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As promised, here's the round-table discussion post that I said on Wednesday was coming. We have a long history at SoylentNews of listening and responding to our community; I genuinely hope that never changes. I also recognize that I may have ruffled some feathers in the last few weeks with original content postings so here's the best place to get this all out.
I am mindful of the community's support and goodwill; I don't want to squander any of it. Yes, there are times where my hand may be forced (e.g., DCMA takedowns). Still, I'm always a bit hesitant whenever I post on the main site for anything that isn't site update news or similar. I may be the de facto site leader, but I want my submissions to be treated like anyone else's — I want no favoritism. The editorial team does review my stories and signs off before they go live (unless it's an "emergency" situation such as the last time we blew up the site). However, as the saying goes, the buck stops with me.
SoylentNews accepts original content. I'm also aware that I've probably submitted the most original content so far (See "Previously", below for some examples). I'm grateful for the community's apparent acceptance of my submissions and the positive responses to them. What I don't know is if there is an undercurrent of displeasure with these. Maybe everyone thinks these are all fine. Then again, maybe somebody has an issue with them. Rather than assume anything, let's get it all out in the open.
What I want to cover in this round-table discussion is original content and having images in posts as well as topics such as yesterday's Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020.
So, contributors and commenters to SoylentNews, get that Reply button hot and let me hear your feedback. As usual, either a member of staff or I will respond to your comments below,
73 de NCommander
Previously:
(2020-06-03) Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020
(2020-05-24) Retrotech: The Novell NetWare Experience
(2020-05-14) Exploring Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - Early 90s Networking
(2020-05-10) Examining Windows 1.0 HELLO.C - 35 Years of Backwards Compatibility
(2020-05-15) Meta: Having a Chat about SoylentNews' Internet Relay Chat
(2018-10-25) My Time as an ICANN Fellow
(2017-10-09) soylentnews.org experiencing DNSSEC issues
(2017-04-20) Soylentnews.org is Moving to Gentoo...
(2017-04-17) SN Security Updates: CAA, LogJam, HTTP Method Disable, and 3DES
(2017-03-13) Xenix 2.2.3c Restoration: Xrossing The X (Part 4)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday June 08 2020, @04:26PM (6 children)
I'm ok with images in the articles, original content or not, if they serve some kind of purpose and the image is needed to show something and just isn't there for the sake of just having images -- that would be pointless and a waste. I don't think most stories posted actually need or would be improved by having images in them. But I could be wrong. Perhaps a trial period or experiment running for a few weeks is in order?
Perhaps an account preference if you like to show the images or not? Sort of of like how you can select which colors or theme you like to have to. So you can just turn it on and off on a global setting, or have a few settings for yes/no in stories and yes/no in comments?
That said I don't think I would like to see images in comments, not even for registered users. If you have an image post a link and I'll look at it if I want to. Just taking some of the multi-page stories and it would probably be very annoying if it started to pre-load all the images people would post. I prefer the pages to load fast and snappy over having images.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 08 2020, @05:26PM
Those are pretty much my exact thoughts on images in comments, with the addition of a fair amount of existential dread at what EF would post.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday June 08 2020, @07:45PM (4 children)
I think I'm good with images for posts that require it and only if reviewed by editors.
For one, I'd prefer not to see a picture of the Antarctic with some cute king penguins when talking about Linux. And more importantly, if someone says something NSFW, that's a lot more acceptable to read at work than having a multi-megapixel closeup of some girl spread eagle unexpectedly pop up on the screen. So, no images in journals and no images in comments.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @08:10PM (3 children)
I completely agree! Face down, ass up close ups only!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @11:50PM (2 children)
Just move to Australia. I hear everything is upside-down in Australia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @03:03PM (1 child)
And in Rand-McNally, they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people. [wikipedia.org]
You are in for *such* a booting!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @11:50PM
Come on, you have to at least link to the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ef0WvOPTg [youtube.com]