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[2020-12-25 22:18:22 UTC -- Corrected typo (with thanks to maxwell demon) --martyb]
[2020-12-25 21:32:03 UTC -- Updated with staff info and reformatted the story. --martyb]
First, on behalf of the staff at SoylentNews, please accept our best wishes for a happy (and safe and healthy) holiday!
Next, here are a few quick items of note that bear calling to your attention.
Please join me in welcoming requerdanos to the editorial staff at SoylentNews! He has already jumped in with both feet and had stories appear on the main page. Welcome aboard requerdanos!
Of note, as well, takyon has not only posted 1364 stories to the site, and he has submitted just shy of 6,100 stories (as I write this it stands at 6,097 submissions... there's more(!) how about posting over 20,000 comments! Thank you SO much!
I always feel reluctant to mention anyone specifically as running this site is a team effort. I sense there are some staff who prefer to work in the background and shun the limelight. We appreciate their efforts nonetheless! Recall the early days when site crashes were a request frequent occurrence. We've come a long way from then and I count it a privilege to have worked with such knowledgeable folk who have been so generous with their time and energy!
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In this second half of the year (July 1 through December 31) we have raised $1908.15 from 85 subscriptions towards our $3,500.00 goal. THANK-YOU!
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Thank you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @11:05PM (21 children)
I don't care about the opinions of someone who felt the need to harass and impersonate creimer for months on end for his own personal entertainment. It wouldn't surprise me if you're behind the spam/impersonation accounts here, too. Most of the stories don't get posted because they require substantial editing to go from the raw article text to an actual summary. If you want your stuff accepted, edit it yourself.
That said, I do have real objections with how the site is run. Admins and editors should feel the need to set an example of civility and not post factually incorrect or offensive BS. Most do exactly that, but not all. Being an admin shouldn't mean you can say and do whatever the hell you want. Yes, you're contributing your time, and I appreciate that. But you have the ability to work on this project you believe in because of the generous contributions from subscribers. Posting snide replies to your users, some of whom financially back this site, only drives those people away from subscribing in the future.
The lameness filter is out of control, being modified to ban posting of specific spam text, but also blocking some legitimate comments. Although it's not as heavy-handed as Slashdot's filters, it's headed in that direction. The volume of comments isn't that high on this site. The editors could easy use unlimited spam mod points to eliminate actual crapfloods, yet refuse to take this common sense action. Instead, we get our comments blocked with highly unprofessional messages about "douchebaggery quotients" and things like that. No, I don't want spam. But I don't want an increasingly onerous lameness filter, either. If editors can examine the database for all instances of duplicate spam messages, they're more than capable of handing out mass spam mods as needed.
I previously submitted an unposted story, which describes more concerns with the direction of the site: https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=43772 [soylentnews.org]. Lameness filters don't solve the problems, they just create challenges that a sufficiently persistent person can defeat.
I have subscribed in the past. If things improve, I will consider subscribing in the future. But I'm going to sit out subscribing this time because of the direction the site has taken in the past six months. I'm not the only person to voice these criticisms. Taking them seriously would lead me to consider perhaps subscribing in the future. On the other hand, more snide remarks like those I mentioned already will guarantee that I don't subscribe again.
(Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 26 2020, @12:35AM (5 children)
lol there were like 5 people impersonating creimer after he admitted to shitposting to draw people to his amazon account to sell more shit. I was indeed two of those. let's not forget my glorious ex coworker and the others who joined me to distribute gay porn with creimer's contact details all over hundreds of image sharing sites. glorious.
this is what that fucker deserved for spamming articles and taking them to offtopic discussion about his diet, in order to sell his shitty self-published books. hundreds of people were complaining, annoyed by him, and wanted him to stop spamming offtopic bullshit. he proudly told everyone to fuck off, and that he was somehow creating a rich paradise for himself by getting people to buy his shit. and btw, it drew enough attention to him that he was banned from the site. you anger the crowd you're in, they maul over you. justice served.
and then we got you, every couple of months complaining about how unfairly that fat asshole was treated. are you his butt-buddy? did big puma go limp after that incident and you miss nibbling on his neck tire? you're gonna be ok buddy. you'll find another fat bald white man to give you some winter lovin - just hand on little one.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @01:24AM (4 children)
So, let me get this straight, you were so bothered by creimer's spam that you felt the need to carry out a much larger spam campaign. You were so obsessed with creimer that you felt the need to spam Slashdot for months and make the comments virtually unreadable for anyone wishing to have a serious discussion. You and your buddies clearly have some serious mental health issues, given that you were willing to spam Slashdot and post obscene images claiming to be of him across multiple sites. The fact that you are still bragging about this shows that you're still a total loser. If you were willing to do that on Slashdot, it would be totally in character for you to impersonate people here [soylentnews.org], too. You didn't exactly deny that, either. Since you don't like it here anyway, how about you take your spam and your harassment, and GTFO.
(Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 26 2020, @03:33AM (3 children)
you got that backwards. every thread fatty creamer was on, he turned into a discussion about his shit life, and very openly admitted it was to draw attention to himself, so he gets "revenue streams" to his amazon page and gets sales. people kept getting more and more pissed off, bitching him out, making fun of him. He just kept going.
So after that, people had enough, and a bunch of us decided to get him off. first with the gay porn spread all over the web, then with the parody accounts. they weren't "impersonations" - they were very clearly not him. I don't deny making like 10 of the fag memes, I don't deny posting from two of those parody accounts - because i forgot the password to one and created another. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it got the job done.
as far as months - yeah. I literally enjoyed shitting on that fucker and getting him off the site. about 80% of that entertainment for me was done while sitting on the toilet taking a shit. it was a fun time.
how about i take what you define as spam, i take away your little safespace, and i keep shitting down your open and ready mouth. how about you and anything you say doesn't matter and has zero weight.
I'm not nice, that's true, but if you picked a random internet site and decided people have to be nice to you there - no one gives a fuck what you think or decide. when someone says something wrong or dumb, it's perfectly fine to laugh at them. but that's not what i'm here for. that's just how i talk with no rules. what i am here for, is discussion of tech, and in many posts i bring over 20 years of industry experience at literally most of the fortune100 companies. and when the topic of a post isn't tech, then I entertain myself by making fun of shit. what you're here for is a friendly discussion about nothing. that's unfortunate for you - maybe you should start your own site where you make the rules.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @06:00AM (1 child)
The only thing impressive about that is your average employment being less than 144 days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @01:03PM
Good enough to work, not good enough for benefits. Toss him out at 89!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @07:22PM
You are the type of person I would actively avoid in reality. Such self assured douchebaggery. Ya ya u dont care
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 26 2020, @03:51AM (1 child)
To trip that particular filter you'd have to be being a douchebag every bit as big as the asshat it was put in to slow down. It's not easily tripped.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @04:53AM
Nonsense. I attempted to reply and discuss the message text that triggered previously triggered the "douchebaggery quotient" filter. I received that exact lameness filter message and have sent another email to the admins. You can see the exact text that I say improperly triggered the filter. I stand by what I posted in my comment.
For anyone wondering, the text in question was a civil discussion of the election results and why Trump's allegations of voter fraud are wrong. I can't post it because the text is blocked, but I wasn't being a douchebag.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday December 26 2020, @04:36AM (12 children)
I glanced over the complaint and am underwhelmed. First, there's the complaint about people "impersonating" others, "wishing harm on others", and spamming. Only the last of which seems a serious problem here.
What I've seen of impersonation is pretty innocuous. Something like "khallow 2.0" or "khallow sucks ass" which tries to feebly mock the original. Now if it were say "khalIow" which could in certain fonts look almost exactly the same, then we might be talking impersonating of an odious sort. But even then, I'd be more concerned about behavior than the name. If the impersonator keeps showing up in the threads of the original in such a way that the two are easily confused, then that's spam and would fall under the purview of category three. And it'd be easy to correct via administrative tools.
As to wishing harm on others, what exactly should SN do about that? For example [soylentnews.org]
What's the punishment here?
One of the problems with doing anything about the problems you just described. The power can be abused.
The lameness filter always existed - it came with the initial code. And that ability can be taken away by other administrators, if it is abused.
As to the aristarchus entries in the submission queue, you've already stated that administrators are relatively good at dealing with spam. Well, that happens to be what aristarchus entries are. It's a solved problem being solved. And what exactly is the problem with the junk you mentioned staying in the queue? Unless someone approves it, it's not going anywhere.
just because you claim there are "extremely inconsistent standards" doesn't make them so. The handling of aristarchus's spamming the submission queue has been answered cogently enough for me, a subscriber and I'm satisfied with the solution. Meanwhile, you're not a subscriber and haven't done anything to deserve that cogent answer you claim to want.
As to toxicity, aristarchus is one of the more toxic people on this site. Sorry, not going to buy your narrative when the only action you've proposed is to support the problem you claim to be concerned about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @05:11AM (4 children)
That is 100% false. I have subscribed twice, both times paying $20 and gifting the subscriptions to other users. Since I've put my name on an email to the admins to report more lameness filter issues, they are also more than capable of verifying that I have, indeed, subscribed twice. Just because I'm an AC and choose to gift my subscriptions to other users does not mean that I haven't subscribed. I gifted one subscription to Knowledge Troll, the other to martyb.
The lameness filter that generates the "douchebaggery quotient" message did not come with the original code. Yes, there has been a lameness filter in Slash for at least a couple of decades. In fact, it's a variety of filters that detect certain types of abusive comments. In this case, new filters have been added to block some of APK's spam. The problem is that the filters aren't effective and cause more harm than good. In fact, APK has posted antisemitic spam as recently this month and can modify his comments to evade the filters. Meanwhile, there are false positives that block innocuous comments. Both Slashdot and SN have modified the filters since the code was forked. Slashdot apparently now blocks the word "Nazi" and that has the effect of stifling legitimate non-abusive discussion about Nazis.
The other filter I referenced was also discussed by Bot in his journal [soylentnews.org] and TMB explicitly acknowledged [soylentnews.org] that someone else was modifying the lameness filters.
The solution to the spam cannot be worse than the problem. I see Slashdot's extremely onerous lameness filter as the end result if more filters keep getting added to block undesired text. I do believe that SN is still better than Slashdot, which is why I still read and post here, but rarely read Slashdot now.
As I said, I think SN has headed in the wrong direction during the past six months, which is why I'm not subscribing this time. If things improve, I am open to reconsidering and purchasing another subscription in a future six month period. It's not personal, this is just my way of expressing my opinions to the editors. They're free to accept or reject any part of what I've said. They own the site and it's their right.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 26 2020, @11:59AM (3 children)
But I still read:
That makes it way other than 100% false.
Given that I haven't run across the SN lameness filter in ages (aside from occasionally forgetting to put in a subject), I'm not seeing the alleged problem here. There is lameness to be filtered after all and it works for me.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2020, @01:33AM (2 children)
I purchased a gift subscription in August, basically four and a half months ago. I paid $20, which is the price for a one year subscription. That's the second one year subscription I purchased in 2020. The subscription I purchased in August is part of the running total on SN's front page toward this six month goal. Saying that's not current enough is absurd. It actually is 100% false to say I am not a subscriber.
In terms of the text that triggered the lameness filter, it seems I'll have to split it across two posts to get it to post. I attempted to post this election night. Here goes (1/2):
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2020, @01:36AM (1 child)
And here's the rest (2/2):
Again, there's no valid reason that this text should trip the lameness filter. I've twice emailed SN about this, once last month, then again yesterday. It is still a problem. It is a false positive.
I strongly dispute TMB's claim that one must be as much of a douche as APK to trigger the filter. Apparently trying to have a civil discussion about the election also does so.
Yes, the text is out of date. I attempted to post it election night. However, if you merge the two parts of the comment together and attempt to post it, you can expect it will trip a lameness filter for some reason.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday December 27 2020, @10:52PM
:-) You said "Trump" too many times. Seeing his name so often can trigger epilepsy and nausea.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @05:28AM
Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I bought a subscription for Knowledge Troll back in February or March, right before he abandoned his account and started posting AC. It was right after COVID started surging in the US. And I bought a subscription for martyb right after one of JMH's conspiratorial rants that attacked him. So I'm pretty sure one of my $20 subscriptions is counted in the total on the front page. I do not regret purchasing either subscription. So I misremembered when I purchased the subscriptions.
And no, I'm not entitled to answers from the staff. Neither are you. Customers aren't entitled to control how management runs their business. We can express our concerns and our frustrations, but the managers and owners get to decide how to run their business. And customers can choose whether or not to continue giving their money to the business. TMB and martyb don't owe me answers. They can choose whether or not to provide those answers and I can choose whether or not to subscribe in the future. I'm not opposed to subscribing again, I just want to see things turn around.
To be honest, I'm concerned that the site is dying, given that the number of stories has been scaled back quite a bit and most of the discussion seems to take place in journals with political topics. I hope not. I don't have the means right now to volunteer and help things turn around. That would have a far greater impact than chipping in an extra $20 for the site, but I couldn't commit to that given my situation right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @07:25PM (5 children)
You are actually the most slyly toxic user here. You respond with 100% confidence you are right, even when proven wrong. It drags conversations into the gutter and promotes tribalism over reality. Same with TMB, but he is usually more of a troll problem.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday December 26 2020, @10:49PM (4 children)
Which strangely enough, no one can ever be bothered to find examples for such. It's like Bigfoot sightings.
"We were on a hunting trip, drinking beer after midnight, when we saw a proven wrong khallow slither across the road in front of our headlights. Clear as day! Sure we were wasted and none of my friends saw it, but it happened, I swear!!!"
Also, I found that any lack of confidence was utterly wasted on people like you. It's just interpreted as weakness.
Those conversations, when they go that way, would have gone there anyway. The problem is not on my end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2020, @01:01AM (3 children)
Just engage with facts and don't put your personal ideology first bruh, tis easy
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 27 2020, @03:43AM (2 children)
Like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2020, @06:23PM (1 child)
Vlimate change and the need for regulation. Universal healyhcare and its proven record of better health outcomes for the pooulation while saving money.
You know, reality.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 28 2020, @11:44PM
You're stating subjects/opinions not facts.