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This is a post that I have suspected that I was going to have to write since late December last year.
You will now know that SoylentNews.org is closing down on 30 June but things have not been standing still behind the scenes since we first became aware of NCommander's decision at the end of last week. In fact, it has been a very busy weekend.
A small group of existing staff are looking at alternative possibilities for a 'replacement' site to keep the flow of stories going and allowing discussions to continue. This is a big task, especially in the 38 days remaining in which to try to achieve it. There are several possibilities which spring to mind, Pipedot for example. I have reached out to Bryan but have not yet received a response. However, things as not as straightforward as they seem. The pipecode is written in Php-5 which some of you will realise is no longer supported. We do not want to become dependant on old software which cannot be maintained into the future; that lesson has been taken aboard and reinforced by NCommander's explanation regarding his decision announced today. There are other options but at the moment it is still a search for what is available out there today which also appears maintainable into the future.
But the first thing we need to know is "Is there still sufficient interest in having a discussion site such as ours?" Do you, the community, still want to have your daily dose of stories and the ability to exchange views with many others on this site? Are there any community members who would be willing to join us in trying to establish such a site? Your views are crucial to everything that we do over the coming days and weeks. So please let us know what you think about whether a site is still required with all the alternative technology available today that simply didn't exist 9 years ago. What form should a new site take? What changes to how we operate are essential for you to continue to remain interested in the future site?
Of course, it cannot be a mirror image of what we have today - which many will see as a good thing! But I hope that we would be able to transfer existing accounts, usernames and passwords directly to any new site that we create. We would also have to start with a relatively simple site and build on that over time.
At the end of the day we would have to restart the voluntary subscriptions but not immediately. We can raise some funds to see us get established without the requirement of a financial commitment from the community. Subscriptions were always sufficient in the past and I don't see why that would not be the case in the future too. The fact that we currently have enough to keep this site going until next year bears witness to that. We have also found that we can significantly reduce our running costs based on our current community rather than being ready for a major stream of new members which never materialises. I have no grandiose ideas of becoming a huge site employing our own journalists but just a community that enjoys the discussions as we have been doing for several years. Nevertheless, we would also be trying to build on our existing community which is beginning to happen on this site now that things have settled down.
So don't hold back - let us know what you think.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 22, @08:42PM (22 children)
Let's not fool ourselves here: technical debt is the reason we're being given, but this place has become a toxic cesspit of MAGA--and worse--bullshit. It did Musk-style "free speech uber alles" before Musk did, with about the same sort of results. You people have managed to prove me correct, and what's worse, you even partially proved Aristarchus correct if you ignore the personal vendetta against Janrinok.
Whatever happens and whatever grows out of SN's ashes, if you want it to be anything but the inbred chromosomal-disaster-baby of Slashdot and Twitter with a heaping helping of 8-chan, you need to set some ground rules about what is and is not allowable. And I don't mean things like "no swearing." I mean things like "no advocating for civil wars" for a start.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22, @08:49PM (14 children)
>I mean things like "no advocating for civil wars" for a start.
I'm with you, although the advocates for civil wars usually get tired of places like this after awhile.
I do note, you're still here... if you have anyplace better you hang out more often I'd like to know where that is.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 22, @09:18PM (13 children)
I'm here because, like Aristarchus, I want to see this place collapse under the weight of its own bullshit. It's committed mortal sins of stupidity and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22, @09:40PM (3 children)
Your shitpost, ironically enough, is a direct example of the problem.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, @02:51AM (2 children)
Indeed, 'Zumi has been second only to Ari in toxicity.
And given 'Zumi's racism, there may be a convincing argument that it just may be more toxic than Ari.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, @04:37AM (1 child)
The sad thing is she's truly brilliant and insightful. Her caustic toxicity belies her IQ. Maybe she's toying with us, releasing her many pent-up aggressions including hatred of men, some combination of the above? At some point her verbal ability, as much as it can do great things, is equally powerfully negative and morale destroying.
I would advocate for a system where some percentage of registered users would have some kind of karma score and would vote on "disappearing" certain comments- a mod system but somewhat different from the current system here.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday May 23, @06:07PM
Azuma does not hate men in general. It's the bigots that set her off; small wonder at that. She gets toxic because that's what gets thrown at her, and she doesn't strike me as being the "turn the other cheek" type.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22, @10:20PM
Sorry, you're just mad because you couldn't turn SN into a "safe space". And your style leaves much to be desired. Well, you got your wish. Thanks to you and a couple of others, we are losing a great site.. What a pity!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22, @10:21PM (5 children)
>committed mortal sins of stupidity
and so has (at least) half of my country, but there's not really much better place for us to go instead, so here we stay.
I've been in and out (mostly out) of churches since early childhood. Been taught a lot about mortal sin, seen a lot committed in my years, never really seen so much as a chicken shit dropping come down on those committing the mortal sins though - not directly. I mean, yeah, sure, bad things happen to bad people all the time, karma and all that, but... just about as often I also see bad things happening to good people, often tragically bad, and they can't all be deserving of their fates.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, @02:53AM (3 children)
Zumi's just upset that it is losing its last place where it can post its racism.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday May 23, @11:00AM (2 children)
What racism?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, @01:16PM (1 child)
Extreme hatred of men.
Extreme hatred of anyone not of her brand of uber-leftist.
Directly stated racism [soylentnews.org] against the African American community.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday May 23, @06:47PM
I see.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, @04:45AM
Sadly it's not that simple. Story is that the evil one (not Putin but equally beady-eyed and evil) doesn't want Godly people or God's work being done, so he attacks them, sometimes much. Evil people bring bad things on themselves, and others of course.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 23, @05:21PM
How do we defeat these terrible ideas without confronting them?
The only way out is through!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday May 23, @05:51PM
I, for one, want to say that lately alot of teh toxicity has faded.
I, for one, want to see this site continue... but, i guess, somewhere else...
Gaaark still sad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dalek on Monday May 22, @10:54PM
The problem is the toxic political environment entering this site. I distinctly remember journal discussions on Slashdot at the start of the Iraq war about the situation, conversations between troll accounts, and they were quite civil. Yes, these were full fledged troll accounts with karma sufficiently low that they posted at -1 by default. Some supported the war while others opposed it, but it was remarkably civil. Despite different perspectives on going to war, everyone seemed to agree on the apparent facts. This was before the extent of Bush's and Powell's lies about the war were known. I don't think those discussions would happen now because they would be polluted with disinformation. The political environment of the present day is toxic to the point that perhaps discussion of politics needs to be altogether forbidden.
Politics ruins everything. I'd like to be able to discuss Star Trek and Doctor Who with nerds, but even then, politics can ruin those discussions by turning them into arguments about whether those shows are too "woke," whatever that word even means now. But if we could keep politics out, then it doesn't really matter if the person you're talking to is a liberal or a conservative when the topic is the Linux kernel or iRacing.
Bluntly, the technical debt is a real problem. It would be a serious investment of time and effort to learn how Rehash works, update it to run on more modern systems, and then to continually maintain it. I wrote a journal about North Wilkesboro Speedway, which closed in 1996. However, the facility had been in decline since the 1980s because there just weren't any significant updates to the fan experience and the buildings there. It was in bad shape because it hadn't been maintained enough while many other tracks had received significant upgrades, and many new 1.5 mile tracks were being built near large cities, a bit like the technical debt here. There just wasn't a place for North Wilkesboro on the NASCAR schedule. After Bruton Smith bought the track, he was asked about its status and said, "I suppose it's returning to the Earth" while making it clear he had no further use for the place after he moved one of its race dates to Texas. If you look through the comments here, this site clearly means a lot to many of the people commenting here. But I also see there are people who have no further use for this place despite continuing to post comments, and who seem giddy for this place to go the way of North Wilkesboro Speedway.
I am absolutely in favor of not permitting this place to crumble, no matter how many commenters want to channel the attitude of Bruton Smith.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday May 23, @06:38AM (2 children)
You correct about what? The narrative above is already nonsense if only because the claim of being a "toxic cesspit of MAGA" is patently false. You post here without any restrictions, for example and there's a very aggressive and successful group of anti-Trump posters. There's almost no political stories on the main page with zero MAGA-supporting stories. And my bet is that if we were somehow to see when aristarchus posts AC, we'd find he was a significant contributor to the MAGA posting on this site.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday May 23, @03:43PM (1 child)
I miss aristarchus's posts in classical Greek.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 23, @06:40PM
Troll's gonna troll. Some people just like to watch the world burn and really like it when they themselves get attention and provoke others just to get it. While I believe that the majority of people don't want to be or be perceived as evil. Some, literally don't care and are quite happy to do all the harm they can get away with. Especially, if there are no actual consequences for them. Quite literally banning Aristarchus wasn't much of a consequence. It certainly helped a great deal, but "that ship had already sailed", "the baby got thrown out with the bath water", and arguably he got what he wanted.
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 turgid on Tuesday May 23, @07:19AM (1 child)
The entire Internet did. Even real life did.
The only way to counter it is to keep speaking out whenever and wherever we can. In my opinion, you are one of the good guys. Yes, your style can be a little brash, but that's you. That the Alt-Wrong snowflakes are triggered by it shows you're doing something useful.
These people need to be constantly reminded, whenever they spout their toxic ignorance (which they do copiously and at every opportunity), that they are recycling centuries-old hate that ended in tears in the past and will end in tears again if we are not careful.
In between the Alt-Wrong idiocy there are many good technical stories on this site and discussions to go with them. There are important issues of digital liberty reported and discussed. In the journals, people can ask all sorts of questions and get interesting answers. I've benefited from this myself, learning all sorts of useful pieces of technical information, often about coding.
I'll be sorry to see this place go. When they banned AC posting on the front page stories, the tone of the place changed much for the better. It was far quieter, there was less distraction from inane and often hateful garbage. I read more.
I hardly visit any websites regularly these days. Everything is ads, videos, pop-ups, notifications, white space, things to click on...scroll, scroll scroll. This site is nice and simple and quiet. The content takes precedence.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday May 23, @01:52PM
turgid I could use a friend or two in this crazy, unraveling dystopia.
If you can find it in your heart to keep in touch occasionally, I'm acid, immediately followed by an underscore, soycow, and that address resides at proton.me.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday May 23, @08:16AM
So what you are saying is that 'free speech' resembles 'free markets'. It doesn't work without regulation.
If that is the proposition, I agree. The argument then starts on what is the appropriate level of regulation, how it is chosen and formed, and how to measure and enforce it. Arguments about that tend to get heated.