only one to blame; the rest of you let him become a king. I don't want to put my efforts into a site where there's just someone else who's king, either. But the rest of the community have to negotiate a treaty with the old and the new kings first. You are an obvious leader of the rest of the community. Your responses, however justified, are extremely pointed and hostile -- I repeat, however justified, you have to put those aside now, and negotiate. Please. I want to see this site live.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday June 06 2023, @08:12AM
You may want to repost your journal because that one doesn't have a reply button. It looks like it contains an open "a href" tag. And link to it again from a comment because otherwise it will go unnoticed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dalek on Tuesday June 06 2023, @02:19PM (1 child)
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that SN absolutely needs community governance. As I noted in my journal [soylentnews.org] about creating a privacy policy, any solution needs the support of all three of the main stakeholders: 1) the ownership, 2) the staff, and 3) the community. In my opinion, that means all three need representation on the board, and the bylaws should be structured to require that all three give their approval for site policy. A big part of the problem right now is ownership being dissatisfied with the direction of the site. If staff aren't satisfied with the policies, they can walk away, just like what janrinok has commented about. If the community is dissatisfied, stories don't get submitted, comments don't get posted, and subscriptions don't get purchased. All three of the primary stakeholders need to at least be content with the direction of the site and its policies. In my opinion, all three groups also need to be represented on the board.
In terms of payment, I believe that SN should focus on paying staff who are most critical to the operation of the site. That includes people who are contribute the most to essential site maintenance and the people who edit and post the most stories. The highest paid employee in any business shouldn't be the CEO but rather the employees who really work the hardest and contribute the most to the success of the business. Here, I believe that would be the technical and editorial staff.
Despite what a couple of disruptive trolls say, I haven't buried my journal, and I still encourage comments. I just wanted to discuss some other topics as well that are of interest to me. In about a week, I'm going to post a second journal that solicits comments about the process for approving a privacy policy, with a heavy focus on community governance. I think there's a lot of overlap between the topics, so I ask you to share your thoughts when I post that journal. I'll probably post a motorsports journal sometime around June 9, and the aforementioned journal about community governance would go online around June 12 or 13. I think we may have slightly different ideas about the implementation, but there's a lot of overlap, and I'd definitely value your thoughts on the topic.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday June 06 2023, @04:36PM
Take it or leave it, I was wondering about whether the following would be useful if incorporated into a larger plan.
Use a combination of polls and +5 posts from the conversation therein to drive decisions. The poll allows everyone to have their one vote, both AC and user, with the downside that it could be spammed by AC. To counteract that possibility we take the top 5 rated comments from the polls discussion.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 06 2023, @09:10AM (2 children)
IRC is all well and good, but AFAIK SN is the primary forum for the SN community, not the IRC. Perhaps there is a clear plan hashed out in the IRC. I and I wager most of SN have not seen it. If there is a clear plan from the staff, post it here on the site, *instead* of posting about everything wrong NCommander did. *That doesn't matter*. So far only NCommander has posted anything resembling a plan.
Post the plan, and then execute it. Post daily/weekly updates on the execution of the plan.
> if we change anything, then it should be with the community's agreement not because one person says so.
That's the kind of weasel language that is technically right, but more often than not when anyone says it, it is to avoid taking responsibility. "Oh, we didn't do anything, but that's because we wanted to get acceptance from the community!"
Someone has to take responsibility, commit to a decision, and follow through with action. That is what leadership is. For better or worse, NCommander is the only leadership that SN has at the moment.
If the staff actually have the will (gods bless), then present the plan and execute it. Whether that means negotiating with NCommander, or hard forking the organization. If the staff do not want to (or can't) negotiate, then take the code, fork the site, make the negotiations (e.g., to transfer the data) as transparent as possible, and let the community vote with their feet.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @11:28AM
The problem with this is it will divide the existing community. Our actions resulted from the fact that an announcement was made that the site was closing. We didn't want it to close, We are not in competition with SN - we would much rather it continues with the community intact and the same domain. The fact that one person decided for everybody caught everyone by surprise.
The problem that I have is that one person, and it doesn't matter who it is, can entirely legally close the site down without any consultation with anybody else. That is not the site that we were building in 2014. It is not the site that we have all been part of for many years. separatrix [soylentnews.org] has outlined an alternative [soylentnews.org], and there are probably plenty more variations too.
If we begin to discuss 'another alternative site' when this site has changed direction again and planning to continue then we will only make matters worse. If this site continues then we have to make sure that this situation cannot occur again. We must change the current system where such control is vested in a single person who can act entirely autonomously. Presenting our alternative site now is not going to help resolve that issue.
But, if the site continues in its current direction then some of us feel strongly enough to leave. What we do in that event is as yet undecided. We might create a site that is more democratic, or we may simply say 'goodbye' and wander off into the sunset. That doesn't mean we are telling everyone else to do the same. But if we DO create another site then we will be letting all the members of this community know about it. And we will tell you in clear terms why the new site is different. It will be as we intended this site to be for the last 9 years.
Without those staff this site could be dead within days. This is not intended as an implied threat - it is simply a realistic view of what will happen. Let me take the one example I know most about - the editor's role.There are only 2 regularly active editors. From now on I will edit one story a day because I cannot justify giving 6 hours or more a day to a site that is ignoring me. That means that someone will have to fill that gap. I have stopped searching for and making submissions - that isn't the editor's job. Look how quickly the submission queue is dwindling. An empty submission queue means nothing on the front page. Who will train your new editors? Who will volunteer to join a site that changes its direction with the wind? Do you expect the one remaining editor to process all the stories and then begin training new editors one at a time? How long would you put up with that workload for free?
I have spoken with hubie - our other regular editor. I have apologised to him for the path I am taking. But I have no other options left open to me. I wish it were not the case.
I don't want the community to listen to an alternative site plan and then decide for one or the other. That is divisive.
I want this "we have committed to continuing until Feb 2024/ I am leaving and closing the site / I am staying because it is not my fault / I am handing over but staying in control for the next 5-10 years" to stop. Ask the community. This is their site.
I am sure that the other editors who are already busy with their own professional and personal lives will also help, some already have and I am grateful - but they will not continue if it becomes a chore. For me the current plan of action does not deserve my support. It is becoming a chore. I have not stood down. I have not left. If the community think I am the obstacle then I have said I will go. But I am not working myself to death for a site that doesn't care about its community.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @01:17PM
From soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=55814&page=1&cid=1309939#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
We have already reproduced what we have, and are pressing forward to look at updating it still further. Recreating this site isn't difficult, and what we already have would suffice - it is exactly as you have it today. We can fire it up fairly quickly if necessary. The problem above can be overcome by using mysql instead of mariadb - but they are supposed to be equivalent in this respect. For longer term we are looking at replacing each part of the current system with software either already available or forked and modified for our purpose. There are smaller teams looking at all of these issues.
We didn't know if the SoylentNews domain name was going to be made available or whether we would have to get another. Some domains have already been obtained by community members for us to use should we need to.
We would like to overcome some the the existing limitations though - the hard link to Apache and then getting it to work with the latest version of Perl which quite a few people are trying to do.
The main initial differences of a new site would be in the governance and support areas, and separatrix [soylentnews.org] has some very good ideas in the governance field. However, that is something to be done in conjunction with a community.
This is not just a few staff.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dalek on Monday June 05 2023, @01:13PM (1 child)
I've started working on developing a privacy policy. Please see my journal: https://soylentnews.org/~dalek/journal/14662 [soylentnews.org]. I am not currently a staff member, just a volunteer. Is this something I should continue doing, or should I stop?
I'm just looking for a direct answer if this is something I should be doing. I would like to avoid unnecessary work or having egg on my face. Please let me know if I should continue or if I should suspend this work. No hostility from me, just looking for an answer about whether to proceed.
Thank you.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @01:27PM
I would continue. Whatever happens there should be a document which covers privacy and related matters. There isn't one today. There should be one for the future. Whoever is controlling the site and whether I am still part of it at that unknown point in time is anybody's guess.
If you see kolie/replic8tor in any threads here you could introduce yourself and ask him what he would like you to do.
However, I asked you to do that task and you seem to be making a good job of it. I haven't yet changed my roles or returned to the community rather than staff. But for the time being that decision must rest with you. I sincerely thank you for all of your correspondence over a considerable period of time - even though it might not always have been easy reading for me. Which, to be honest, is exactly how it should have been. I would not have wanted, nor expected from you in particular, anything else.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Monday June 05 2023, @01:59PM (2 children)
Ugh. "My site, my way!" Way to alienate people, including me. And I'm nobody. Poor others who are somebody.
The sole value of this site is the people who visit and comment. A running site on the Internet, even perfect one, has no value without users. Only expenses. For it is the users who find it valuable or not.
Maybe I should STFU as well. Good luck to all anyway.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kolie on Monday June 05 2023, @04:37PM (1 child)
At the end of the day the responsibility to run the site falls to the PBC as it stands. I don't think anyone is trying to ram an agenda here. Forcing the issue of fixing outstanding technical issues is universally a benefit. To NC's point his two year absence left plenty of opportunity for other directions. The site's downfall continued in that time.
If you are sincere - if you want to help - if you have a path forward that grows what SN really is and has been from it's inception - let's make it happen. The IRC is open chat.soylentnews.org #soylent
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @06:25PM
Why is NCommander talking about a new Board and what they are going to do in the future? Who does he mean by 'we' in that statement. You, the community, staff, or NCommander? You are not quoting from the same script.
Yeah, it was a pity COVID came along. Perhaps I should have mentioned that.... Oh..
People did what they could.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PastTense on Monday June 05 2023, @02:39PM (1 child)
All that seems to be needed to be done is:
1. The outside party acquires the needed hardware to run the system.
2. The software and databases are loaded onto that hardware.
3. The Soylent News URL is switched to that site.
Any issues with updating and fixing the software/databases are the responsibility of the new management.
The only (and very important) thing that NCommander needs to provide is that much of the documentation on how the system actually works is only in his head. So he needs to better document the code, write up relevant documents, and provide technical support when the new management runs into problems because they don't understand the existing code.
Could we have a post by the new management?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @02:58PM
Apparently, if you think "outside the box" you can complicate it a lot more than a 3 step procedure. But that would remove control from NCommander, who now wants to create a new Board that can decide our future policy, how things will be funded, what we will do in 5 or 10 years time.
It is sort of leaving, but without the 'leaving' bit.
I hope that has cleared it up for you.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Funny) by kreuzfeld on Monday June 05 2023, @03:32PM (8 children)
Watching all this unfold is better than anything on TV these days.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Unixnut on Monday June 05 2023, @04:59PM (7 children)
Yeah, it's like a Telenovela, but much more nerdy, and without any visible cleavage.
(love the site really though, one of the few www sites I still visit :-) )
(Score: 3, Touché) by liar on Monday June 05 2023, @05:59PM
Got a grandma with a 3 day growth of beard? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ0mxQXmLsk [youtube.com]
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @06:23PM (5 children)
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(Score: 3, Funny) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @06:38PM (4 children)
That was actually on topic for the discussion in this thread - well done!
I very nearly mis-moderated you!
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 06 2023, @05:58AM (2 children)
Would you mind clueing in those of us who don't get that reference please?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Tuesday June 06 2023, @06:09AM (1 child)
Parent comment to the picture said:
And then the kind user posted cleavage
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Insightful) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 07 2023, @04:58AM
Ah, I assumed there was some lore relating to a particular anime I was missing out on. Just me being daft then, thanks for clearing that up! :D
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday June 08 2023, @09:33AM
The missing cleavage issue has been tactfully resolved by the generous AC! :-)
Also nice to see random lighthearted nerdy banter on the site too, One of the things I have missed from the old site, and from the internet in general.
Unfortunately I think that is more due to a general culture change rather than a site specific things. People are far more politicised and divided nowadays.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @03:38PM (10 children)
Comment counts are a damned lousy metric. A story that is polluted by fifty predictable propoundings of the likes of Runaway and Khallow is of less value than one blessed with but a few pithy observations by unbiased, educated and experienced participants.
I take lower comment counts as a sign of a well-written and balanced news article, unadulterated by shill propaganda.
YMMV
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kolie on Monday June 05 2023, @04:18PM (6 children)
The goal to raise comments per article is in itself meaningless.
No one wants an echo chamber. The overall goal is to raise readership and community count - that alone should drive more participation.
I've loved this community because of the discussions I've had and the things I've learned and experienced as a result. Diversity in opinion and civil back and forth I'd welcome with open arms.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Monday June 05 2023, @05:00PM (2 children)
Please forgive me being really nosey, kolie. Completely understand if you don't want to answer this, but did you have those discussions as an AC? It's sheer curiosity on my part as your account page only displays one comment before this year.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 2, Informative) by kolie on Thursday June 08 2023, @02:45PM (1 child)
ACs or throw aways or IRC.
(Score: 1) by dalek on Wednesday June 14 2023, @07:40AM
I don't have your email address, so this is the best way I know to contact you. I've posted a comment discussing recent updates on IRC and have tried to explain why people are so skeptical: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=55965&page=1&cid=1311362#commentwrap [soylentnews.org].
Tonight on IRC, you indicated that you'd be willing to be interviewed to discuss the future of SN. I've put forth an offer to exactly that, including the format that such an interview would take. If you want to do an interview, I'll be more than happy to make a Slashdot-style interview happen.
If you don't know how to contact me, I emailed NCommander early in the morning on June 13. He has my email address, and I authorize him to share it with you.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2023, @10:00PM (2 children)
Interesting observation.
You do realize that we have the most comments in the most controversial discussions, right? Few comments means either A: everyone is thinking alike (and therefore not thinking) or B: Most people just don't give a shit.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2023, @12:27AM
You are projecting again.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday June 06 2023, @07:46AM
It can also mean either C: they know there won't be enough differing perspectives for the discussion to be anything more than members of two entrenched camps effectively shouting, "I'm right and you're [insert relevant ad-homimem attack]!!!"
That's where the site needs new blood, but unfortunately I have no idea where we'd get that, or (more importantly) where we'd get people who won't simply fall into the same "I'm right and you're [slur]" stance that is already common here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 05 2023, @04:28PM
I take it as sometimes the article is good and worth reading and there is no comment necessary. For example everything posted on Ken Shirriff's blog inevitably hits the SN page. I like those blogposts and read them all. Generally there's not much to say other than "that was a pretty interesting circuit analysis" or whatever.
Some of the scientific and space related articles are also like the above. Cool. Worth the time to read. Glad they got posted. But not much to say.
With emphasis on the "glad they got posted" part.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday June 05 2023, @05:38PM (1 child)
I agree with you except for the ad hominems. Arguments become taller when they do not try to belittle others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @06:34PM
Hey, I love those guys. Only wanted to be clear about what predictable propounding pollution looked like. If the shoe fits... not my fault.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday June 05 2023, @03:55PM (9 children)
First off, it's good news that the PBC is not closing down and the site will remain up. Thanks for that and for the work you are doing to help keep the business and the software going.
Regarding content standards, in my opinion, the quality of the articles is generally really good. We could probably do with more tech related stuff. It's worth looking at the tech and science related articles that generate the most comments. It's tough though because sometimes the news just isn't out there. Modern tech is arguably becoming less accessible or relevant to the older enthusiast. Simply having more editors would help us have a greater volume of quality articles. If you keep this community happy, more people are likely to volunteer to become editors.
If you were talking about content standards of comments, well this site historically had a spectrum from some of the best and most thought-provoking pieces of prose I've ever seen to utter worthless and sometimes horrifying shit. Lately the quality has greatly improved at the expense of a significantly reduced comment volume.
Regarding the site and "anything resembling modern human interface guidelines" I can only caution you tread very, very carefully with any proposed changes to the interface because you must remember by far the biggest reason for this community's creation was Slashdot Beta. This community demands a lightweight, textually dense, classic user interface. I feel strongly that the vast majority of the site functions should work with Javascript disabled as well. Also many of us like the nerdy quirks and gimmicks like the fortunes, the department taglines the "there are thousands more, but this one is yours", it's what gives the site the unique character that it depends upon to set it apart from the modern web and makes Linux graybeards feel all comfortable and cosy here.
NCommander, you really don't know these staff, do you? For one thing, so what if someone did? That's what backups are for, right? Of all the ways that this site could end up ruined or failing, I'd say that one is one of the least likely, but comments like that sure aren't gonna help. Why won't you take the path of diplomacy? These are good, hard-working people that care passionately about SoylentNews.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 5, Informative) by kolie on Monday June 05 2023, @04:15PM (2 children)
The content standards being referred to are not the articles themselves but rather everything below the article.
The main concern with the site was we aren't discoverable to the broader internet community. We would like to grow the current community while maintaining the original aesthetic of the site.
I'd like to increase readership and participation but remain as much of the current systems and features as they are.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday June 05 2023, @04:29PM (1 child)
That sounds good. I can see that SEO and some people spending a bit of time finding ways to mention the site elsewhere could grow the community and increase subscription revenue as well.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 1) by kolie on Monday June 05 2023, @04:40PM
Yea I mean the dwindling userbase has hurt everyone. Raising that without changing what SN has been doing right is key.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 05 2023, @04:19PM (1 child)
I thought that was a big part of the infra problems, the backup infra is/was not quite up to the highest technical standards.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 08 2023, @09:01PM
From what I recall reading, they just plain didn't work. I mean, some older ones did, but that's why some stuff went poof when NCommander came back.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday June 05 2023, @05:56PM (1 child)
Regarding "modern human interface guidelines" ... yeahhhhh. "Modern" human interface guidelines (on desktop web pages at least) seem to include extra *vertical* whitespace on HD-aspect landscape monitors, necessitating lots of fun-necessary scrolling to read one page of content, and smaller fonts, to make older types reach for their reading glasses and alienate others with poor vision. I've found this so irritating (TIAA-CREF and Vanguard are paragons of offense in this regard) that I added Chrome's "Stylebot" extension and tweaked the CSS to remove padding and decrease interline spacing, so I can get all my info on 1-2 pages.
The web was originally intended for sharing scientific information [home.cern], and this site does that very well as-is. Want to add human interface guidelines? Add a few HTML tag attributes to make it possible to switch in a different CSS file [csszengarden.com] (click on the other styles on the right to see what's possible, 'Steel' is a good example of its power), but I'd say that's far more than good enough to start with.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday June 06 2023, @09:36AM
As you say, CSS is your friend. I am very much in favor of overhauling the current look while retaining the old look via a preferences option. While the current look certainly contributes to the niche that SN occupies, a somewhat less obtrusive default color scheme could help (I am on the black theme BTW). While at it, I would propose to decrease rounding (WRT corners) and make the look flatter in general (e.g. white background). Well, I liked flat designs before they were modern so from my point of view it would not just be "try to look modern".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday June 05 2023, @08:42PM
This. A thousand times this.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 06 2023, @11:09AM
Honestly, my first reaction to the phrase "modern human interface guidelines" is to reach for the barf bucket. It's not all bad but there seems to be a lot of form over function.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Monday June 05 2023, @04:00PM (14 children)
Forgot to say, I really get a sense it would be much more realistic to try to cut the costs down to the absolute bare minimum (Apologies if you've already seriously done this) and then maybe just raise the minimum subscription by a couple of dollars to cover any shortfall, just so you've got enough to cover hosting and any liability. Sorry to put a downer on things but I just don't see this growing into a significant revenue stream, at least not without changing into a completely new product with its own merits -- and really, what are the chances of that, and how many of this community would even want to stick around for that? OK, maybe I'm being too cynical. I'll wait and watch with interest.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 4, Informative) by kolie on Monday June 05 2023, @04:13PM (13 children)
Cost are currently at a minimum.
I believe the intent is to grow income to fund some development or atleast provide some incentive for new development of the site.
The means to do so would be inline with the spirit of the community and without resorting to putting crapware out on the site and selling out to maximize profits.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @04:28PM (12 children)
For those who don't recognise the account, replic8tor/kolie is the potential new 'owner'. Ask him about the future of your site.
Fine. That is what it won't be. Want to offer any insights as to what it might be?
Why is NCommander deciding our future, with no consultation with the community? He is leaving, right? Why aren't you defining those roles for your team or deciding what you might do in 5 or 10 years time?
It is time for straight talking I'm afraid - hand waving and vague promises are just not good enough. Be honest now, they are a good bunch but if you lie to them you will never be forgiven.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gznork26 on Monday June 05 2023, @05:29PM (3 children)
Hrmmmm. When NC's first shutdown post hit Meta, I noted that having someone to hand off ownership and knowledge FROM, as we do here, would be better than what happened to a site I know whose owner and sole maintainer died suddenly of Covid-19. Having watched the ensuing friction, I don't think that it was as much of a benefit as I'd thought.
That other site was basically frozen; the owner/maintainer was the chokepoint for new content, so the only things the community could do was comment, using existing posts, and to speculate on what had happened. Fortunately, one member knew the address of the owner and asked the police to do a wellness check, which is how he was found unconscious, and transported to the hospital.
In that situation, there was no handoff, or even access to the hardware where the site was hosted, and the backups, which were done to a box in his apartment, had failed as well. I was among the friends he had IRL who stepped in to get access to his apartment and to the hosting account. A member of that community stepped up to take on re-hosting the site and fixing it up, but he involved the community every step of the way, and enlisted help of various kinds as well.
So it is possible to succeed. But at some point, the community itself has to take over and choose its own future.
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 2) by rpnx on Monday June 05 2023, @05:40PM (2 children)
I agree, but NCommander holds the databases. It would be possible to rebuild a new site from scratch, but we'd lose all the historical posts.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday June 05 2023, @09:45PM (1 child)
Chemo sucks but sometimes you gotta do it
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by janrinok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @06:04AM
Sorry, I missed your IRC by a few minutes.
Can you please contact me by boring old email at my site address: janrinok@ etc? We can set up another attempt on IRC.
I'd better mark myself as Off-Topic now...
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by rpnx on Monday June 05 2023, @05:37PM (5 children)
I thought it was kinda weird how I offered to help rewrite the site in Go on a volunteer basis in my spare time but got no response from NCommander or any other programmers from the community. Now something about wanting to contract for help. I doubt that is going to go well. If SoylentNews can barely afford to keep the site up, do they realize how expensive programmers are? At my actual job, I get paid the equivalent of around $144/hr before taxes. Unless the new owners plan to dump a huge amount of money into the site, I don't see how they can hire a full time programmer that actually knows what they are doing. Certainly not one that can rebuild the site from scratch to migrate off rehash and reimplement all the features. I certainly don't see how SoylentNews can turn a profit doing that.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @06:31PM (2 children)
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Informative) by rpnx on Monday June 05 2023, @06:51PM (1 child)
My criticism wasn't directed at you specifically, nor did I claim you never responded to me. Just that NCommander didn't.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @07:44PM
I didn't read it as being aimed at me - sorry, I am getting a bit exhausted. No excuse.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Funny) by daver!west!fmc on Tuesday June 06 2023, @02:46AM (1 child)
Oh c'mon. Some of us might be willing to work on rehash just for the challenge of keeping Perl relevant in the 2030s.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Late on Tuesday June 06 2023, @04:02AM
I wish there was a way of betting on or buying stock on Perl's "relevance" over this decade. People seem so sure that it's somehow dead already and yet a lot of those people use Debian or one of its offshoots (just as one example). Good money could be made in a bet saying that Perl remains not only relevant to Debian but "essential," as in perl-base will remain in the small set of essential packages that you don't even need to declare a dependency on since it has to be there.
But yeah, I toy with the idea of volunteering my bit of perl know-how and partly for the idea to help "keep perl alive". But if the site is best kept alive in a language enjoying more cachet right now then so be it. The technology behind this is incidental. The quality comes from who is doing the writing and editing. Whatever works for them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sulla on Monday June 05 2023, @09:38PM (1 child)
How much do i have to pay now and on an ongoing basis (probably including kickbacks to the staff for their hard work) to give complete control to Janrinok, ill sign a document saying i get no editorial control and whatever else is necessary because i get that people dont like me.
I pretty much only lurk anymore but i like the choices of tech articles run and the commentary from people i both agree and disagree with, although i miss ACs.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @04:58AM
Thank you for your support, I really do appreciate it. But I am not seeking personal control of the site so I have one important nitpick:
I would rather see the community have control of the site than the existing, or a newly created, Board. I would prefer that the site just became a small coop-style site without anyone on the Board believing he should have more control than anybody else. We don't have to be a PBC if it isn't working for us - and it doesn't appear to be doing so at the moment or for much of the last 9 years. I don't mind criticism from the community if I am not doing what they want - I would rather change things to suit them if possible. We do need somebody to be responsible for managing the site, but that doesn't imply that they make all the decisions. I hope that whoever ends up controlling the site remembers that.
It doesn't matter how the software is written or packaged, without our community we are just 'another site'. The most valuable assets that SoylentNews has are the people. Not just those sitting at the top, or the few that work behind the scenes. but every single one of them, right down to every lurker. Dice discovered that the hard way - and now it seems that we are planning to do the same.
To me, a single intelligent comment in a discussion is worth far more than a CEO who insists on doing things his way without listening to anyone else.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday June 05 2023, @04:16PM (1 child)
That's a pretty good idea.
No need specifically to use Prometheus (although it will work and work pretty well) but I'd toss out the idea / suggestion that ironically this is the "best" time to implement monitoring as you can implement something kind of like TDD for infrastructure by doing that. I've done this at work.
It gives you pretty good idea if you're monitoring it then you've ported it (kind of a to do list visually), and WRT speed/memory/cpu allocation type stuff you have the old site as a baseline for data.
Anyway best of luck etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2023, @07:56PM
Prometheus isn't the be all and end all, but it's not bad.
The best time to implement monitoring was 2014. The next best time is now.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Monday June 05 2023, @04:17PM (2 children)
This is the most insulting and delusional thing you've ever said, and that's saying a lot. The only person who ever indicated they wanted to rm -rf / the side was YOU. Regardless, as you never communicated with any staff directly after the "I'm shutting it down" sucker-punch, you'd have no way of knowing what any particular person thought or felt, all you're doing is projecting your feelings on to us. You can knock that crap right off. I'd have preferred to tell you this in the chat, but you've been too much of a coward to show your face in the chatroom since the sucker punch...which brings me to my next point.
It's impossible to be part of a discussion when you won't talk to us. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why you've been feeling hostility in stories and comments.
Beyond all of that I've continued some upgrade testing...
I had no issue building rehash against current perl and mod_perl against Apache 2.2. I don't have a functioning dev site yet as current mariadb doesn't like something in the way INSERTS for the seed data is formatted. Once that's worked out, I'll start my Apache 2.4 testing.,
Rebuilding the board is a great idea and something you and Matt should have done several years ago, I'm glad you've realized this, even if it's in the 11th hour.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 05 2023, @11:03PM (1 child)
From my perspective on the outside, I have to say that I agree that the "rm -rf /" remark was insulting and uncalled for. And telling. People who have for years been donating their time and efforts to keep the site up are not going to suddenly about face and throw all their own and other's work away. I had a sense that not entirely accurate narratives were being spun, and that remark above all pretty well shows which narrative is not to be trusted.
Near the 1 year anniversary at a job I had a long time ago, in which I thought things were going pretty well, my boss called me into his office for a private chat. Well, maybe he wanted to make something of my 1 year anniversary. But the vibes weren't good, and sadly, those vibes were right. He 1) threatened to fire me for no reason, really, certainly not anything even remotely objective, 2) informed me that he noticed I had not bought a new car and that was Bad because it meant I could afford to quit and was therefore a flight risk, and finally, 3) asked if he needed to have all the passwords on all the computer systems changed so that I could not sabotage the company. The first and second were bad enough but that that last one, the boss went way too far. I quit the next day. Turned out the threat to fire me was not seriously meant, it was just his method of pushing people to work harder. But I didn't change my mind, and refused to come back.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Monday June 05 2023, @11:27PM
That's really crappy, I'm sorry that happened to you. I can put up with a lot, but if someone started questioning my professional integrity, I'd jump ship and not look back too.
Just because I'm pissed off, doesn't mean I wish to see SN fail, far from it. Apparently, that's an impossible concept for some people to grasp.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 4, Informative) by oumuamua on Monday June 05 2023, @04:22PM (3 children)
When you visit Reddit, tech and news sites. If you are thinking 'I just saw that on SoylentNews' then why not drop a link and say 'I just saw a related discussion on SoylentNews' especially if you are commenting anyway.
However this depends on fast story submissions, I've noticed many SoylentNews stories lag other sites by days.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday June 05 2023, @04:50PM (1 child)
Fast submissions and fast editing and publication. Fast turnaround. More editors and more submitters is the first step towards that. A long shot but is there anything in the technical side of the editing process that makes it cumbersome at the moment and could be streamlined?
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @04:57PM
The most valuable thing is a well presented submission. We can always tart them up a little, and if the content is good and the links work then they are gold dust.
One that has been crafted manually is the most valuable, but even a bot submission is better than nothing. A simple link or the URL of a paywalled site are at the bottom of the pile. But they will still get looked at eventually, they just require a lot of extra work. I have sometimes spent 20 minutes trying to find an alternative source for a link or paywalled story, only to have to admit defeat and choose one with potentially less interest to our community.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @04:50PM
That is very true, and I apologise.
But I can also explain. There are actually only 2 regular editors with others occasionally helping out when they can. If one of us is missing the other has to pick up the slack. My response to the main story explains why some editors are not available all the time. It has been a difficult few years for everybody.
We don't receive many submissions nowadays, so my first job is to go looking for them. We usually require twice as many stories (roughly) a day than we ever publish. This task can take over an hour to complete. Then we can being to process them.
But we have been working 7 days a week for many, many months now. I had an volunteer editor lined up to begin training in December 2022. Without a dev system and the wiki all our training material is gone. Quite understandably, he has since said that if I cannot train him he would withdraw his offer, which he did. I would have done the same. In short we are tired and until the site is recovered (which we are not being permitted to do) nothing can change.
The timeliness of stories is not so important as what we aim to encourage is a discussion, not to be an up-to-the-minute news site. I accept that we do not achieve that as often as we would like.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Monday June 05 2023, @04:36PM (2 children)
SN is a fraternal organization, any time you get three people together you get two of them plotting against the third and its all a bad episode of reality TV.
I'm just saying this isn't a SN thing or a special or unusual situation, this thing overall is just normal primate stuff, although a little more open than usual.
There is a funny dose of academia-adjacent behavior where the more minimal the reward the fiercer the fighting.
You all could get along if you'd just award each other amazing and flowery job titles like someone could be the 'executive senior CIO of the SQL' vs some other ambitious sounding titles for everyone else. 'chief necromancer of the legacy codebase' etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @05:55PM (1 child)
Ah yes fanciful but useful names. Reminds me back at Atari Games (coin op) one of the best circuit board designers I've ever met had a nice sign over his office,
"Thane of Hardware"
No one argued with him, and his boards were nearly always good. Looking to test what a reduction in latency would do for a game, he helped us overclock one by nearly 50% before it started throwing errors.
I hope he kept that sign when he retired.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sgleysti on Monday June 05 2023, @09:52PM
We have a circuit board layout guy like that at work. No special title, but everyone knows he's clearly the best, and we basically leave him alone to do his thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JeffPaetkau on Monday June 05 2023, @04:48PM (5 children)
Not sure the site will survive this dispute; that's too bad. I just want to take the opportunity while I can to say thanks for everything over the last 9+ years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @05:03PM (2 children)
If not SN then I think something will survive it - but I am really hoping that it will be SN under new management.
If people think I am an obstacle to that then I will gladly step aside. [This comment ensures that I receive at least one insulting reply asking me to go away, but perhaps using a different term..]. :-)
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by liar on Monday June 05 2023, @06:28PM (1 child)
Please read my sig!
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday June 05 2023, @06:45PM
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2023, @06:02PM (1 child)
Funny, after reading all (or nearly all) the posts on SN future over the last weeks, I've come to the exact opposite conclusion. My impression is that there is more than enough interest (just look at all the posts!) and expertise to keep SN going in one form or another...it just needs to all start moving in the same direction instead of the current Brownian motion.
But if you are correct, then I certainly second your notion, in the words of DNA, "So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Tuesday June 06 2023, @06:45PM
Maybe we could put all that brownian motion to good use by suspending an atomic vector plotter in it.
Improbable, sure, but...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kazzie on Monday June 05 2023, @05:57PM
I'd like to thank NCommander for taking the time to write this lengthy article, as well as to Janrinok and replic8or for adding their views. I'm slightly pained to see disagreement about the site's future, but as a lay member I'm glad to hear about what's going on instead of worrying in the dark.
While opinions will differ on the best outcome for SN, I hope you'll be able to work together to find a reasonable path forward.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AlwaysNever on Monday June 05 2023, @09:49PM (2 children)
NCommander, you were going to shut down the site and you were ready to move on to other things in life. You just have to hand over the site you were ready to kill, and MOVE ON as you had previously planned and announced.
You have to accept that, for what it relates to you, handing over the site is the same as shutting it down.
Just move on, NCommander, and let the people here breath. You are consuming all oxygen here.
Just hand over the site, and consider it as if it was shut down already. You sentenced the site to die. This site is DEAD to you.
MOVE ON, Ncommander.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2023, @01:17AM
Specifically, I thought that NCommander wanted to do his YouTube thing and wash his hands of the too-toxic-for-2023 SoylentNews.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 06 2023, @06:16AM
I'm an outsider, seeing only what happens in public, and not all of that, but I agree with the poster here.
NCommander, don't fall into the trap of Founder's Syndrome [wikipedia.org] - it will only make you (and others) miserable in the end. It isn't easy to walk away from something you care about while it's still not-quite-dead, but sometimes it's what's needed. Heck, if you're itching to do a proper rewrite, run up a brand new site on your own and when it's operational post a story here. I'm a sure a bunch of us would be interested in checking it out and have the bandwidth for participating on two techie sites!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday June 05 2023, @11:50PM
I've got the popcorn, but I'm not liking this movie very much.
Thank you for the GOOD you do NC and kolie/rep
You too Janrinok, always.
You also, current and past editors/hardware thanes/software Potters.
And, of course, the community (but only the sane ones, the ones who comment intelligently, lol)
SN forever, in whatever form.
MDC forever, may he RIP.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Late on Tuesday June 06 2023, @03:39AM
Now that you have ARG PERL_VERSION=5.30.0 can you drop patches/perl/*.patch? Don't want to freak out who comes later not understanding the past perl 5.20 vs. Ubuntu 22.04 situation.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday June 06 2023, @07:50AM
To all that are actively working to keep the site going: Thank you for caring enough to do so.
I hate, loathe, and despise politics, especially when things would be so much simpler if everyone did it my way (‹insert smiley here›) , but I hope that something emerges from all the politicking. I would be sad if the site dies, or changes in character too much.
I don't have the bandwidth to contribute, so I can just throw money and watch. I hope the ending is a happy one for all concerned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by EatingPopcornEnjoyingFireworks on Tuesday June 06 2023, @10:17AM (3 children)
This is both a saddening adventure in turmoil and an entertaining lesson in the (mis?)management of a resource used and generally loved by a community.
I created an account just now to post this, but have lurked here as AC for many many moons - just after launch in fact. I have no value and hold no sway, however, this site is the community and nothing else. This site is the people that use it. This site is *NOT* the people that run it, nor the content of the IRC channel, nor the drama and lives of those involved. those things are important but they are not important to the entity that is SoylentNews. As an entity, what makes this site great is the content and community. People from varying walks of life come here and put down their thoughts in their journals for the community to read or their opinions in comments to spur discussion within the community. Sometimes, they submit things they think are interesting to the community. The community. The community.
Community.
The platform does not matter. The site itself does not matter.
I see two options moving forward, and I say this with no knowledge of the drama occurring in the background that is leaking into the sacred community (popcorn, on nom nom).
Option one, try and maintain, then build and grow. This requires - I say again for emphasis, REQUIRES - the should-be-in-the-background drama to immediately get the fuck out the community and back into the background so it can be resolved profesisonally. And it MUST be resolved. What's involved in resolving this drama I neither know nor care about (as I am not involved because - you guessed it - I am part of the community) but heck, you're all adults (right?) so fucking figure it out. There are people involved here that are acting like spoilt children in the playground and it's frankly embarrassing. Sort your shit out. Don't wipe your ass in our faces, get that stuff done in private.
Option two, SN is dead and a migration, as painful as it may be, must occur. A community evolves and grows and shrinks over time. A migration puts this on fast forward for a but until the dust settles. What comes out the other end might be a Pheonix, blazing brightly, or the corpse of a pigeon, rotting feathers flapping in the breeze. Either way, a new place for the community - ideally essentially feature compatible (but "complete" is not required!) - to live and eventually grow, without the heaps of technical debt, would frankly be a Very Nice Thing. If run correctly.
Both options are viable, and personally I foresee option 2 being the ultimate end to this given the way things are going. But I hope for option 1. Why? Well, for the community.
It's worth noting here that the biggest... competitor? to SN is reddit. And Reddit is really going downhill. The API changes, the upcoming IPO - all signs of a bad time on the horizon. This is an opportunity for SN to really grow. A year ago I would have been pointing to SN as the go-to place for STEM stuff. Now? Now I'm not saying anything. I'm just waiting to see where the community goes. Whatever option is ultimately chosen, get it done before reddit potentially goes the way of Digg.
Be the alternative.
Be the community I know you can be.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Tuesday June 06 2023, @12:03PM
To build on your point on community: https://web.archive.org/web/20190829170716/http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html [archive.org]
"Writing social software is hard. And, as I said, the act of writing social software is more like the work of an economist or a political scientist. And the act of hosting social software, the relationship of someone who hosts it is more like a relationship of landlords to tenants than owners to boxes in a warehouse.
The people using your software, even if you own it and pay for it, have rights and will behave as if they have rights. And if you abrogate those rights, you'll hear about it very quickly.
That's part of the problem that the John Hegel theory of community -- community leads to content, which leads to commerce -- never worked. Because lo and behold, no matter who came onto the Clairol chat boards, they sometimes wanted to talk about things that weren't Clairol products.
"But we paid for this! This is the Clairol site!" Doesn't matter. The users are there for one another. They may be there on hardware and software paid for by you, but the users are there for one another."
In real life there are a mix of motivations and interests that lead to at least five interwoven economies or types of transactions: subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft. A healthy community has a healthy mix of those first four -- and minimizes theft (or other negative acts) which tends to happen when faith in the social contract breaks down.
Or as I observed in 2008 inspired by an adage from Iain Banks Culture novels:
"Fernhout's Law of Money"
https://groups.google.com/g/openvirgle/c/fge-ughhnkg [google.com]
"Banks' Observation on Money: "Money is a sign of poverty."
Fernhout's Corollary to Banks' Observation on Money: "The degree to which
money needs to be handled in a society is inversely proportional to the
abundance of imagination, skill, freedom, effort, and community present.""
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday June 15 2023, @12:57PM (1 child)
The reason that this is 'on the front page' is because it concerns the community most of all. It is the only way of informing the community about what is happening.
Shutting the site down without consulting the community was wrong. Trying to introduce a new system without consulting the community is equally wrong. Leaving journals or statements in view without challenging the claims that some of us know to be false would also be wrong. The community have a right to know what is being said, what is being done and what the future of this site will be. They should also be fully involved in deciding what that future will be. It is not a private site belonging to a Board, it is a site that belongs to the community. Leaving all the decisions, discussions and arguments to a small group of people on private IRC channels is not helping the community get what they want.
A lot has come to light in the week or more since you made your post. It is important information. There is progress being made albeit rather slowly. But it is being achieved as a result of community involvement. Without the comments that many have made we would not have changed the minds of those who wanted to close the site down, and still can if they choose to do so.
We do have a Phoenix option. We would rather keep the community intact though, so it is there as a last resort.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 1) by EatingPopcornEnjoyingFireworks on Wednesday June 28 2023, @07:59AM
Thanks for your update. Going back and commenting to a generally negative comment long after the story has fallen 'off the front page' is respected.
You are, of course, entirely correct in everything you say. Also, recent developments are indeed positive steps. Perhaps I posted my comment one draft too early, but my intention was to merely highlight the frustration of reading drama. It's an awkward situation of course - I love the community inclusion, but when dirty laundry is aired it's... irksome. I don't know how to avoid it happening in an open community, the probability of something occurring approaches 1 as time goes on. I guess the short version of my opinion is something along the lines of "why can't we all get along? Please be friends. Let's get back to the reason we're all here and keep things going!"
Consider it a comment from a frustrated rando, born of adoration for this place. Now, as you highlight, things are changing. I look forward to developments and despite what my worthless comments may indicate, I respect and encourage the progress and decisions made so far.
(Don't forget that you are part of the community too.)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shellsterdude on Saturday June 10 2023, @01:19AM
First off, I want to say that I appreciate the work of all the people who have made SoylentNews what it is today. It's a thankless, stressful job. I know. I once led an insurrection in a 501c3 to take control after the prior leader and "benevolent dictator" lost his passion and was letting it die. I ran it long enough to become the enemy, and lose passion and in turn become hated. It's hard and thankless and there are never enough people who are willing to step forward and help. That said, NCommander clearly made an executive call without working with the other interested parties and he clearly lost passion for the job. It seems like the only reasonable choice is to hand over the reins and step aside. Give the project to those who are passionate enough to run it. So you (NCommander) don't think they have a viable plan, are assuming too much risk, etc.? Fine, there's nothing wrong with that. You can step aside and get out so it isn't your concern.