SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Well, it's been a bit of time since the last time I posted, and well, I had to think a fair bit on the comments I received. It's become very clear that while I'm still willing to at least help in technical matters, the effort to reforge SN is much higher than I expected. In addition, given the, shall we say, lukewarm response I got to my posts and journal entries, well, I'm clearly not the right person for the job.
I think at this point, it's time to figure out who is going to lead SN going forward. After my de facto stepping down in 2020, the site has, for want of a better word, been a bit listless. At the moment, no one on staff really has the cycles to take that position on. A few people have expressed interest in the position, and I've talked with Matt, who is co-owner of the site about this. By and large, whoever fills the seat will have to figure out what, if anything, needs to change in regards to moderation policy, content, and more.
If you're interested in potentially fulfilling the role, drop me an email at michael -at- casadevall.pro, with the subject of "SN Project Leader", and include the following:
- Who you are
- What you want to do with the site
- How you intend to do it
- Why do you want to get involved
I'll leave this call for candidates open until December 14th, at which point Matt and I will go through, and figure out our short list, I'll talk to editors, and solicit more comments from the community. I'm hoping to announce a successor in early January, and formalize the transition sometime in February, which will be the site's 9th anniversary.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 05 2022, @09:05PM (11 children)
Oh, I get that... however, if you really believe the tagline: "Soylent News is people" then the platform shouldn't really matter, it's the community - starting with the stories and building from there (which is something I've never seen on reddit, but seems like it's not a very hard thing to do...)
And, you'd only be a "real" Redditor if you started reading /r/all and similar mainstream filters which would expose you to the community memes. Remember buck feta? Pepperidge Farm remembers...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Kell on Monday December 05 2022, @09:44PM (10 children)
It's true that the people are soylent news, but part of what makes us work is the fact that we are relatively unfettered in our interactions here. Ironically, that was the source of recent drama: certain types of freedom empower certain types of people to be destructive and obstructive. With a site hosted by a for-profit company, we're just trading the dictates of the green site for some other overlord. I would not make the switch.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 05 2022, @10:29PM (9 children)
So, again, I get the sense of independence that comes from logging into an independently run site. It has been a hook that keeps me coming back as well.
On the other hand, I have been using reddit and moderating a (single, low stress) subreddit since slightly before Beta, and what I have experienced in those years in my little corner of reddit tells me that reddit doesn't bother to be overlord, nor really disruptive at all, of the many thousands of small sub-reddits. That may change at any minute, but after 10 years it seems unlikely to. Reddit hosted forums undeniably lack a feeling of independence, but they also lack hosting headaches and expenses.
Now, if /r/SoylentNews were to blow up to maybe 100x the readership we have peaked at over the last 9 years, then we might start looking back to an independent hosting solution to regain that total control before reddit gets obnoxious with targeted advertising. I doubt that is a likely reality.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday December 07 2022, @12:30AM (8 children)
I think the sense of independence comes from the fact that we are SN, and no other. We are not surrounded by other communities, or other moderation policies, or any corporate anything; we're beholden to no one but ourselves.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2022, @03:26AM (7 children)
I'm pretty sure that moderation policies are pretty much up to the subreddit mod(s). Actually, in 10 years of moderating, I haven't kept up with all their mod guidelines, but they are there for you to read and see if you find anything objectionable.
I think the main gist of their guidelines is: don't leave the garden too un-tended. I think the main way you might get unwanted attention from reddit management would be if you have users abusing each other on a large scale and some start complaining with abuse reports that you ignore. Never been a problem on /r/deer. I did have one user telling stories elsewhere on Reddit of sex with deer and another user suggesting I ban her, I explained that I wouldn't be banning anyone for things they do outside my domain... And nothing further came of that. Otherwise, I remove a couple of T shirts for sale posts a week and maybe ban the posters, dull, boring, the kind of thing you can run for a decade without thinking about it much.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday December 07 2022, @04:17AM (6 children)
Do, a deer, a female deer... ;)
You'd still wind up with a pool of moderators, not the "everyone can play" we have here. And that makes for a different ambience.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2022, @10:47AM (5 children)
Well, everyone "mods" the comments with up/down votes. It's not limited to 5 points, and you don't get the "touche" or whatever labels (though they have badges or something that that I haven't really bothered to understand... I know it started with gold badges which cost money to support the site, then there were free ways to "give silver" then it proliferated and I haven't kept up...)
So, the limited pool of "mods" can ban users, I think they can run the forum private and approve users by hand if they choose - never tried that - and of course they do invitations to the subreddit mod pool, but, like digg before it, every user can up/down votes comments. Usually every user can post stories, but that's not the flavor of SN and I believe that's something subreddit mods can take control of too.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday December 07 2022, @05:26PM (4 children)
Yeah, it's not the up and down votes that are an issue. It's that only the Select have the right to say if your post stays or is deleted.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2022, @05:52PM (3 children)
>It's that only the Select have the right to say if your post stays or is deleted.
Is that any different than how SN runs now? I don't fully understand "the algorithm" but, with just a few net downvotes I believe the posts go invisible, like low rating comments in SN do too.
I suppose there's a lack of karma influence in the reddit rating process, too... for whatever that's worth.
>I expect most of us are =here= because we prefer =here=, for whatever reasons may be. We've all got our rocking chairs on the porch, and we ain't movin'. :)
I get a strong sense of that, it's just an expensive porch in terms of manpower to keep it from collapsing, and we seem to be more rockers than carpenters.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday December 07 2022, @06:16PM (2 children)
I don't know of posts going invisible here; even egregious spam is still there at -1, if you care to look.
And the carpenters are already busy, while the rockers lack carpentry skills anyway... I have nothing to contribute but my appreciation for the carpenters.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2022, @07:04PM (1 child)
Well, that "if you care to look" mode is what I'm calling invisible - as opposed to deleted.
I browse SN at +3 and up, but then I frequently open trees if anything looks interesting.
In reddit, it's more rare that I'll open an invisible (downvoted) thread, but that's because most of reddit is barely worth skimming through in the first place.
I'm a (figurative) carpenter in my day job, a literal carpenter (kitchen remodel) in the evenings, and family time snags big and little chunks of time as well. I get a fair amount of time to rock on the porch, but that's mostly stolen moments that just aren't enough contiguous time to get "real work" done.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday December 07 2022, @07:48PM
Ah. I browse here at 0 (tho at 2 on the Green Site; our S/N is that much better) and have become fairly skilled at judging when to peruse the -1, from whatever it replied to. If I'm skimming in a hurry, I may only look at parent posts. Most days I skim down through threads and posts until either I lose interest or they achieve some predictable stasis. I do find a lot of score 0, and the occasional -1, that I deem worth an upmod (I almost never downmod). So some of what you read at 3 may be a little bit my doing. :)
The ability to build useful or beautiful things is always admirable, and earns you a bit of rocking time. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.