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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!
Lastly a huge thank-you to those who responded so generously to our end-of-the-year fundraiser! As of this writing, we have had 21 subscriptions totaling $567.40 since our request went out a couple weeks ago.
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!
We realize it's been a tough year for everyone; take care of your friends, family, and community first. But, if you do have the means, we'd really appreciate your subscribing and helping us to keep things going for you and our community! Please see this comment to our previous story for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.
Why subscribe? Why not? Besides, you'll get all the benefits listed on the "SoylentNews - Why Subscribe?".
NB: If you'd prefer, you can subscribe anonymously. There's an option to make a gift subscription, as well. For any questions or difficulty, please reach out on IRC, send an email to admin@soylentnews.org, or just post a comment to this story.
Thank you!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Friday December 25 2020, @11:20PM (15 children)
I've been here since the very beginning (I've only got an account number in the high 200s because I'm based in Oz and was asleep when signups opened), so I have a bit of a perspective on this. The stories have always been a mix of interesting and kinda lame; same with the green site, same with every single other news site. No news aggregator can win: the exhortation to make the news more interesting is what leads to bullshit like clickbait and junk articles. I prefer SN's eclectic mix of stories that appeal to diverse interests to bullshit like Buzz Feed's. And don't forget, the submission queue also benefits from your submissions. Don't like it? Change it!
That said, the draw of SN isn't really really the news itself, so much as these discussions about the news. "Discuss" is what we're here for. It's a place where people of sometimes aggressively disparate viewpoints can debate (even intelligently!) and express opinions. The moderation tools function well enough to keep the peace so that a decent conversation can take place. An early rallying cry of SN and the wider Fuck Beta movement was "We are not an audience". Don't like it? Get involved!
SN is still my homepage and still a community I love.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 26 2020, @12:45AM (8 children)
this is one of the better communities, but connecting your point to mine: you see how there's a bunch of nonsense stories about nothing, with like 5 comments, and other normal ones with 40-100? how about half the day's page being filled with those 5 comment stories. there's nothing to discuss. and the thing is, there are plenty of good stories being submitted. they don't make it through, because it's easier for an "editor" to just approve 10 in a row from the same nature blog retard, than to actually read the titles and summary of all the other ones coming in.
here's an idea: for 1 week, let them replace the editors with a random number generator, and literally pick 20 stories per day at random all from different users, from the submission queue. I am almost positive the quality of stories would go up. then we can have a conversation about how to increase quality long-term. the first step is to show the "editing" job makes things worse than not doing it at all.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 26 2020, @03:35AM (5 children)
You don't dig how they're doing their job, by all means staff up and show them how it's done.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 26 2020, @04:49AM (4 children)
Here's the thing: I don't - I have zero idea. All I see is the results, and they've changed in the last year for the worse. No, I don't want to staff up - I got my own work building enterprise SANs. I do have opinions which you are free to completely ignore, because, again, you run this, not me.
Literally, the result I am most interested in seeing is hacker news, without the power tripping incel mod deleting half the content. The quality and topics of articles there are great. Here, it used to be, now it's like freshly squeezed oj, glass half filled with tap water.
The fuckdot had this issue, and they tried having the community pick stories - firehose. badly done. but a good way would be to show the whole queue to the public, sorted by age, and have people upvote a story they want to see. whatever is the top story every hour gets posted that hour for discussion. and I'd actually donate quite a bit to have someone to write that code, or something that tries to fix this 2020 blandness. in a year you'll have to fight some fucker's upvote script, but that's a problem for future you.
the site is good. you're good ethical people. you're doing a shit job with the content this whole year. which again is only my opinion of what i want to read, and maybe the masses don't agree. what I do notice is comments of people complaining about good stories being rejected, and thinking - I'd rather see that right now, as I'm reading yet another bird article. And you guys always respond the same - it's a lot of work, we're doing our best in our spare time. Best in 2020 means "blindly accept a bunch of absolute shit from the same 4 people." If you're going to do that, just write a script to pick at random - it'll get better results.
but no, i don't want to spend my time as a spam filter for stories. i just want to read and discuss interesting shit, while being mean to people who are wrong. dats-all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @05:34AM (3 children)
I'm the AC who said he wasn't subscribing again right now, and who condemned your harassment of creimer. I am calling bullshit on this. If your time is so limited, you could have avoided harassing creimer and spamming Slashdot for months. Your behavior probably contributed to Slashdot eliminating AC posting. Slashdot is worse off for your spamming. But you had ample time to do that.
Many stories don't get posted because the editors don't have time to go through and edit bot submissions that contain the full text of articles. If you had time to spam Slashdot, you have time to edit your own stories once in awhile and submit them to the queue. If users edit their own stories, it means there's less work for the editors, and they can post more stories. I've noticed that when I edit stories myself, editors tend to post them very quickly, and they jump ahead of many other submissions. If you think a particular story should be posted, edit it yourself, and it will probably be posted almost right away. You're not doing that, so I see no grounds for you to complain.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @07:54AM
Did I miss something?
Who the fuck is "creimer"? And how was he "harrassed? Explicit details, please, with graphic screen shots and audio, if available.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Saturday December 26 2020, @01:32PM
I'll second that motion.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Sunday December 27 2020, @04:16AM
Egh, it's like I say, I have $5 for a burger, but I don't have $5 for a pack of gum. I tried submitting a few stories, they got rejected, it's not worth my time to throw shit at a wall. Your autistic brain makes up shit people say to make your case better. But that's something you should take pills for. I got a shitload of free time, but I'm certainly not spending it throwing shit at the wall.
so my creating 2 named accounts, and not once posting as AC is what made slashdot disable AC posting? there's that autism again. take your pills buddy, it'll make the voices stop.
I'm not complaining you daft dense idiot. I literally several times stated it's up to the people who run the site to do whatever they want. I answered a simple question posed by the OP - why not subscribe. It is you who for like a couple of years now, is fixated on some fat spammer at the green site that went to shit at beta and dice - years before that fat idiot started spamming it.
you absolute fucking doorknob. take your pills.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 26 2020, @06:36AM (1 child)
If you don't put your own time, your own reputation, and your own neck on the line with your criticisms, then your intent is not to improve but to destroy. An honest critic would pony up his time to serve a term as an editor, to improve what he sees as deficient editing. But you don't. You only complain. That there is proof positive that you have no positive intent.
It's a common tactic used to destroy open communities such as this. Complain until the people of good will who built it and maintain it quit.
But here's why we can't let you succeed, and why we have to tell you to stuff it: if we stop having places like this where we can talk to people whose world views we find objectionable, then we have to fight for real. Moreover, I learn so much tech from people whose political views make my skin crawl. I suspect I'm not alone in that. When the partisan tide ebbs and people talk tech, I learn so much that helps me in my work and in the real world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @04:18PM
And when it is said to them,
"Cause not disorders in the earth:"
they say,
"Nay, rather do we set them right."
Is it not that they are themselves
the authors of disorder?
But they perceive it not.
Qur'an 2:11-12 (Rodwell translation)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 26 2020, @06:43AM (5 children)
#292 is a fine number, and you should be proud of it. In the old days I was happy I had a user ID under 5 digits on /..
Amen. Seconded. The discussion is the secret sauce. Most other forums have fallen into various bubbles. This one remains an intoxicating elixir of pleasant and putrid, as most magical potions must be. If you don't swing between rapture and nausea then you're not in the right place for enlightenment.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday December 26 2020, @12:57PM (4 children)
Shorter and doesn't require references to magic.
BTW, try to not get intoxicated with alcohol while
posting on S/Neating a durian, you may end dead [smithsonianmag.com]BTW, does anyone knows anything about Ethanol-Fueled? He was shitposting on IRC... ummm... was it shorty after elections? This is how I remember.
Anyway, haven't felt his presence lately; if he did croak, I hope he happily succumbed to alcohol and not to covid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 27 2020, @02:27AM (3 children)
When Biden was declared a weiner by MSM, I figure EF headed to Montana, with all his survivalist gear. He's digging into a deep cave now, setting up claymores and other boobytraps everywhere. Biden doesn't like niggas who don't vote for him.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday December 27 2020, @05:29AM
Nonsense.
1. those niggas aren't true niggas (grin)
2. Biden being a weiner still makes him a hawt-dog. A huge step ahead from the small-hands-fitting-the-size-of-his-prick no brain orange asshole, who brought US to the brink (large subtle-ish grin)
3. EF is a self hating jew born to a mexican mother - I doubt the mongrel has any aptitude for survivalism much less the determination for digging caves during winter time, he'd rather defend himself emptying another bottle. And he'll need a special vehicle to carry his defensive stuff up the hill, more like a tanker than a tank (larger... oh, wait, this was serious... grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2020, @07:34PM (1 child)
Jesus you're going full Qtard? Runaway runaway dumbshit redneck, how does it feel being a traitor to democracy? Do we need to schedule a vet appointment to have your balls manually dropped? Maybe loosen that collar Trump put tound yer neck? Maybe it is the mushroom cock you've been gagging on depleting your oxygen flow.
Guess the world will never know what turned you into such a stupid sad shell of an American.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 27 2020, @07:46PM
It's funny watching you mental midgets snapping at the ankles of your superiors.